Quiz top bankers on live TV, says Snip boss

SENIOR bankers should be hauled before a televised Oireachtas inquiry to explain how they made such “a mess” that they required a State bailout, said the chairman of An Bord Snip.

Economist Colm McCarthy, who led the group tasked with identifying savings in the public sector, said the public deserved an explanation of how the banks had landed in such trouble. Mr McCarthy made clear he was not advocating another State tribunal which could drag on for years.

Instead, he suggested the investigation be modelled on the DIRT inquiry, a short but incisive parliamentary investigation into tax evasion which was broadcast live by TG4 in 1999.