Yes we’ve got them just where they want us, Taoiseach

BRIAN COWEN has already stated he will write any cheque the banks need, now he has proved he will read any statement they put in front of him.

The Taoiseach’s “clarification” in the Dáil over the mess at AIB was greeted with howls of derision, chiefly: “That’s the bank’s press release.”

Cock-up or conspiracy, whatever the truth behind the fiasco of the last few days, all it has achieved is to make this Government look even more like the poodle of the banks it has saved with €11bn of taxpayers’ cash — and made Ireland look ridiculous to the international money markets on whose credit rating benevolence we now depend.