Starchy and Hunch leave their mark over Anglo tango

TREACHERY? Infamy? Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!

Brian Cowen was protesting – rather too much – that he had not sold dear old Ireland down the river in order to save the skins of Fianna Fáil’s great mates in the Anglo Irish circle of gold.

The accusation has been bubbling just below the surface ever since that curious night in September 2008 when the two Brians took the financially suspect decision to include Anglo – and its tens of billions of euro of high risk subordinated debt – safely inside the bank guarantee scheme.

Whether the Anglo back-scratching allegation is true or not, the fact that it’s now centre stage and could act as a repository for the seething national anger over the €75 billion bank bailout is very dangerous for the Government.

The Dáil was enthralled as Mr Cowen was put under intensive interrogation regarding his administration’s intimate tango with Anglo. Yes, the Taoiseach may have been on “Seanie” terms with Mr FitzPatrick and co, and even had a lovely lunch with them all just before taking up the top job, but try making the charges stick, copper.

Despite Mr Cowen’s increasingly emotional protestations of innocence, the Dáil’s detective duo pressed on with their probe regardless – though this being Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore it was not so much Starsky and Hutch, more Starchy and Hunch.

But young Kenny was far more lively than usual and accused the Taoiseach of treating the country with contempt and lowering the standing of his great office as he did so.

It was a shame the Fine Gael leader hadn’t been as sharp during that other great ethical clash of the decade when Bertie Ahern’s whole whip-around/dig-out/I won it on the horses farce was unfolding, but better late than never, eh, Enda?

Starchy’s “contemptuous” questioning raised Cowen to anger, but Hunch went in for the kill, accusing the Taoiseach of “economic treason” and was showered in fury for his trouble.

The Taoiseach’s voice broke momentarily with hurt emotion as Mr Cowen tore into the accusations with such force it even woke up some of the lobby sheep grazing on the benches behind him as they were stirred to bleat approval.

The ferocity of Mr Cowen’s response clearly caught Hunch off guard and he looked like he might be backing off, before regaining his tough cop persona and effectively telling the Taoiseach: “Prove it” – publish the advice that stated Anglo was systemic to the Irish banking structure’s stability and not just a treasure house of cards for Fianna Fáil’s big business buddies.

The Taoiseach flayed around in response, before offering: “We were sitting down in a room that night to decide what decisions were to be taken. It was not a question of going around looking for papers or looking to see if there were options. We sat down to consider the decision that had to be taken before the opening of business the next morning to ensure this economy did not go completely.”

And that is one of the scariest things Mr Cowen has ever admitted to, and illustrates just how unprepared for office and the financial crisis he really was.

Anglo’s shares had collapsed on St Patrick’s Day that year, a full six months before Mr Cowen entered that panic room on September 29.

Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers had also gone down in spectacular fashion in the meantime and still this Taoiseach, this Government, had no emergency blueprint ready to deal with the crisis?

They scrambled something together in a room at 4.30am under duress from the bankers and conveniently took no notes or minutes of the meeting?

It beggars belief – and its outcome now threatens to make beggars of us all as each year at least €2bn will be dragged away from schools, hospitals and elderly care in order to bail out Anglo.

Just like the €4bn pumped into the Bank of the Living Dead last year had to be made up with savage cuts to the meagre benefits of the blind and disabled – all because of a crisis cabal of ministers and bankers at dawn which left no paper trail, but has left a trail of financial disaster in its wake that we will still be paying for in decades to come as the Anglo Tax.

Bizarrely, Mr Cowen said “Brian Cowen” would not take any blame for the meltdown of the past two years, insisting yet again it was all due to dastardly global forces.

What’s the betting that when we finally do crawl out from under this allegedly fully foreign-made economic disaster, ministers insist the recovery is completely home grown?