Call to put bankers and politicians ‘in the dock’

SOCIALIST MEP Joe Higgins led a small group of protesters outside Anglo Irish Bank yesterday calling for political party leaders to be “put in the dock” alongside the troubled bank’s shamed former bosses.

Curious onlookers watched from the rails of St Stephen’s Green as a few dozen protesters chanted outside Anglo’s headquarters in Dublin.

Mr Higgins alleged the actions of chief bankers had been “criminal” and called on the people to fight back and force a general election.

NAMA was not a done deal, he told onlookers.

“It is not and should not be regarded as a done deal, because if we were to allow that it would mean for every year for the next 10 to 15 years or even more, billions of euro in resources from our taxes will be going to bail out the criminals, the financial sharks who existed in this building and many other buildings over the last 10 years,” Mr Higgins said.

The MEP’s comments came as Tanáiste Mary Coughlan told the Dáil that all the loans of Anglo Irish Bank company directors – three of whom owe a combined €100 million – would be pursued vigorously.

But the Socialist Party leader said politicians who had ruled during the boom should also be held accountable for the financial crisis.

He accused some senior bankers of being “financial criminals” and said the “profiteering and speculation that has brought our country to its knees was carried out by an entire class of speculators and bankers and big business and was legislated for and encouraged every step of the way by the Government led by Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney between 1997 and 2007.

“Therefore, whenever any reckoning comes, the political leaders of Fianna Fáil and the PDs have to be put in the dock alongside FitzPatrick.”