Reckless bankers will be prosecuted, Lenihan vows

BANKERS whose reckless lending plunged the country into financial crisis will be prosecuted, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan signalled last night.

Stung by accusations that the Government had let bank bosses off the hook, Mr Lenihan insisted that files are being prepared by the gardaí for submission to the DPP in order to bring charges against them.

The news came after Fine Gael energy spokesman Leo Varadkar compared reckless bankers to “subversives” and insisted the Taoiseach must intervene so that the state moved against them as they had done more damage to the economy than the IRA.

“The public are furious that none of these people have been brought to book and they are right and we cannot move on until they are prosecuted,” he said, during a Dáil debate on the economic crisis.

However, party colleague Michael Noonan said that while Mr Varadkar represented a widely held view, it would be wrong for the Taoiseach to intervene personally in the investigation.

Mr Noonan said the Minister for Justice has ways of contacting gardaí and that he should get a report into the banking crisis probes and relay the findings to the Dáil.

While admitting that the Irish justice system was not as “sharp” as the American one, Mr Lenihan said both gardaí and the Office of Corporate Enforcement had been investigating alleged wrong-doing in financial institutions.