ECB urged to give €50bn interest-free loan

THE author of the Economic and Social Research Institute’s (ESRI) spring bulletin says the European Central Bank (ECB) should inject €50 billion in interest-free loans into the economy to help the Government resolve the banking crisis.

Joe Durkan, who is an associate professor at the ESRI, said the banking crisis represented a failure of governance across Europe and we should not have to carry the can on our own.

One of the difficulties was the absence of a single authority to address the crisis in Europe as it unfolded.