Kenny under fire for ‘mad’ remarks

The Taoiseach is under fire after claiming the economic collapse and the dire state of the economy was a result of “people going mad” during the boom.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Enda Kenny added that greed between people and the banks went out of control — resulting in a spectacular crash.

“What happened in this country, people went mad with borrowing. The extent of personal credit, personal wealth created on credit, was done between people, banks [sic], a system that spawned greed to a point that this went out of control completely with a spectacular crash,” he said.

Later, he said he hoped the text of the fiscal treaty would be completed at an EU summit on Monday.

His comments come as figures show developers in Nama, between them, owe a combined €56bn.

Sinn Féin said the remarks had been “offensive” and showed an appalling lack of economic knowledge.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD said: “The fact of the matter is that people were aggressively cajoled into borrowing large sums of money during boom times to buy homes, the prices of which had been driven through the roof because of successive government policies which encouraged property speculation.”

Social Justice Ireland’s Seán Healy said the remarks were “amazing and extraordinarily lopsided”. “He fails to recognise that it was the overgenerous bank guarantee and the subsequent socialising of the debt that lies at the root of our problems.”

Finance Minister Michael Noonan, when asked for his reaction at a function at the University of Limerick, said: “I didn’t hear his comment. I’m not going to comment on something I didn’t hear.”

After being played Mr Kenny’s comments, he said: “I’m not going to comment. Ministers don’t go around the place commenting on the Taoiseach’s remarks.”

He said his own comments on emigration, which were heavily criticised, had been taken “out of context by the media”.

Meanwhile, the Nama figures show that:

* Three developers owe an average of €2.7bn each.

* Another nine owe an average of €1.5bn each.

* 17 developers owe an average €666m each.

* 28 owe €358m each.

* 78 owe an average of €160m each.

Nama, which has taken over assets and loans of €72.3bn from banks, said it had “no information” on how many employees in debtor companies have salaries over €100,000.

In response to parliamentary questions by Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath, Mr Noonan said Nama did not pay salaries to debtor companies or their employees, as it was not their employer. Instead, it ensured that overheads at debtor companies were significantly reduced.