Boyle reveals Green pain at role in previous cabinet
In his new book charting the Greens’ ill-fated role in the previous government, Mr Boyle says the ECB wanted to impose interest of as much as 7% on Ireland’s bailout loans during the Nov 2010 negotiations.
“The opening percentage for the package being offered was 7%. This was not much below the rate available to the country on the international money markets. There wasn’t any doubt that there was a huge punitive element attached to all this,” he writes in the book, extracts of which are published in today’s Irish Examiner.
“The position of the ECB seemed far more hardline than that of the IMF, who seemed to be playing the role of ‘good cop’ in the negotiations.”
In the end, an average interest rate of 5.83% was attached to the loans provided by the troika under the €85bn bailout package.
Mr Boyle is also critical of the late finance minister, Brian Lenihan, and former attorney general Paul Gallagher.
He says that, in Apr 2009, Mr Lenihan seemed reluctant to take on Irish Nationwide over the €1m bonus and pension arrangements for outgoing chief executive Michael Fingleton.
Mr Lenihan made remarks in an exchange with Mr Boyle which the latter felt “reflected an unwillingness to take on the financial establishment . . . I was shocked by the conversation, and by Lenihan’s attitude.”
Mr Boyle says he also argued that the farewell package agreed for former Fás boss Rody Molloy — like that granted to former financial regulator Patrick Neary — was excessive.
“The advice being given to the Cabinet by the attorney general was that these packages could not be challenged.
“According to him, there existed a concept of ‘legitimate expectation’, where what had been given cannot be easily taken away.
“I argued with [Green Party colleagues] that each of these packages should be challenged. Even if successful court actions were taken, it would be better than being supine and creating ever more public anger.”
