Politicians ‘masked’ when bubble burst

It was Ireland’s “best kept secret” that the economic bubble burst in summer 2006 not 2008, but the situation was effectively masked by politicians focussed on the 2007 general election and vested interests who did not want to break the silence.

Prof Alan Ahearne, the head of economics at NUI Galway and a recently appointed adviser to the IMF, made the claim at the latest meeting of the Oireachtas banking inquiry.

In a detailed discussion on how the clear signs of a “lethal” impending crisis failed to be acted on, the leading expert — who insisted in an April 2007 Future Shock RTÉ programme there was no such thing as a “soft landing” — said the damage could have been lessened but that no one wanted to speak out.