Banks must pay a high price for our money

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan’s recent anger at Ireland being branded a banana republic is understandable is that many of the more powerful countries are also caught up in global financial difficulties.

A worrying factor is the number of top executives and heads of financial regulatory bodies right across these troubled zones who are resigning — voluntarily or otherwise — as a result of mismanagement or financial delinquency.

The Irish situation followed a similar pattern. Top executives freely upgrading their salaries by millions of euro while at the same time mismanaging and manipulating the people’s money for further personal gain. The financial regulator’s failure to act against the movement of sums up to €87m by top bankers for their own benefit was an appalling scandal. These are the casino-type set-ups in which the Government is prepared to risk billions of our money at ridiculously low interest rates. To make matters even worse, this money is being plundered from the National Pension Reserve Fund.