The Anglo Irish Ten - Share loan group must be named

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen, speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil yesterday morning, assured us that he does not know who the 10 businessmen who were lent e300 million by Anglo Irish Bank last year so they could buy shares in the bank are.

There is no reason not to believe that Mr Cowen is being anything other than entirely truthful when he declares his ignorance in this matter. However, there are many reasons to find his answer entirely unacceptable.

Anglo Irish Bank exists today only because of a Government bailout. Without taxpayers’ cash it would be as dead as Woolworths, gone but not forgotten. It would be the same as Lehman Brothers, once a great power in the land but now just a toxic legacy of debt and deceit.