Labour needs to spell out its banks strategy

THE Labour party says nationalisation of AIB and Bank of Ireland is the best course of action. However, it is extremely important that any such plan is presented with intricate detail.

A crucial part of any bank nationalisation proposal, in any country, is the exit strategy. To date, Labour has not provided sufficient information as to what their particular exit strategy would entail – or, indeed, whether they actually have it adequately mapped out.

Nationalisation of banks in Japan led to the taxpayers there eventually losing trillions of yen when the institutions concerned were reprivatised. Labour favours the Swedish model, but it relied on the government revaluing the krona when that strategy was implemented in the 1990s.