Banks bailout - Jail the offenders

“I’m as frustrated as every other citizen in this country that we’re not seeing bankers in jail yet,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told RTÉ’s Prime Time on the eve of the anniversary of the Government’s €400 billion bank guarantee scheme.

In the US Bernie Madoff has been arrested, charged, convicted, and jailed for investment fraud, but nobody has even been charged, much less convicted, or jailed in this country. People are annoyed by the gross injustice of it all.

Taxpayers have been called upon to rescue the banks, and it is incumbent on the Government to say what has been done to ensure that the same thing does not happen again. Have the failings in the banks been addressed, or are we just returning to the same old ways? Honest, hardworking people have essentially been victimised by losing jobs, through no fault of their own. Others have lost pensions that they built up during their working lives, while the Government seems preoccupied with facilitating and rescuing the culprits.