Banking investigation - Inquiry will not just be about money

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen indulged in the most fanciful wishful thinking when he ruled out an immediate inquiry into the events and policies, the Galway-tent pressing of the flesh and the shoddy politics and ineffective regulation that colluded to destroy our economy and banks.

We, and Mr Cowen too, owe a great debt to whomever or whatever made him change his mind because the relationship between Government and the people of this state is so fraught, so very strained, that it might not have survived the haughty dismissal initially given by the Taoiseach.

His refusal to establish an inquiry would have been seen as an attempt at a cover up by one of the central players in the tragedy. Though an increasingly angry and disenchanted electorate are expected to fund a range of bank rescue packages, estimated to be heading towards €80 billion, we were fobbed off, like an impoverished tenant asking a landlord’s implacable agent for a rent review, when an inquiry was sought.