Anglo bailout: are we being led by the nose, Goering-style?

SURELY not only the usual suspects but the public generally should be enraged by the fact that virtually the whole population, apart from a handful of very wealthy people, are going to have to pay in one way or another the huge cost of bailing out Anglo Irish Bank.

What should make this anger reach boiling point is the news that some of the people who were running the bank when it engaged in practices that brought it to collapse were given hundreds of thousand in back pay and pension pot payments when between them they owe the bank (that’s us) €100 million. In a letter (‘Bailout used to support a big lie’, Irish Examiner, April 1), Declan Doyle said “the bondholders who truly own Anglo need to be named and the Government forced to determine in an open process why these commercial lenders have a call on this state for contracts they freely entered into with their bank. The idea that the EU will fund us to pay off Anglo’s debts, but will not fund us if we cause bondholders to take responsibility for their gamble, is one Goebbels-size lie”.

Mr Doyle is right. The Government should not be allowed to hide the facts from the public.