Bailout deal saved the reckless lenders — now we need to save the people

WHEN an American lawyer who was one of the 10 members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in the US — which investigated the causes of that country’s massive banking crisis in a public inquiry that everyone of relevance was forced to attend and give testimony — offers a point of view on Ireland it is worth listening.

Byron Georgiou was in Dublin this week (talking at a seminar organised by solicitors Mason Hayes & Curran) and he was incredulous that we have not had a similar public commission in this country that would force politicians, regulators, public servants, bankers and their advisers to give evidence about their roles in our crisis. Instead, of course, we have indulged our elite by allowing them to be the subject of privately conducted inquiries followed by reports in which individuals are not even named and blame is spread in general terms rather than being aimed at guilty parties.

He was equally aghast at the terms of the IMF/EU/ECB loan package that have been imposed upon this country. The most controversial element of that package is the insistence that in return for getting more money for our government the citizens must finance the repayment of all money that was borrowed by privately-owned banks to their reckless lenders.