Banks must give mortgage holders a break

MICHAEL Noonan made an extraordinary admission in the Dáil on Thursday.

“We cannot believe the banks,” he said. “We cannot believe what they say.”

Here was the second most powerful democratically elected politician in the State effectively throwing his hat at the honesty of bankers. Implicit in his admission was the idea that he can’t do anything about it, that he, or the State, was incapable of dealing with a powerful group which can act with impunity.