Quinntessentially Irish solutions

There has been a lot of speculation in the media regarding Seán Quinn.

The directors of Anglo Irish Bank realised the markets knew they were over exposed and the share price was dropping.

They approached Mr Quinn and 10 other speculators offering them money to purchase Anglo shares.

Now surely this in itself is illegal, for a bank to lend money to prop up their own share price?

It is manipulating the market and our somnolent Financial Regulator and Central Bank chose to ignore the situation.

Shares continued to collapse so Anglo begged the finance minister of the day to bail them out. Lies were told regarding the solvency of the toxic bank and in panic they were bailed out by the State.

It must be said that Anglo Irish was not a normal bank, they did not give mortgages out to ordinary working people.

Instead they lent billions to developers and speculators, most of whom were supports of ‘ The Soldiers of Destiny’.

Basically, Anglo were just the financial wing of Fianna Fáil.

Now Anglo, aka the ‘Irish Bank Resolution Corporation’, pursue the Quinn family through the courts and succeeded in having one of them jailed.

But, the question remains: why are the other 10 investors not being pursued with the same venom?

How was Mr Quinn to know, at the time he was compelled to buy Anglo shares, that the money borrowed would end up owing to the Irish taxpayer?

Who are the real villains in this farce? When the Gardaí raided Anglo HQ and confiscated documents and computers before they could be destroyed, some senior members of Anglo refused to give the passwords over to the authorities to enable them to access the information.

Surely these individuals should have been jailed straight away for obstructing justice, yet they are still free men, no doubt skulking away in the Algarve or some other refuge on tax payers’ money.

Some have been arrested and charged, but I doubt if they will ever be jailed. If they are, they’ll probably be sent to some open prison holiday resort.

Mike Mahon

Templeogue

Dublin