Why no debt write-off sooner?

It’s good that AIB is facing reality and writing-off unsustainable debts, but why has it taken so long?

No one seems interested in asking that. AIB (and other banks) had these figures years ago, when they applied to the Irish taxpayer for bail-out funds. The billions they requested were to write-off loans that the banks said could never be repaid by customers, and to repay the original lender (the big bad German and French banks).

In a small country like Ireland, every person with a debt, no matter what their financial position, should undergo a full and frank, detailed financial review, carried out by an impartial consumer organisation, to verify who has sustainable debts and who doesn’t.