So what exactly happened to all the bailout money we received?

It’s disappointing that the media doesn’t seem to have learnt from the past judging by its talking-up the recent rise in property prices, without questions being asked about where people are getting the money from to buy these houses when income levels have been static? They can’t all be using inheritances or savings.

Now we have the sleight of hand where Michael Noonan is being cheered for a potential deal to ‘pay-off’ the IMF when what he is doing is borrowing money to pay off the IMF. It’s no different to taking out a personal loan to pay off a maxed out credit card. The reduction in debt interest is to be welcomed, but let’s not get carried away with ‘man of the moment’ awards for Noonan. The media should be holding him to account for his refusal to require Irish banks to explain why the taxpayer has pumped billions into the Irish banking system and yet the Government has done nothing to verify where that money went.

The banks asked for money on the basis they were stuck with loans that would never be repaid and this would block their recovery, yet there is no evidence that the banks used the money provided by the taxpayer to clear those loans. Does anyone know of anyone with a debt in Ireland who received confirmation from their lender that in light of their changed personal circumstances, and in recognition that they have done everything they possibly could to keep up their repayments, the Irish people in an act of solidarity for the greater good, have paid off the debt? No more money is due to the bank.

If Mr Noonan could find out from his Fine Gael friends in AIB, his new friends in BOI, plus his party’s older friends in Anglo and Nationwide, what they did with the taxpayers’ money, and why it never filtered through to the taxpayer, who now not only pays higher taxes to service the debt interest on the bail-out (again a word that implies the money was like one of Bertie’s dig-outs and not expected to be paid back), but is still pursued for the loan their taxes have already paid off with the bail-out, as well as pay all the new service taxes and fees imposed by the Government, then he might be worth considering for an award.

The fact of the matter is the Irish media failed to hold the Government or the professions to account during the Celtic Tiger and it seems they are making the same mistakes again by not understanding, or not wanting to address, the smoke and mirror claim by the Government that it will repay the IMF debt, when it is re-financing. Let’s not get carried away, a reduction in debt interest is not a repayment of the debt.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London

England