Stop focussing on the eve of bank guarantee

When talking about the bank guarantee, Michael Clifford quotes the ‘Eleven years of boom and we pissed it all away’ summary of what happened to this country [Irish Examiner, November 1].

This is another version of the ‘We are to blame’ mantra that is being repeated ad nauseum by the powerful to absolve themselves from blame for what happened during the boom.

What Michael Clifford calls ‘catastrophic mistakes’ were made by a small number of the most powerful who were in charge of billions of taxpayers’ and savers’ money during the 11 years of boom.

Those decisions bankrupted the country and those decisions were lauded by most of the media at the time.

So-called ‘whingers’ who raised questions were given short shrift.

That is why there were ‘no good options, only bad ones’ on the night of the guarantee. The concentration on what happened at the time of the guarantee is an attempt to distract attention from the disastrous decisions of government, financial institutions etc for the previous decade or more.

It is also an effort to distract attention from the complicity of the media in what happened.

A. Leavy

Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13