ECB took the side of the rogue banks - Banking inquiry evidence

FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan and a former IMF deputy director Ajai Chopra yesterday confirmed what has been widely believed for many years — that “advice” offered by the European Central Bank to Ireland as our banks stumbled towards collapse was a thinly-disguised, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum.

Their chilling but unsurprising evidence finally destroys what remained of former European Bank president Jean Claude Trichet’s credibility. Tragically, it also undermines the oft-trumpeted but nebulous idea of European solidarity. It must bring into question too the overweening power of the ECB and the licence it has assumed by treating democratically elected parliaments with such bully-boy tactics.

Basically, a small, vulnerable country — albeit one that made many mistakes — was hung out to dry on the insistence of the ECB — and, lest we forget former US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.