The bank bailout was far from democratic

A. Leavy’s letter (Irish Examiner, December 31) ends with the point that the ECB came to the aid of this country when it was bankrupted.

It must be remembered that one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the European Union involved the ECB and the Irish people when a president of the European Central Bank telephoned the Minister for Finance of this country and told him that if the Irish Government did not protect private investors in a bankrupt Irish bank “a bomb would go off in Dublin”.

Those were the words of the Minister at the bank inquiry.

This resulted in the foisting of billions of euro of private investors’ debt upon the shoulders of every man, woman and child in Ireland.

We will continue to pay for it for many years by way of austerity budgets.

Ireland’s debt costs over ten billion euros every year in interest alone.

‘Disdainful’ does not even begin to describe it. Democracy? I think not.

The second most shameful episode was the Irish government’s acquiescence in the face of that coercion.

Joe Brennan

Ballinspittle,

Co. Cork