Will anyone be held to real account?

IT is not surprising that the belated and greatly constrained banking inquiry found that both the Financial Regulator and Central Bank had sufficient powers to intervene in the operations of the banking sector to protect the financial stability of the State, but that neither did so decisively.

It is not surprising either that the news will be greeted with something approaching a despairing yawn by the great majority of citizens, a public grown weary of the half-hearted efforts to confront white-collar crime or high-level incompetence in our public services.

It is a reality that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of workers and individuals had to, and many still have to, endure greatly reduced circumstances because of this dreadful ineptitude. Tens of thousands of private sector workers who struggled to build pension pots now face an old age bordering on genteel poverty because these agents of the State failed in their duty. Many of these people are caught in a double whammy and have to suffer the loneliness brought about by the forced emigration of their children because of the economic collapse.