Daniel McConnell has a very good analysis of the Anglo Irish Bank/Irish Life and Permanent fraud in today’s Sunday Independent.
Here’s a snippet that gives us a clue as to how far Ireland is away from taking real action against white collar criminals.
“The regulator said the transactions were “completely unacceptable” and that its investigators have been asked “to complete their work as a matter of extreme urgency”. Then the Director of Corporate Enforcement confirmed that Irish bankers could face jail and that actions by senior people in Anglo Irish Bank appear to be “illegal.”
‘A matter of extreme urgency’ for an Irish regulator would be about, mmm…let’s see, about ten maybe fifteen years.
In a real democracy there would be no ‘could face jail’ or ‘appear to be illegal’. Handcuffs would have been applied immediately.
It is not just an Irish problem. It is also an US problem.
Don’t agree David.
Ireland is the only country in the Western world and probably in the entire world that accepts serious criminal activity within its financial and political sectors as the norm.
No banker, in our entire history, has ever been investigated by the police despite a long (and ongoing) series of frauds stretching back decades.
I invite you to name one other country where such criminality is not just accepted but where the criminals are actively protected by state agencies.