Enda Kenny has called on (invited?) the board of the Financial Regulator to resign.
John Gormley has promised that the bankers will go to jail and that Ireland will have the most comprehensive regulatory system in the world.
IBEC Director General Turlough O’Sullivan said he believed bankers were guilty of greed and criminality and should be made to face the consequences.
Brian Cowen has also said that justice will be done, that rogue bankers will be brought to account.
It’s all about sending messages to the international community to convince them that Ireland is not the corrupt banana republic it really is.
But methinks the gentlemen are a mite too late – about 50 years too late. The game is up; the international community can see exactly what we are.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s hope. If these gentlemen, somehow, miraculously, managed to see the reality of the situation they might realise that the absolute minimum action required is as follows.
The immediate sacking and arrest of the entire board of the Financial Regulator (Even if only for the optics).
The immediate arrest of former Financial Regulator, Patrick Neary, and the cancellation of his grotesque pay off.
The immediate arrest of Sean Fitzpatrick, Gillian Bowler and Denis Casey on suspicion of fraud (Economic treason could be added later).
This is the absolute minimum signal required if Ireland is to have any hope of convincing the international community that we are serious about rooting out the rot that has infected our country for decades.
There is, of course, no hope of this happening because these gentlemen live in a fantasy world where they genuinely believe that Ireland is a normal democratically accountable state.
The slide into oblivion continues.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But lets the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose
And still the goose will common lack
Until he goes and steals it back
Very good Haymoon. Filed for future use. Thank you.
Really, the only goose these guys need is a goose up the arse…We here, out in Never-Never-Land, know that the Establishemnt will take care of their own; wondering if they do it so that they themselves won’t be dragged into the muck (for whatever guilty reason that might be, eh?) Who knows what favours are ‘owed’ to whom in this murky underworld which is being revealed to us lately? When one realises that it all boils down to money, well – isn’t politics the next stop for this evil train? So we ought not to anticipate throngs of white collar guys being marched out by the Garda and shuffled into the Paddy Wagon (do they have a deal with RTE to do it this way?) right in front of the cameras, no matter what Greenie Gormley says/sorry – said. We can’t even compel witnesses to appear before a Govt. Committee – just a nice polite invitation – ‘I say Sean, there’ll be tea and scones with cream, we’ll be awfully disappointed if you choose not to attend…’ What a crock of shit. And ‘disappointed’ will go down in the Official FF Irish Phrase Book for ‘Awkward Situations involving Friends’ right next to ‘inappropriate’ On a lighter note, we hear that a French Banker who was busily gambling away the depositors’ money used to consult a psychic before plunging. Is there any suspicion that the said psychic’s number was available here? To Bankers? To ‘Well Known Businessmen?’ To Politicians? Or to All of the Above…