Shane Ross: It was Europe wot done it

Here’s how Shane Ross responded to a question on the Anglo tapes corruption.

What about the Irish narrative of victimhood, this (the Anglo tapes) suggests that we shafted Europe with the bank guarantee and our bankers took advantage of that?

Shane Ross: It takes two to tango, Europe lent us all this money and if there’s a borrower there’s a lender.

The lender and the borrower are both equally responsible and they lent the money to a bank that was in big, big trouble.

And if they had looked at it properly they would have realised they were in big trouble.

Just because a couple of cowboys behaved extremely badly at the top of one small bank Europe cannot exonerate itself and say it has no responsibility.

They have huge responsibility because they lent to certainly four banks which were behaving irresponsibly so I don’t think we can let Europe off, certainly not.

Phew, that was a close one. I thought for a moment he was going to mention corrupt Irish politicians, corrupt Irish bankers and corrupt/incompetent regulators.