US banking expert Professor Bill Black recently gave evidence at the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry where he pulled no punches.
He effectively stated, correctly, that at the time, Ireland was a country without a financial regulator, governed by a bunch of morons.
Later he appeared on the Tonight with Vincent Browne show where we witnessed a perfect example of the mindset that makes it possible for our country to be governed minus a financial regulator and led by a bunch of morons.
Professor Black was telling us (correctly) that the bankers were lying about the state of their finances in the run-up to the crisis.
Vincent Browne took great exception to this smear on the reputation of bankers.
Wait a minute now, this is quite serious, the insinuation on the bankers who went to see the Government that night is very serious, and I know some of them, and I don’t believe they said something they knew was untrue.
Yes, you heard right; Vincent Browne is saying he believes the bankers told the truth to Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan on the night that our economic sovereignty was handed over to the Troika.
Even the most ignorant, the most disinterested, the most ill informed Irish citizen knows that the bankers lied through their teeth that night.
So why is it that a journalist who has spent decades investigating and analysing scandal after scandal in the Irish financial sector can mouth such an idiotic comment?
The answer can be found in these six words spoken by Browne:
And I know some of them.
This comment confirms a disturbing trend in Irish journalism. A trend that sees some journalists loses their objectivity after coming ‘to know’ those they are investigating.
And this is not the first time Vincent Browne has lost his professional objectivity as a result of ‘getting to know’ financial/political criminals.
For many years he was a strong critic of the criminal politician Haughey but in Haughey’s latter years Browne enjoyed some great nights out in Abbeyville drinking wine and discussing the old days with the gangster.
Before long he was a great admirer and defender of the traitor/criminal.
One would have to say that many of us have lost faith in the media. Those we used to trust would ask awkward questions have now gone AWOL and joined the other side. I’m dumbfounded, almost suicidal really!
Just joking of course, about the suicide bit just.
Truth.
I responded to VB that as regulators we didn’t dine with bankers and we didn’t take what they said to us on faith. The bankers were well aware that their banks had massive unrecognized losses. Any competent regulator would have known that and advised that the guarantee could impose catastrophic losses on the people of Ireland.
Thanks for that Bill,
What’s claimed in Ireland, by those who have most to lose, is that the whole problem was caused by some ‘light touch regulation’ and that now everything is rosy in the garden.
The reality is, there was no regulation whatsoever, indeed, the so-called regulator frequently protected and assisted wide scale criminality within the financial sector. That culture of protecting the corrupt remains today.
Secrecy is the greatest weapon in this culture, that’s why somebody had a whisper in your ear about what you could and could not say while giving evidence at the inquiry.
Your evidence and various media contributions gives those of us fighting political/financial corruption a great boost.
In Ireland it is very, very rare to hear such straight forward, professionally accurate commentary.
I watched the show. Up on till that point I thought of VB as ok and not afraid to ask the serious questions. But when he shut down and talked over all the really serious answers and made THAT comment, no more. He has been got at. Sad day for Irish Journalism. Sad day for Ireland.
All those in the mainstream media are open to being “got at”. I will only really panic when the likes of yourself Anthony are gotten at, that’s when the real panic would/should start !!