THE Head of Economics at the University of Limerick has described the bailing out of Anglo Irish Bank, to the cost of €22.3billion, as ‘an act of insanity’.
Speaking to the Limerick Post, Dr Anthony Leddin said: “It is an act of insanity to use Irish taxpayers money to bail out this dysfunctional bank”. The academic believes that the problems go back to the bank guarantee scheme in December 2008.
“The Minister of Finance clearly didn’t know the extent of the problem at the time, and if so, he shouldn’t have bailed out this completely ridiculous bank”.
Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan, meanwhile, believes taxpayers have been betrayed following the government’s decision to pump an extra €21.8 billion into banking institutions.
However her Fianna Fail counterpart, Deputy Niall Collins, disputes her assertion, and claims his party are dealing with the reality of the situation.
“There is a choice; do you do something or do you do nothing?”.
Jan O’Sullivan shares the anger of the public: “Every man, woman and child in the country will be paying for this for decades, in order to bail out delinquent bankers and their developer friends”.
She said that she had voted against the initial bank guarantee scheme in 2008, along with party colleagues.
“In my opinion, Anglo Irish Bank should have been let go, that bank is never going to work”.
Niall Collins disagrees, and stressed the importance of not allowing the bank to collapse, “We now have a new financial regulator, a new Governor of the Central Bank, and it is not an option to allow any of our banks to fail”.
According to Deputy O’Sullivan, the implications of present decision making will have drastic affects for years to come.
“For every budget for the foreseeable future, before any money is put aside for health, schools or jobs, we will have to commit as much as the entire Education budget to NAMA”.
Niall Collins said that it was important to recognise that NAMA is being run completely outside the day to day budget of the country. “To say that our schools and our hospitals are being deprived to run NAMA, is not the case”.
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Jan O’Sullivan is astounded that an enormous amount of the public purse is being committed to failed banks.
“Rather than committing money to real businesses and real jobs for real people, money is being pumped into something that gives absolutely nothing back”.
Deputy Collins stated that €3 billion has been ring fenced, which the banks will be obliged to lend to the SME sector.
“They will each have to prepare a plan by geographical region and sector to ensure that the money is distributed evenly”.
He also said that people who are refused credit will have an opportunity to apply the decision through an independent arbitrator.
Deputy O’Sullivan is concerned about those who have been left unemployed by the credit crisis and the retired, whose pensions have been decimated.
“The ordinary quiet good people of Ireland who have worked hard have no say in what’s going on”.
