Burton criticises bank executives for failing to apologise

LABOUR FINANCE spokeswoman Joan Burton criticised Irish bankers for refusing to apologise. She said that bank chief executives had gone into the House of Commons and the US Congress and told their parliaments they were sorry.

“They did not quite use Obama’s term, ‘I screwed up’, but they did go in and face the people’s representatives and apologise.

“The people whom the Minister for Finance is bailing out here are using the Seánie FitzPatrick line, ‘thanks a million’, but are not saying sorry.” Ms Burton said she did not know where the “absolute anger of some people in this democracy” would take them.

“The Minister must understand, as a democrat, that these executives must come in here and respond to the elected representatives and explain themselves.”

Ms Burton said that the Minister was putting €3.5 billion of tier-one capital into each of the banks by means of preferred stock. He then had a “get out of jail” clause for the taxpayer by stating that some of this might be converted into a 25 per cent ordinary share stake at a later date.

“There would be downsides to nationalising the banks, but the cost and the return to the taxpayer would be potentially far more significant.”

Fine Gael spokesman Richard Bruton said it was quite extraordinary that the first inkling of what had happened had come from the board of Anglo Irish Bank.

“It did not come from the Department of Finance, or the regulator which knew four months ago of this transaction. It did not come from action being taken, although we are told decisive action had been taken to deal with it and that appropriate changes had been made, both in personnel and practices.” Instead, said Mr Bruton, it came out with the Minister apparently unaware of its implications. Indeed, he said, at the very time he was proposing that money be put into Anglo Irish Bank as a going concern, the Minister’s department and the regulator were aware it was involved in practices that would clearly disqualify it from being the sort of institution into which they would put €1.5 billion.

Sinn Féin spokesman Arthur Morgan said that many economists were rightly sceptical about the Government’s proposal.

“People say that the level of recapitalisation should have been of the order of 8 per cent to 10 per cent of GDP. I certainly would not like to see that level of commitment to the recapitalisation scheme. I record that I want to see it work. I hope that the recapitalisation project entered into by the Government, on behalf of taxpayers throughout this State, works and wish it a fair wind.”