Madam, – Congratulations to Donal Kerr (December 22nd) for distinguishing between risk capital and sovereign debt.
As he so rightly says, “If any Irish people call for a default of sovereign debt . . . then they are a tiny minority”.
What has concerned many Irish taxpayers is how the people who held Irish bank shares could lose virtually all their investment after being assured by the then governor of the Central Bank (in July 2008) that the Irish banks were absolutely solvent; and how English and German banks could recklessly lend money to the Irish banks for a property speculation (unsupervised by the European Central Bank) and have their loans fully guaranteed!
It is time now for the Department of Finance to publish a full list of the creditors and distinguish between the sovereign debt and the commercial banks who gambled on the Irish property market.
The Irish taxpayer deserves to have this information at the very least. – Yours, etc,