Madam, – As a practising pathologist, I enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that I am usually right in my diagnosis, but like Morgan Kelly (Opinion Analysis, November 8th), the enjoyment of diagnostic certainty is tempered by the knowledge that I am always a day too late to help the patient. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Fergus Armstrong says Morgan Kelly is wrong to suggest that the Government could have terminated the guarantee “at a stroke” (November 10th).
“Guarantees don’t work like that” he writes, while suggesting that this is analogous with his giving a guarantee to a mendacious daughter regarding her mortgage.
The fact is that this guarantee is more analogous to an insurance contract for which the insured pays a premium, and in return is guaranteed.
I’m not sure what insurance company Mr Armstrong uses, but I have never seen an insurance contract that didn’t include a clause which rendered the contract void in the event the insured concealed material facts.
The banks concealed the clearly material fact of their insolvency; in the case of Anglo, a lot more is likely to emerge, when the law gets around to those who cannot recall passwords.
The most startling point about Prof Morgan’s claim is that we would need to invoke the 1971 Central Bank Act to terminate the guarantee.
The statutory instruments that introduced the bank guarantee show that not alone were no such obvious and prudent “get-out” clauses included, but they were instead littered with phrases which explicitly prevent any such attempt to revoke them. For example, in SI 490 of the Credit Institutions Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme of 2009, the phrase “unconditional and irrevocable” appears no fewer than six times.
No wonder Prof Kelly sounds angry. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Mick Wallace (November 10th) asks why Brian Lenihan chose Alan Ahearne as an economic adviser rather than Morgan Kelly.
May I suggest that the line towards the end of Prof Kelly’s prediction – “I have to hold up my hands and confess that I have no solutions, simple or otherwise” – might be the first reason? – Yours, etc,