Banking on Lehmans to bail out the bluFFers!

The standard FF defence for presiding over the shambles that has been Ireland’s banks in the last 2 years has been “Lehmans and Bear Sterns were a shock to the system”. Expect to hear a lot more of this when the Irish banking inquiry gets going. The commission will be chaired by the Governor of the Central Bank who’s been a loan voice within that organisation calling for accountability and an international “wise man”. They cannot look at anything that happened since September 30th which means that NAMA, events in Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide and the role of the regulator who told us that the Irish banks are the best capitalised in the world in the events of late 2008 are beyond the scope of the inquiry. The relationship between the Finance Department and the banks as well as the regulator and the banks will be examined too. It’ll be mostly in secret and those giving evidence will be spared the embarrassment of the media and public discussion of their evidence. The first stage will be all over by May (we’ll see about that!). These reports will be laid before the Oireachtas and will be the basis of a commission to inquire further and will wrap up by years end. Irish bankers doubtlessly still deeply grateful to the government will be treated with kid gloves by the Greens & Fianna Fail in comparison to their counterparts elsewhere. Current government policy is off limits, of course.


I’m totally underwhelmed and I don’t think that the inquiry will restore confidence in the banking system. I believe there should have been a wider scope along the lines Eamon Gilmore argued. Firstly clarify the extent of the Supreme Court judgement into the Abbeylara Case and see if the intention was to end all Oireachtas inquiries or just those that may lead to a negative finding affecting an individual. If the matter is clarified satisfactorily change the law to allow Oireachtas inquiries again. The Abbeylara Inquiry determined in the context of an Oireachtas Committee into the events surrounding the killing of a man by the gardaí.
Too much has been relied on in this judgement on which to base an opinion surrounding all inquiries. What is interesting is that the Abbeylara judgement precluded adverse findings of fact and conclusions in relation to a named person not a member of the Oireachtas. So why can an Oireachtas inquiry not ask members of the Oireachtas about their role in the collapse? Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern are not protected by the Supreme Court judgement. Both have played key roles in determining the relationship between the FF, the banks and developers. Surely these 2 could throw a little light in their part in the slump? Add in Mary Harney.

So the best that the Greens can get out of FF is the “tried and trusted” mechanism that served the government so well in Ferns, Murphy, and the Ryan Reports. My recollection of these reports were that some chapters were withheld from publication, and that culprits hid behind letters, while senior management in the garda bent the rules while those on the ground tried their best. But unlike Murphy, Archbishop Martin didn’t inquire into the behaviour of paedophile priests in Dublin diocese, he co-operated as head of the diocese. The Greens spent weeks promising acocuntability and fell way short again. What's new?
However the Governor of the bank is now charged with investigating his own banks behaviour. This is setting the man up for a fall! I believe that Prof Holohan is genuine in his intention to get to the bottom of the scandal but he will be hampered because many of those who preside over the light touch regulation at the bank are still there. He’s in an invidious position. I forecast that co-operation will be less than whole hearted and the momentum of the inquiry will run into turbulence. Add to this the pedestrian pace of the year long garda inquiry into Anglo and the need to protect the identity of those responsible being released so I reckon that all we’ll find out is that Banker A was put in charge by an internal interview process that was overseen by Bankers B & C. A along with Banker D ignored the loans approval committee which was chaired by B and provided monies for Banker E who is related to C to buy shares in Company F which was part owned by individual G through Contracts For difference that was arranged by Banker H.


The greens and FF have provided those with an interst in obstructing an inquiry with a golden opportunity to do just that. In the end will confidence in the banking system be restored by this inquiry? Will Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern have to account for what they did, explain the cancerous growth of FF, Bankers and Builders, well to quote the late Jim Gogarty when he asked for a receipt from Ray Bourke, “Will we f---?”

Tony Gregory RIP

I understand that Tony Gregory TD has died this afternoon. I didn’t know Tony and he had been ill for quite some time. I first heard about Tony in 1981 when some student activists I knew in college campaigned for him in the General Election. He was educated locally in the inner city and was a local teacher before being elected to Dublin Corporation in 1979. He was a man with out any airs and graces. From the word go he broke convention refusing to wear a tie. It’s bizarre to think that could have been a note of controversy but it was.
He stood up to the gangsters that broke his community with heroin in the 1980’s. His political path started on the Republican left moving through to Community Activism in what is still today a very deprived and marginalised community. He famously spent a week in jail arising from his support for women trading in Moore St without a license. Needless to say his Gregory deal that saw CJH return to power significantly improved the housing stock in the inner city. As a child I vividly remember the tenements that previously stood in this area, his lasting achievement and legacy will be the houses that now stand in their place.
Tony was a strong supporter of animal rights, indeed I saw him on an RTE repeat 3 days ago hill walking in Connemara and his companions asking him about this very issue and I remarked as to how young and well he looked then. Tony also was a strong opponent of US involvement in Central America and he walked out when President Ronald Reagan addressed the Oireachtas in 1984. I often thought that he should have held ministerial office and retrospectively the best time for him to have got there might have been the 1992-97 period. The maths could have worked out to his advantage given he fluidity. I believe he had an understandably terse relationship with his Constituency colleague, Bertie Ahern, that’s very much to Tony’s credit in my book and I believe his supporters can reflect on his life in politics as someone who gave an awful lot to this community and constituency than many others. His door literally was always open to his constituents 24/7 before that term was coined. He was part of the Technical group in the last Dail and one of his key achievements was that he provided a voice for those whowere marginalised and that issues which in other large cities sometimes resulted in allienation or strife were highlihted. He was a genuine voice for the the voiceless. Fear fresin a raibh suim mór aige faoin gaelige.
It’s a sad start to the new year, my sympathies to his partner, family and supporters that he died at such an early age.
bout