Honohan and the parties

Honohan Report

Having read the report, I still wonder whether letting Anglo Irish go bankrupt in September 2008 while simultaneously guaranteeing the operations of AIB and BoI would have been the better course of action. In my view, the key miscalculation was the consensus view that no Irish Bank would be let fail. Consensus suggests a comfort zone for the participants including the minister. I don’t think they teased out the consequences of an alternative forensically enough.

Fine Gael

I thought then and I still think that FG should have had reservations about bank subordinated bond holders before supporting Fianna Fail on the issue.
About Anglo Irish, I was never in the resuscitation club. Fine Gael has spoken to the relatives, explained that the carcase is brain dead. The “Not for Resuss” sticker has been stuck on the chart.

Labour

Comrades, in 2008, I told Comrade Ciaran O’Mara that I was surprised when Labour opposed the bank guarantee. I agreed with them about Anglo Irish but the rest……. I presumed that their opposition, had they been in government, would have somehow allowed AIB and BoI to keep trading when nationalised because otherwise there would have been economic chaos. I thought and think that Labour were wrong and seriously wrong at that. Do they still hold that their decision was right? I wonder what Ruairi Quinn or Pat Rabbitte thinks about this in private?

Fianna Fail

Wreckless endangerment is the most apt description. I got it right when I dubbed Brian Cowen the Economic Undertaken of Clara.

Frank Fahy

An annoying disingenuous bu..s…..r. He is the type of politician who gives backwoodsmen a bad name. I listened to him talking to Dara O’Briain and Eamonn Dunphy on Newstalk about the Crisis and Cowen’s role and I thought of the Private Eye description ‘arslikans’. My brain gets damaged when I listen to him