Sir, – ’Tis the season for commemorations of past historical events. An Taoiseach staged a mind-boggling impromptu “commemoration” of the bank bailout on the floor of Dáil Éireann this week (“State did not bail out banks in recession, Taoiseach claims in Dáil,” Marie O’Halloran, Home News, December 17th).
Older, more conservative investors saw their life savings erased. Bank staff (and this is rarely dwelt upon) were especially hard-hit.
Many of them also lost their life savings and also lost their jobs. Junior bank staff at the front desk were often subjected to abuse by a justifiably furious general public. I presume this is what An Taoiseach was attempting to describe in his remarks in the Dáil.
The fact remains that €64 billion of public money went into the bank bailout and this fatally weakened our sovereign capacity to borrow and function as an independent country.
Ireland was utterly humiliated. Savage austerity was then inflicted upon those least able to absorb it. If An Taoiseach has amnesia about this he only has to look at the parliamentary arithmetic and polls surrounding him now.
He has done an excellent job managing the Covid pandemic. The Left clearly gets up his nose.
But they’ll come out his ears if he doesn’t recover from his own personal “foot in mouth” epidemic. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DEASY,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Please convey my thanks to Richard Boyd Barrett, and could you please ask him when I can expect the compensation cheques for my losses on AIB and BOI shares, which were circa 98 per cent of my investment. – Yours, etc,
JIM BRACKEN,
Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Sir, – Your article (Home News, December 18th) suggests that “the” banks were bailed out, at an ultimate loss to the taxpayer.
Your article fails to distinguish that one bank, Bank of Ireland, fully repaid the State investment and, as the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, faithfully quoted, in your edition of October 2nd, 2019, concluded “... The State has recouped its investment in Bank of Ireland (including associated debt-servicing costs), and, therefore, incurs no ongoing debt-servicing costs.” – Yours, etc,
EIVEN CURRAN,
Terenure,
Dublin 6w.
Sir, – How I chuckled. I travelled to work with a broad grin on my (covered) face and a spring in my step. Alice in Wonderland, Spartacus, Bill Clinton, the Pope, Elvis, Neil Armstrong, African and Indian elephant footprints and of course Donald were all invoked by your letter writers to highlight the Taoiseach’s folly (“Taoiseach’s denial of bank bailout,” Letters, December 18th).
The best entertainment since the pandemic began and I have yet to read Miriam Lord’s Dail Sketch of December 17th! Thank you! Yours, etc,
SEAN KEAVENY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.