Madam, – So Lorenzo Bini Smaghi of the ECB thinks “the Irish taxpayers should foot the bill as they are the ones that benefited during the pre-crisis boom” (Breaking News, April 14th). Well, Madam, after 38 years of this nonsense, I for one have finally had enough of grim-faced Europeans telling me what to do.
With apologies to Enda, here’s a new “Five Point Plan”: 1. Default on all the bondholders. 2. Leave the euro, and re-establish the Irish pound, linked to sterling. 3. Lower corporation tax to 8 per cent, and compete aggressively with “Europe”. 4. Re-establish our 200-mile territorial water limit, and, obviously, 5. Leave the EU. Can’t be any worse than what’s facing us now. – Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID HONAN,
Newbawn,
Co Wexford.
A chara, – In a recent article in the Financial Times, European Central Bank (ECB) board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said that if Irish taxpayers are asked to foot the bill for bailing out the banks they should not complain when supervisory and regulatory failures occurred at national level (Breaking News, April 13th Business, April 14th).
But who do Irish taxpayers complain to when failures occurred at European level? After all, Irish taxpayers actually voted for the Maastricht Treaty and all previous EU treaties, and therefore had good reason to believe that their provisions would be implemented in full.
In particular, I refer to the role of the ECB: Article 14 of the statute of the European System of Central Banks states: “The national central banks are an integral part of the ESCB and shall act in accordance with the guidelines and instructions of the ECB. The Governing Council shall take the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the guidelines and instructions of the ECB, and shall require that any necessary information be given to it”.
Mr Smaghi himself states that in the years before the crisis in Ireland, “The banks grew larger and more profitable” – indeed they grew to almost 300 per cent of Irish GDP.
My question, therefore, is: why did the ECB not use the powers granted to it by the treaties to ensure that the national Central Bank of Ireland acted more prudently, thus helping to mitigate the risks associated with a ballooning banking system which fuelled a property boom and severely threatened Ireland’s financial stability?
Why did the ECB not use its powers to help ensure that central banks in other European countries took steps to curtail the exorbitant lending to Irish banks which threatened the financial stability of not only Ireland but other euro zone members? Given the failure of the ECB to fully use its mandate in this matter, I would again ask Mr Smaghi: to whom do Irish taxpayers complain? – Is mise,
MARIAN HARKIN MEP,
European Parliament,
Rue Wiertz,
Brussel,
Belgium.