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AN OIREACHTAS BANKING should be held in order to identify individual wrongdoing and system failures within banking institutions – as well as to establish the behaviour of the Central Bank before and after the economic collapse – TDs have said today.
This morning, the Irish Independent released more details of taped conversations between senior bankers at Anglo Irish Bank, during which former CEO David Drumm can be heard describing the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator as “a fucking shower of clowns”.
However, in a statement to RTÉ News late last night, Drumm said he refused to be made a “scapegoat” for the banking crisis any longer, and criticised the “drip, drip, drip” release of details from the Anglo Tapes.
Drumm insisted that the Central Banks and Financial Regulator had access to the tapes, even though both deny this, and repeated his call for all recordings made at Irish banks to be made public.
Speaking RTÉ’s Week in Politics programme, Sinn Féin’s Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald noted that both David Drumm and Alan Dukes (former public interest director at Anglo Irish Bank) had strongly contested that the Central Bank had access to the tapes. She said serious questions must be asked about the Central Bank’s behaviour both before and after the banking collapse, adding that that if the Central Bank had indeed had access to the recordings it was “very alarming” that it had not examined their contents.
“If the Central Bank [had access to the recordings but] didn’t know the content of the tapes, what the hell were they doing?” she asked. “They should have examined the tapes to see evidence of regulatory failure.”
Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen said the public were “rightly frustrated” over the time it has taken to organise a inquiry into the banking collapse. However, he said his party believed mistakes were being made in relation to the format of the propose inquiry, as it will not be able to charge anyone outside the Oireachtas.
Minister of State from Primary Care Alex White admitted that any Oireachtas inquiry would have “limitations” but said that it was nevertheless necessary to hold one. He said that while the Anglo Tapes gave an insight into the personalities and characters operating at a senior level at Irish banks at the time of the collapse, they did not shed light on how the collapse itself happened.
White added he was confident that such an inquiry could be completed within two years.
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Expect plenty more revelations.
ABP is a common name popping up a lot
Looking forward to the rest of the DNeigh results as they come in…
Just hearing some horses that died in Aintree were sold as beef shocking
I’m doing a sub-four -minute mile. Shergar DNA
Monaghan just up the road from me. Usually were Very good NEIGHbours until now.
I hope all these products with horse meat in them aren’t just being thrown away. There is nothing wrong with horse meat the only problem with the whole thing is that they didn’t tell us that the products contain horse meat. There are plenty of starving people that would gladly take horse meat burgers.
Stupid question…doesn’t horse cost more than cows?
Apparently not
I doubt it’s the 100% healthy ones that are ending up in the slaughterhouse.
We’re not eating racing stallions.
the price per kilo of beef paid to the farmer is 4.00- 4.50 per kilo carcass weight …….. I was talking to a farmer the other day and he told me that they just get paid for the carcass…they do not get paid for the organs or the hide (leather) ….
the price of horsemeat is .90 per kilo………..
The farmer was telling me that in Ireland that because of the new regulations being brought in with regard to horse ownership that certain people who own a lot of horses have been selling them to knackers (the correct term i.e. buyers of worn-out or unwanted horses ).
He maintained that you can buy anything from five to ten horses for the price of a cow and that in some cases people who can no longer afford to keep horses are giving them away !
have your say