Finance Minister says Fianna Fail "created Ireland's worst crisis since Famine"

People eleect dumb windbags to look out for their interests becausae they are ideologically autistic due to a revisionist education and press and media censorship. Fine Gael's criticism of Fíanna Fáil, though justified, is a case of Tweedledum criticising Tweedledee. Both are centre-right parties. The former represents old money - the latter new. How radical can they be? If Cowan famished the Irish economy, will Noonan be somewhat more proactive than the then laissez-faire British Government of "Black '47", who sat on their hands and did nothing.

Now you know how we felt in the U.S. when the Democrats took over the House and the Senate in 2006 and President Bush had no more power!!! THE DEMOCRATS RUINED ALL OF OUR PROGRESS DOMESTICLY... Then they god Obummer elected and ran roughshod over our government and country... Now since he has been in office he has spent more money than all of the presidents combined in the history of the U.S... And they blamed it all on President Bush... They screwed the U.S. and now the whole world is feeling it!!! You know an ecconomy is bad WHEN THE IRISH GO TO CANADA AND AUSTRALIA!!! Those are the 2 countris that used President Bush's ecconomic plan and look how well they are doing today!!!! Good job Australia and Canada!!!!

89w---agreed.government, regulators, rating agencies blew it. a very good example of the foolishness of 'if it aint broke,dont fix it

btb, the issue is not about competence; its about the limits of power. was mr lenihan --or, any mf, empowered to grant such a guarantee when a less drastic alternative could have been available. in other words, why can we not conclude that the guarantees above absolute minimums needed to assure depositors are 'gifts' to investors, an action that exceeded Lenihans powers.

The Irish people with their obsessive fascination with property speculation fueled with easy foreign money caused this bust. Warnings of the impending contractions in the economy didn't deter the public mood nor did the government give much credence to the negative forecasts. Further, the government was ill prepared to protect their citizens from the rapid globalization of their economy. Both the government and the citizenry can be held up to blame for the shortcomings that has befallen their economy. The real question that needs to be answered is how will Ireland restore her competitiveness!

tempranillo, Lenihan didn't know what he was doing. He certainly wasn't trained in fiscal management or economics. When told the banks were failing and wouldn't last the night, he called the French Finance Minister Christine Legard at 2 a.m. to ask her what to do. She was aghast. At the time of the bank guarantee Lenihan had terminal cancer.

Of course you don’t want to burn the bondholders. Just think about the number of firms that would move out when they could not get working capital. No, there really are two issues. How and why were banks permitted to concentrate on real estate. And, why did Minister Lenihan issue such a broad guarantee…why could he not limit the guarantee to depositors? The first issue reflects a failure of regulators & the government & the rating agencies. Ollectively, they blew it. The second is problematic. I’ve read that Irish bank debt was governed by English law and that a negative pledge precluded a guarantee of depositors. But, if true, alternatives would be available….like only guaranteeing only the first 10-or 100 thousand [pick a number] of deposits and bonds. In retrospect, seems like FF was overly generous and I have wondered if minister Lenihan overstepped his authority

Fine Gael are the conservative party of Ireland, if they burnt the bondholders Ireland wouldn't be able to borrow in the world financial markets, they have to rebuild the economy from scratch & that's why corporation taxes are going down. You have to create wealth in the economy & attract money, youse don't do that by destroying the bond holders, if youse really want to destroy your economy vote for SF

Michael Noonan is typical of two faced traitors who have been running Ireland for too long.......Fine Gael was supposed to be elected on the basis of burning the bond holders........Michael Noonan is a bond holder and the so called Minister Of Finance............He would hardly be expected to destroy himself and demonstrates his contempt for the people with a deliberate conflict of interests...........Money first and screw the people.

His rhetoric is all for naught. It is water under the bridge! The solution to the problem has yet to be tested and debated over time, so in the long run the outcome seems to be anyone's call. More importantly, what is being done to stop the best and brightest from leaving. Some Irish thought they could use foreign capital to buy their Country from one another. It didn't generate real wealth but a bubble inflated with nothing other than expectations. Economically, speaking the Country went from rags to riches without savoring the freedom from want that came with this prosperity and somewhere along the line their well tested value system was discarded that had carried them through many other calamities. This should be a wake up call for the rest of the world and must be viewed as an ominous cloud just over the horizon for the rest of us.

Fine Gael is hardly the party to be pointing at Fianna Fail's shortcomings. Fine Gael's Michael Collins signed away Northern Ireland. That has been catastrophic for Ireland. And it will never be rectified. It created decades of animosity and hatred.

greensod, you apparently don't live in Ireland and haven't a clue about the political system.

The Bulls--t and lies continue from the Fianna Mafia to the Blue-shirts and there Lapdogs Labour. Glad I did not vote for any of them, but none the less I have to live under this bulls--t treacherous regime because of other peoples idiotic voting.

I think the worst crisis is the one of Spirit that has erupted from the abuse of Ireland's children by the pedophiles. Money is an invented thing, all it needs is a little re-inventing.

Why do bright people elect dumb windbags to look out for their interests?