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TV programme reveals how Fianna Fail Government panicked as crisis hit

CATHAL DERVAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 7:43 AM

Updated Friday, November 11, 2011, 5:35 PM

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Prime Minister Brian Cowen

The dying days of the Brian Cowen government saw Ministers ‘bounced’ into the decision to guarantee the crippled banks – as a drink culture dominated Fianna Fail thinking.

An RTE documentary entitled ‘Crisis – Inside the Cowen Government’ contains the latest damning indictment of the leader in charge as the Celtic Tiger collapsed.

Cowen, lampooned by Jay Leno as a drunken Irishman after a Galway think-tank debacle, is badly portrayed in the new TV programme.

The documentary claims that Cowen’s ministers were rushed into the decision to guarantee the crippled banks in a move that has cost the state over $500billion.

It also features a claim by former Green Party leader John Gormley that the bank guarantee scheme was based on the theories of celebrity economist David McWilliams.

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Former Fianna Fail government ministers Mary Hanafin and Willie O’Dea told the programme that they were ‘effectively given no alternative but to approve the decision to offer a blanket guarantee to all of Ireland’s banks in the early hours of the morning at a crisis meeting on September 30th, 2008’.

O’Dea claimed: “We were told the markets were opening in the morning and there was the possibility of no money in the ATMs and that nothing short of this full absolute guarantee would save the situation.”

Limerick deputy O’Dea continued: “It was probably the most far reaching decision I ever participated in my five years in cabinet and I would have liked to have sat around the table to discuss it.

“The government did not have a mandate for the banking guarantee. In retrospect, it would have been better for the country if a fresh government had come to power at that stage.”

Hanafin, who has since lost her seat in the Irish parliament, added: “Ministers were told that it was the only option to protect people’s money and it had to be done before the markets opened.

“That decision shouldn’t have been taken at a quarter to two in the morning, on the phone. Finance had known for some time that there was going to be a decision. All cabinet members should have been called to Dublin.”

The programme, aired on state television station RTE on Monday night, also saw former Minister Mary O’Rourke openly discuss Cowen’s fondness for a pint.

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nosoupforU | Nov 09, 2011, 11:42 PM EST

Lets make something very clear before going into all the Minutia of who shot John. The Irish Government was under NO obligation to put the earnings of the Irish People for years and years to come up as collateral to the ECB or the IMF or ANY ONE in order to get the guarantees that they got. The guarantees that allowed them to save the two major Irish Banks. The only folks that would have been hurt if they failed would have been the banks and the lunatic builders. Builders who were building for non existant buyers and selling back and forth to themselvs. In the stock market it's known as pump and dump except in this case they lost. Now the peoples taxes are going to be paying just the INtrest on that debt for ever. The politicanc who sold the country should live in China where they would already have got a bullet in the neck. Please excuse the muddled way I tried to express myself but I get emotional about this.

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LoyalCitizen | Nov 08, 2011, 12:46 PM EST

@gobdawpaddy: Please tell us how much free money these corporations received from the very same people who are mow stealing from social welfare recipients today..........Irish Politicians hate the Irish People.

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gobdawpaddy | Nov 08, 2011, 09:41 AM EST

I deal with many people employed in Ireland by US companies in Ireland, mostly in the financial services sector. They are very happy with their employers, who in turn appear quite happy with their Irish employees. US corporations provide decent employment and benefits to a lot of very grateful Irish people. I wouldn't regard anyone who entices a US corporation to Ireland as a traitor.

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Simplify | Nov 08, 2011, 09:11 AM EST

This makes good news but the truth is a little more complex. Both government, their expert economists and opposition watched and allowed the banks, property developers and citizens to bankrupt the country. They had years to think about what was happening, so one overnight panic decision makes good headlines, but is not the source of the problem.

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LoyalCitizen | Nov 08, 2011, 08:57 AM EST

The real collapse in the so called Irish Economy was when the traitors of Ireland thought it was a good idea to bring pretentious American Corporations to Ireland.........You cannot asset strip the customers and expect things to be normal.

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gobdawpaddy | Nov 08, 2011, 08:46 AM EST

Willie O'Dea and Mary Hanafin are trying to distance themselves from the decisions of the previous cabinet, especially the bank guarantee. These two, along with every one of that cabinet is culpable in Ireland's demise. Then again, so is every member of the electorate who voted for these incompetents, especially in the 2007 election. It has been obvious to anyone with a brain that there has been an awful lot of gombeen people(mostly FF loyalists) in the Irish cabinet in recent years. Despite having participated in an unsuccesful heave against him, Enda Kenny appointed Richard Bruton, Leo Varadker, Lucinda Creigton and Simon Coveney to ministerial posts, recognizing them as some of the brightest available. I hope he was right. Couldn't imagine it happening in Fianna Fail.

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