Remember the misery bankers heaped upon us
Three senior bankers have been given a few of years in Mountjoy for a €7.2bn conspiracy to mislead the public about the true financial health of Anglo Irish Bank.
We must consider what these men did and what effect it had on the lives of innocent people. Their actions brought enormous hardship and distress to many people – most of them investors of modest means who could ill-afford to lose what money they had. Some lost their homes, their marriages, their pensions and, in the most extreme cases, their lives as they were unable to cope with their losses.
Of course, a jail term is not entirely punitive and must allow for the possibility of rehabilitation but it should act as a deterrent to others.
These men will probably be out of prison in 18 months – but the human cost of the fallout will continue for decades.
Noel Harrington,
...but then again
I might be alone in this, but I felt sorry for the three bankers who were jailed on Friday.
There’s no doubt that what they did was wrong and criminal but it needs to be understood in the context of the time.
Anglo Irish Bank was on the verge of collapse, which could have had devastating consequences for the rest of the Irish economy.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. There’s a strong suggestion that the regulator turned a blind eye to what was going on, and this was a time when banks were being urged to ‘pull on the green jersey’ and help each other out.
It wasn’t just happening in Ireland. Internationally, politicians and central bankers took all manner of unprecedented steps to save global financial systems.
The really outrageous things that caused such financial devastation happened long before the €7.2bn account-boosting scheme that this case focused on.
Alan O’Toole, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.
France horror
That unspeakable atrocity in France on Tuesday called to mind stories I heard in primary school about priests who risked all in the dark days of Irish history, knowing there was a price on their heads.
The ultimate effect of these persecutions was to blacken the persecutors and elevate those unjustly persecuted. Likewise with the cold-blooded murder of Fr Jacques Hamel. His killers achieved nothing. They represent a vile perversion of everything that is positive and truly decent in all the great religions.
The best response to the attack is NOT to turn in hatred against any other religion but to embrace all faiths as essentially manifestations of goodness and a search for meaning in a troubled world.
John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co. Kilkenny.
I’m for Trump
It is interesting that the Irish establishment has largely joined the worldwide witchhunt around Donald Trump’s candidacy for US president.
Our howling liberal mob seems to have forgotten that one of Trump’s key policy platforms – the proposed wall on the Mexican border – will see tens of billions invested in American construction for decades.
The US building sector is a critical source of employment and income for young Irish emigrants.
Instead of joining the criticism of Trump, Irish politicians and media should wholeheartedly support his cause for president.
The new generation of Irish construction workers will reap the benefits. It’s a no-brainer!
John O’Sullivan, Co.Cork.
Bad television
Towards the end of the Galway Arts Festival we went to see an acrobatic show. It was very good and it made me wonder why there is never any of that type of stuff – or Irish dancing and traditional Irish music – on TV and why I am paying my TV licence.
Instead, TV schedules are taken up with the likes of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Prisoners’ Wives and Big Brother, not to mention cookery programmes.
Brendan Tierney, by email.
Foisted on us
I read with disbelief that Willie Penrose of Labour is to put forward a Bill which would require that 40% of music played on radio would be by Irish artists.
I have nothing against Irish music but I take exception to it being foisted on me.
John Hyland, Drimnagh, Dublin 12.