Two preliminary reports produced earlier this week for the Government by Klaus Regling, Max Watson and Patrick Honohan on the banking crisis critised the Governments management of the economy during the boom and found that the banking crisis was caused by a simple over reliance on property lending.
The reports concluded that Ireland’s financial crisis was a homemade crisis, a run-of-the-mill property crash, “A plain vanilla property bubble” funded by excessive overseas borrowings by the financial institutions. They highlighted that overall fiscal policies notable in 2007 when Brian Cowan was Finance Minister contributed “markedly to the overheating economy… that had tax incentives boosting rather than restraining an overheated construction sector”.
However as stated in the papers although there is sufficient detail in these reports to establish what went wrong and why in traditional Irish fashion fault however has still not been laid specifically on the shoulders of individuals and also show that those responsible for the crisis still hold positions of trust.
Have your say: The banking crisis blame game
