23/02/2010

Jail Call Over Bank Crisis Blunders

The Governor of Ireland's Central Bank has advocated the jailing of the individuals responsible for the banking crisis in Ireland.

Prof Patrick Honohan made the surprise remark in Cavan yesterday when responding to a question from Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh who asked if he agreed with "the ordinary man in the street" who was "advocating that people should go to jail and heads should be on a plate as a result of this fiasco".

Prof Honohan said: "You don't go to jail for making mistakes, but you do – and I think should – go to jail for criminal acts, if they can be proven and if they are criminal acts that entail a jail sentence.

"So I have no hesitation about that. It's another matter as to whether it's easy to achieve convictions on highly complex matters, which are made highly complex in some cases in order to make convictions difficult to achieve."

At the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Cavan yesterday, Fine Gael's Joe McHugh said bankers directly responsible for the financial crisis should be jailed.

"Five years ago it was an open secret that some sort of crash was imminent. Yet the banks continued to act irresponsibly.

"Those people who were formerly loan assessors became sales representatives. This country witnessed astonishing collusion at the highest level between bankers, regulators, property developers, and Government.

"Today, the thousands of ordinary people who foresaw the collapse are burdened with a massive public debt that will take generations to clear. These ordinary people want those responsible for the collapse to be put behind bars."

(DW/GK)

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