Cronyism brought Ireland to its knees…

Interesting leader in today’s FT, which touches on some of the same themes (the rising tide of cheap populism as a threat to any newly ‘mandated’ government) as Elaine Byrne noted in the Irish Times (blogged here this am). But it urges that the Irish people make a distinction between setting a budget and dealing more directly with the bank deficit:

Ireland does need a budget that addresses its unsustainable structural deficit, and almost everyone recognises that. Whether taxpayers can or should keep paying the debts of Irish banks – in what is now widely seen as a bail-out of European banks that recklessly lent to them – is another matter.

It also quietly recommends “legal accountability for the bankers, builders and politicians whose cronyism brought Ireland to its knees’.

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