The Anglo Tapes released this week by the Irish Independent reveal that prominent executives in the toxic bank pursued an agenda inimical to the public interest.
Their phone conversations were replete with schoolboy humour, hubris and a sense of superiority and entitlement.
I’m wondering why this comes as a surprise to anyone.
The instruments of the collapse of the Irish banking sector and concomitantly the Irish economy were obviously solely motivated by the self-interest and avariciousness that is characteristic of private bankers the world over.
They were prepared to gamble taxpayers’ money and the future of the country on the toss of a loaded die.
The real mystery is not why bankers were permitted to act in their own self-interest, but rather why these tapes were gathering dust in some Garda station for the past five years, why they were brought to light by a national newspaper and not made available to the present government, and how many politicians, lawyers and economists will attempt to further their own careers in the interminable enquiries that will inevitably follow.
