Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

As repeated in the Financial Times today, at the heart of the crony capitalism to which I refer was a boutique bank specialising in property development and land purchase. A second article in the newspaper states that Anglo Irish Bank's top ten borrowers accounted for more than half its loans. The Financial Times is simply repeating for the world what most Irish people already know, namely, that the core group of customers of Anglo Irish Bank comprised ten major developers with loans ranging from €1 billion to €2 billion or €3 billion. However, the bank's key portfolio of loans was made up of 100 big developers.

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