Mr. Paul Sweeney:

I totally disagree with Mr. Fergal O'Brien on the cause of the crisis. The crisis in Ireland was caused by the banks behaving like drunken sailors and lending money willy-nilly to anyone and everyone. There was failure on the part of the public sector in the sense that the regulator, imbued with the ideology that markets work without intervention, went along with it and that is the reason this economy collapsed. The banks have moved from crazy lending to the other extreme, and on this I agree with Mr. Fergal O'Brien, of becoming totally risk averse. Austerity has caused a problem on the domestic side. One cannot simply take €25 billion out of an economy, which is the amount that will have been taken out of this economy by the end of next month, which is approximately 16% of GNP. It is a staggering retrenchment and while it has been necessary to a degree we disagree on the amount of it.