Professor Patrick Honohan:

When he was here I had a bash at this question of distributional effects. I think you're right. I think the distributional effects of this whole business have twisted against the poor people. Of course, it's very different and age groups ... probably more important than ... there are certain age groups that have lost badly out of it as well as income classes. In the boom period a very broad swathe of society benefited and in the bust period a very broad swathe has lost also. So it's not just the poor people but I think it has ... and I have said that in public that overall net, it has been tilted and the poor have done worse out of it.