In the USA, a culture has developed of getting progressive business people back into the game fast. Sensibly, this has spread across the Atlantic and is now reaching our shores. To an extent, it is encountering the thankfully declining Irish culture of penalising or keeping progressive people out of the game, which is the nub of the problem. Do we legislate in such a way as to ensure the re-entry into commerce of those who tried and failed or those who bought and, through changing circumstances, could not pay, or do we legislate in such a way as to relegate them to the margins to look on from afar? When deciding, one should take into account the fact that these individuals were the bright young things who were participating and forging ahead. These were the ones who did not rely on public authorities to house them or their families. They were in the front charge when expanding the economy and driving it forward to reach a level that may have proved unsustainable but in an environment in which even the trained eye of the economist and banker failed to foresee this unsustainability.

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