Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday was just like every other day for thousands of families struggling with mortgage distress. Some are facing eviction like the family in Kanturk in County Cork. There are many others who will be facing the same scenario. Yesterday was also the day that the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. That meeting had a sense of the extraordinary about it. We know rightly that the public was scandalised when the Anglo Irish Bank tapes first emerged in the media. We heard at first hand the moolah men describe how they picked figures from their posteriors and how they were going down to the Central Bank arms swinging demanding a multi-billion euro bailout. Yet Professor Honohon, who is Governor of the Central Bank and the regulator, tells us that it will not forward any more information on these tapes to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement or the Garda Professor Honohan then told us that neither he nor his staff have even listened to the tapes in his possession and indicated that he was not minded to do so.

Is this not incredible? On the one hand, distressed mortgage holder face arrears, possible negative equity, stress, legal letters from the banks and court appearances in many cases. Yet it seems the bankers remain untouchable. Heads, they win and tails, they win. Is the Minister satisfied with the manner in which the Central Bank and its Governor have handled the Anglo tapes affair?

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