Irish people will always find perfectly valid reasons why they can't do the right thing. While other countries are busy tackling their problems head on and fixing them, we're still arguing about why things have to stay the way that lead to the problems in the first place. That's why other countries will be out of this hole a long time before Ireland.

I cannot understand why the Government is so soft on the bank executives. It should have been a condition of the bail out of the banks that any protective legislation behind which the CEOs could hide would be null and void. The shareholders of BoI and AIB, who are after all the owners of the banks, receive NIL, while the likes of Sheehy and Goggin will, it seems, be virtually untouched. These 'Banksters', as they are now known, used to receive big rewards. Now they should receive big penalties.

Well, surprise, surprise! Senior and middle management don't feel like sharing 'the pain'. Leave that to ordinary workers, huh? No wonder the talks on a social Solidarity pact collapsed, the mask of the employers slips again.

We can now cast a long, cold eye on our glorious achievements since Independence. No universal health system, a failing, under-funded education system, minimum physical or intellectual infrastructure, homelessness in a land of empty houses and holiday homes, drug misuse, a practice of promoting and defending stupid, self-interested and incompetent people to positions of power, validation of autocratic practices, hypocrisy, little room for difference, inclusion or ethical behaviour, medieval gender relationships, an ethos of delusional self-congratulation, dysfunction, abuse and neglect of our disadvantaged young and old. Still, the majority of us go to Mass on Sunday!. Banks are being rewarded with tax payers money, while public sector bashing offers a convenient side show. Without reflection, we can blame our colonial past for our problems, while at the same time keeping an eye out for a chance to export them. We call it "an Irish solution/being creative". Nice, self-deceptive, cute get-out clause. Our social realm is an expanse where money, property, and material status take precedence over human need. What has been sown, actively or passively, by us, is now being reaped and the harvest is rotten to the core. The time for crass platitudes from the "golden circle" in power is now past. Better be part of the process of change to come, rather than the tattered, ethically bankrupt, flatulent, self-serving, old regime "currently" in place.

The ordinary workers are indeed ordinary.
Steering a ship worth hundreds of billions is extra ordinary as are their pay packets.
Buying sub standard houses 90 miles from Dublin for 300k plus that you could not afford is the reason for this mess.

Of course people will not remember this at the next election and will vote for FF as ever in droves.
You get the government you deserve.

instead of giving out about the banks I am buying shares in the banks. I think they are a real bargain at the moment

Even the Brits did not corrupt and destroy us like this Govt and the friendly bankers have sought to do. You get the Govt you deserve. Wake up its the 21sy Century. Don't vote for Lisbon and don't worry about the Bankers, they will be out of work soon with no offers coming in.

Taking to the streets is pointless. Stopping cronyism is not so easy. How do we enforce accountability if public servants lie for their masters and there is no genuine freedom of information?
The credit crunch is worse for Ireland as we made very nice with the banks. Those who lie down with dogs... We won't make that mistake again? Oh yes we will, cos someone somewhere will tell us a rising tide lifts all boats.
Next will be the adjustment upwards of out CT rate as the EU rescue us....

Blaming bank workers, public servants, anyone but oneself is an easy way out.
Every man should be accountable for his own actions, and this problem - which is one that has affected the whole world - is as a result of people borrowing too much money in too short a space of time, largely needlessy.
People did not need to remortgage their home or "release equity" to buy a new car or go on a second or third holiday, or to go shopping for that "something special".
It is easy to blame banks for offering credit - but just as any service is offered it does not have to be taken up on. Supermarkets were offering cheaper alternatives in the form of own brand produce but very few people took up that offer in the years of the boom.

The Chairmen of our two largest banks are formidable negotiators and the Government Ministers are in awe of them. These scoundrels should be removed first, then the CEO's who have trashed the Banks reputations and put the country in hock out of pure greed. Its the bankers who have caused most of these problems by lending out money in breach of all criteria. How can they claim that they cannot stop the bonuses bonanzas for legal reasons when they have broken their own lending criteria so often.