Ajai Chopra (above, left), deputy director of the European department of the IMF, arrives with a colleague at Dublin's Central Bank ahead of the IMF/EU bailout

The data regarding the Fed's support for the US banking system at the height of the crisis in 2008 was groundbreaking. In my view it was a game changer. The financial system was so blown that the Fed just invented trillions of dollars and lent it to any bank or business that needed money. While Obama was begging Congress for a paltry few hundred billion to fix a few bridges, the Fed was pumping trillions of dollars into a parade of banks, with some individual banks accepting over $2 trillion in total. This list reads like a who's who of the banking world and even the little banks from Ireland got in on the action.

The power of central banks is awesome and they are the true guardians of our society. Forget the ramblings of our deluded politicians and listen to the measured statements from the world's central bankers. They are the power holders in this capitalist system and it is in their hands that we rest.

As we in Ireland wallow in the mire of our financial crisis, it is important to understand this data. Without this support from the Fed, the world's financial system would have completely failed and we would all be in a 1930s-style scenario. Is it fair that banks are saved while real businesses fail? No is clearly the answer to this but when did fairness ever come into the equation. The lessons here are clear. There is no limit to the amount of liquidity the central banks of the world will provide to prevent a financial collapse, hence there is no limit to what will be done to save and rebuild the recovery in Ireland. Luckily we owe enough to be really important and we are in the heart of the euro, which makes us even more important.

No, let's take these lessons to Ireland and see what they really mean here. Our banks are full of bad and impaired loans and they are completely hooked on ECB emergency liquidity. A lot of people in the media are presenting this form of liquidity as a bad thing, but I don't think it is. ECB money is certainly cheaper than what the market can provide, and it can never run out because the ECB can create as much money as it needs whenever it needs it. This is clearly the lesson from the Fed's actions, and the ECB will be no different. The financial system cannot risk another event like Lehman's, and if Ireland were to go native and default, we could easily bring down the entire global system. That is not a risk that any central banker wants us to take. Knowing this, we can rest a little easier. The money will keep flowing into the Irish banks until we are through this crisis and swimming on our own again. The adjustments we are making from a fiscal point of view are tough but deep down, we all know they are needed.

With cash no longer an issue, the only other problem to fix from a banking point of view is capital. This is a bit of a woolly number and as we have seen from the past, writing off junior bondholders is a great way to create capital. This seems a little counter-intuitive, but it is true. Writing off debt makes you stronger and wealthier from a banking point of view. This holds true for all financial and business entities including individuals, but we all know by now that the rules for the big boys are different to the rules for people and small business.

In summary, the banks are bust but it doesn't really matter because they have access to almost unlimited ECB funds. They need capital, but that's not a problem either. They are guaranteed this capital from the Irish government, which is in turn guaranteed this money from the ECB, EU, and the IMF. This same government does not want to own AIB and Bank of Ireland and really wants them to remain public companies, so they will go easy on the shareholders. All of this points to the banks being a great investment at these prices. They have a virtual monopoly position. Ireland is being vacated by foreign banks and this is leaving a big fat market for AIB and Bank of Ireland to really make out from a financial point of view. Whatever the government charges for the money and the various guarantees will be passed down to the banks' customers, so these costs do not really matter.