IT WAS a moment more befitting of Comical Ali, the famous Iraqi information minister, who memorably insisted the Second Gulf War was being won even as the tanks and troops of the United States encircled Baghdad.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen was being interviewed by Bloomberg News in July 2008 and seemed certain that Ireland's economy was fundamentally sound.
That interview has now retrospectively become a minor YouTube sensation.
Cowen spoke of the "healthy nature of our banking system" and said the country was not as heavily exposed to the so-called sub-prime crisis, which had already brought US finance to its knees.
Fast forward a few weeks, and the Department of Finance frantically introduced a bank guarantee scheme, promising to protect assets at AIB, Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish, Irish Life and Permanent, Irish Nationwide and EBS.
At the beginning of the year, Anglo Irish chairman Seán FitzPatrick had already begun shifting his personal loans to Irish Nationwide in an effort to keep them off the company accounts.
However, Cowen seemed oblivious to the scale of the banking crisis that was starting to take hold in Ireland and said the "underlying fundamentals" of the Irish economy remained "very strong".
As he visited the New York Stock Exchange, he was asked why the values of Irish banks had plunged more than 70% and if the government planned to step in to save them.
"It's important to point out that our banking system in Ireland is very well capitalised," he explained.
"It's coming off a very strong performance over the last 11, 12 years, very strong profits," he added. "Our governor of our Central Bank in a report this week has confirmed the healthy nature of our banking system, as I say, well capitalised.
"We don't have the exposure, any significant exposure in the sub-prime US sector, which has caused a lot of the problems originally and I think it's important to point that out.
"I think one of the issues that's been affecting market sentiment with the share price for those companies has been a perception about exposure to the construction industry, in terms of the correction that's taken place in residential housing.
"I think it's important to point out that the underlying fundamentals of the economy remain very strong and in the absence of that particular sector, we would have seen growth of 4% in the first six months.
"But because of the fiscal drag of residential housing, it's coming back to maybe a half, one per cent growth forecast this year."
The Bloomberg interviewer then asked if the correction to residential housing was the only problem affecting Irish banks.
Cowen seemed sure it was: "Because of the level of output it represented last year and the year before, the slowdown in residential housing, as I've said, it's not affecting commercial businesses much, the slowdown in residential has had a fiscal drag.
"I think it's important to point out that the Irish economy has greatly diversified and here we are today talking with our indigenous business promotion agency about the very many Irish businesses, the biggest number of start-ups, very strong pro-enterprise culture, [and a] good public finance position.
"I think it's important to point out that our overall borrowings, our overall debt represent about 25% of GDP. If you take into account our National Pension Reserve Fund, then the overall debt is about 14% of GDP. So we have sufficient room to manoeuvre to weather the present turbulence."
Specifically asked whether the Irish government was going to step in to support the banks, he said:?"There is no requirement for that whatsoever".
"I think it's very important to indicate that there's strong confidence from the Central Bank governor in relation to the capitalised value of our Irish banks.
"They're coming off very strong profits, average economic growth rates of 7% for the previous decade. The banking system has been a big beneficiary of that growth and as I say, we don't have any serious exposure in the sub-prime sector."
Ireland has been exposed to sub-prime politicians with sub-prime policies who have turned the country into a sub-prime nation financially (thank God we still have our culture and history which cannot be robbed or sold-off). The fact that Cowen was waffling this claptrap weeks before he was prepared to gurantee the banks to the tune of 400 billion euro shows either that he was not telling the truth or simply didn't know the real picture of what was happening - due to lying banks and/or a regulatory authority which was asleep. The bank's did not go rotten in the space of a few weeks. Yes, they made massive profits - but those profits were taken by the shareholders and investors and not the state - while Cowen interestingly in a Freudian way seems to intertwine the banks' interest throughout this absurd interview with the state as if they are one. The government has since indeed intertwined the state with the banks - to the tune of tens of bilions of euro in bail-outs from state funds. Those who made the profits are now in the money again - this time taxpayers' cash or money from the national pension fund. FF and FG have placed as synonymous the needs of business with the public interest - this has been a driver of government policy in Ireland for decades, under the cover of improving the economy and creating more jobs. But in reality, what it means is government for business first - business calls the tune. However the needs of shareholders are never the same as the public interest. The government should be ringmaster in regulating these conflicting interests, in ensuring the public interest prevails, while allowing a climate in which business can develop too. Instead government is for business first, and the public second if at all. The past year with Nama and the bank bail-outs tells everything. The law of gravity will prevail - and when these hucksters finally are held accountable for what they've done in destroying our country through an amoral subvention of those who've engineered that destruction through greed, I hope there won't be a bog big enough even in Offaly for them to hide from the people.
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Is this a case of the elephant in the room not seeing the elephant in the room.