
Irish Banking: Rediscovering Values for Rebuilding and Renewal
Ray Kinsella & Maurice Kinsella
April 2011
Introduction
This article explores the deconstruction of the Irish banking system. It discusses the ‘pressure points’ which are reshaping this system, and how these are likely to impact on the wider banking and financial community. This is an important issue in its own right because the constitutive purpose of banking is to support the wider economy, and especially job creation. But it is particularly timely to critique recent events and policies which in combination have served to subvert the development of modern Ireland.
That is hardly an overstatement. After all, the collapse of the Irish economy since 2007 has been on a scale that is unique among developed countries. Moreover, this collapse precipitated the intervention by the European Union (EU), in association with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), leading to a ‘bailout’ agreement that, in exchange for highly conditional financial support, effectively emasculates discretionary fiscal policy, as well as imposing very far-reaching cuts in living standards.