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Matt Cooper: Stingy banks are coining it – but that’s mainly thanks to depositors and taxpayers

It’s 15 years since the financial system was bailed out – and with the three main lenders now sitting on bumper profits, maybe it’s time to tax the sector more heavily

Brian Lenihan was Minister for Finance at the time the banks were bailed out by the state in 2008. Picture: Tony O’Shea

Fifteen years on from being bailed out by the Irish state, the main banks are now sitting on mega profits. Be it weariness or the simple passage of time, but miserly behaviour by the main banks is behind their boon, and many are left asking the question: what about the taxpayer in all of this?

Does the public care what profit the banks make?

A billion euro apparently is not what it used to be. ...