Ian Kehoe on vultures

Ten years on from the bank bailout, we are in the most controversial phase of the great Irish sell-off: mortgages

The Famine statues on Dublin’s Custom House Quay, near the IFSC: have the lessons been learned from the crash? Picture: AP

It is fast approaching the tenth anniversary of the government’s ill-fated decision to guarantee the Irish banks, a move that that socialised bank debt and paved the way for the eventual nationalisation of the sector. The move came from a protectionalist, socialist playbook; in the world according to capitalist dogma, the banks would merely have collapsed, destroyed by their own hyperbole and reckless lending practices.

I make this point because the banks have ...