Yes, the banks need to reduce their bad loans. But this cannot be achieved at Irish society’s wider expense

In the course of 2010, I spent a considerable amount of time at meetings in the Department of Finance as Flac’s representative on the government-appointed Mortgage Arrears and Personal Debt Group.

The group was comprised of stakeholders from the banking, regulatory and governmental sector. During the course of our work, I regularly found myself in a small minority and, occasionally, in a minority of one. Two particular areas were no-go. The first was ...