‘Rage’ and ‘anger’ at the Anglo Tapes

THE revelation this week of the so-called ‘Anglo Tapes’ by the Irish Independent has sent shockwaves through Irish civil and political life.

The Taoiseach says he understands that people will feel “rage and anger” when they hear the contents but somehow, even those words are too weak to describe the intensity of feeling that people will be experiencing. The bank guarantee marked a Rubicon in Irish life. The money it has cost the country has had dire implications for many and has affected every family in some way. There is less money available for public services and the pensions people have worked all their lives for have been raided. In this context, to hear the attitudes on display in the tapes provokes not just rage and anger but a deep sadness and loss of hope.

There have been many column inches devoted to bankers since 2008 and I have written about them many times myself. In fact, in recent times I noticed a trend whereby some had started to suggest that “banker bashing” had gone too far and that those in the industry were being unfairly targeted. Then you hear the tapes. Peter Fitzgerald and John Bowe issued statements strenuously denying they misled the Central Bank when the first tapes were made public and some have suggested they were only guilty of a bit of gallows humour – to me their attitude speaks to something else. It is the callous disregard of the consequences of their actions. They speak of the State in the same way as heroin addict would his grandmother who won’t give him money fast enough to score a fix. They bemoan the fact that the Government has concerns. Their naked self-interest is nauseating. John Bowe’s fecundity in figure production and the colossal nature of the figures involved really gives the impression that money and banking were a game to these people and that somehow the digits on pages were something other than the currency that everyone on the planet needs to survive.

It is also interesting to hear the attitude to the State on display. A cavalier attitude emerges from the tapes that taxpayers’ money will have to be deployed to save the institution because it holds the assets of citizens in its trust. This highlights the importance of the State and its role in the protection of citizens and their rights. That this will be mercilessly exploited by those whose sole interest is making money should come as no surprise but to hear it in actuality still makes for shocking listening.

Just before I started writing this column, I had a look on Facebook. A friend in Clare had shared a friend’s upload of their daughter’s school report card. It detailed the girl’s progress in junior infants, her first year in school and was glowing about the child’s progress. The mother detailed underneath the report that if her child had not been helped by a special needs assistant then she could never have attended a mainstream school or made the progress she did. She goes on to say that the Government wants to take this help away from her daughter and children like her. I would argue that the Government doesn’t want to take away the help. The Government is broke and is cutting back services as a result. The Government is broke because of bank guarantees and it is now clear that its hand was forced into making them. I don’t wish to suggest that I agree in any way whatsoever with the cuts to public services, I just believe that if it had sufficient finances available, most Irish governments would support such schemes. That they would do this to win votes as opposed to out of good social conscience is a moot point.

It is intriguing to wonder who provided these tapes to the Irish Independent. From what I can gather, they were recorded on the bank’s internal phone system. It is unlikely that only one person could have had access to them as they would probably have been outed as the source by now. This raises questions as to how many people knew what was going on and didn’t speak up or make moves to release information. It also raises the question of how many people have access to other information relating to other institutions around this crisis or any coming down the line. At the time of writing, Edward Snowden’s whereabouts are unknown. He is currently on the run from the US government having released details of the spying programmes being deployed by it and the British. Bradley Manning, of Wikileaks fame currently languishes in a US jail in reportedly very unpleasant conditions. It takes great bravery to be a whistleblower but unless there are more of them then conversations like those on the Anglo Tapes will continue to take place behind closed doors. Although we are generally unaware of them, they have consequences.

This ugly business has a number of lessons for all of us. It highlights the need for massively increased regulation of the banks and the importance of seeking international agreement on a more stringent global system of financial control. It also reminds us that the role of the State is to protect the people of the country and to put the welfare of people ahead of every other concern. Finally, it again emphasises the importance of whistleblowers – those people of principal who are privy to information the release of which is a public service and an act of conscience. Unless more people are willing to make a stand of this kind, perhaps at personal risk or loss, conversations and practices behind closed doors will continue to have a negative and damaging effect on some or all of the population.