Lenihan Banking More On Luck Than Judgment ; Comment [Eire Region]

Summary

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THIS newspaper, the opposition and indeed most leading economists have argued against the Nama project since it was first mooted. Not only was there precious little in Brian Lenihan's longawaited announcement to the Dail yesterday to reassure us, there was much that confirmed our worst fears and doubts.

No matter how the minister attempts to dress it up, at the end of the day this is an exercise in bailing out the banks - and the developers - at the taxpayers' expense. The toxic loans we are taking off the banks are costing us, even by Mr Lenihan's optimistic reckoning, E10billion more than they are really worth. Yet there is still no proper transparency, there are still no proper numbers; instead, we are expected to accept not only that Mr Lenihan knows best but that we can trust him with the details.

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Lenihan Banking More On Luck Than Judgment ; Comment [Eire Region]

However, in asking us to blindly trust him, he has - possibly unwittingly - disclosed for the first time the real extent of the gamble upon which he, and we, ar...

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