Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, has criticized the Irish bankers caught on tape
joking about the Irish banking system bailout, calling them “aloof
super humans” who were worthy of contempt. The comments followed the released of transcripts of telephone conversation
from 2008 between bankers at Anglo Irish Bank that have caused outrage
worldwide. John Bowe, Anglo’s head of capital markets, and Peter Fitzgerald, director of
retail banking, were heard laughing and mocking as authorities were preparing a
rescue deal for the country’s teetering banking system. This has led to accusation that the lender suckered the Irish government into
a €7bn (£6bn) bail-out knowing that much more was needed. The bankers are also
heard singing a pre-war verse of the German national anthem, with the words
"Deutschland uber alles".
Mr. Schaeuble's remarks are quoted in German newspaper Frankfurter
Allgemeine and echoed comments by Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday. “These bankers seem to like themselves in the role of aloof super humans who
only have contempt for their fellow humans,” Mr Schaeuble said. “Instead it is
they who should get our contempt and to whose game we should put a stop.”
The Irish government was eventually forced to pump €30bn (£25.7bn) into Anglo
and roughly the same amount into Ireland’s two other cash-strapped banks, Bank
of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank – rescues that brought the entire Irish economy
to its knees.
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