YESTERDAY WE HEARD that the European Central Bank had “more or less” told Irish authorities it wouldn’t be participating in the forthcoming banking inquiry.
That was according to Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, while speaking before the Oireachtas Finance Committee.
Now the Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy has said that the refusal of the ECB to participate in the inquiry shows its disregard for democratically elected parliaments.
Mr Carthy was speaking in the European Parliament, where he called on his fellow MEPs to put pressure on the ECB over the inquiry.
Karen Coleman spoke to Carthy, who said that for Mario Draghi to say he won’t formally engage in the banking inquiry “isn’t good enough”.
“I hope and expect the Irish Government to be very robust in its assertion that the ECB must, in fact, engage in a banking inquiry”.
He went on:
The Irish banks got their money from somewhere, and the ECB had a role in that and the ECB has to acknowledge that first of all it played a role; but it also has to acknowledge the part it has played in the time since the banking crisis, which is to very much be a cheerleader of the austerity agenda which we know has resulted in mass emigration and increased levels of poverty in many parts of Ireland.
Reporting in Strasbourg from Karen Coleman of EuroParlRadio
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