I won’t post the text, it’s too long but it’s worth a read. Poor Austin is probably feeling a little left out this morning but Dan is right up there.
Badly written article, only 24 names there as well
Seán Quinn, Business tycoon
Padraig Walshe, IFA leader
Brian Goggin, Former Bank of Ireland chief executive
Turlough O’Sullivan, Director general, IBEC
Justice John Quirke, Former chairman of the benchmarking body
David Begg, General secretary, ICTU
Mary Harney, Former PD leader
John Hurley, Central Bank governor
Patrick Neary, Former financial regulator
Sean Dunne, Property developer
Finbarr FitzPatrick, Secretary general, IHCA
Mark FitzGerald, Sherry FitzGerald chief executive
Dermot Gleeson, AIB chairman
Lar Bradshaw, Former Anglo director and DDDA chairman
Bernard McNamara, Property speculator
Tom Parlon, CIF chief and former IFA leader and politician
Dan McLaughlin, Bank of Ireland chief economist
Marc Coleman, Economics journalist
Eugene Sheehy, AIB chief executive
David Drumm, Anglo group chief executive, anglo irish bank, 2005-2008
Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach, 1997-2008
Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO, Anglo Irish Bank
Charlie McCreevy minister for finance, 1997-2004
Brian Cowen, Finance minister 2004-2008; taoiseach, 2008-
Most of them only bit players, the real villains of the piece are Bertie Ahern and the bank leaders, the others were just cheerleaders or had their snouts in the golden trough. Ahern is the key player, he was there all through the boom and before it, he was the one who ordered Cowen to keep spending while he handed out the lollipops to the social partners, he was the one who refused to engage in prudent management of public finances and gave in to the bribes in the Galway tent. The evidence of the imbalance in the Irish economy was evident in 2000 and many analysts warned of this imbalance in the years since (see OECD & IMF reports), nothing was done to correct the problem, everything possible was done to inflate the boom.
The opposition parties (Labour, FG) were also complicit in this, only Joe Higgins put the then Taoiseach on the spot (who subsequently made sure Mr. Higgins did not get re-elected.)
The bankers are also responsible for destroying their business and shareholder value and facilitated by Cowen and Lenihan have put a great big millstone around our necks by way of the bank guarantee, without them no government could have engaged in the reckless spending and policies they did.
In all of this though, no one looks at the role played by ECB monetary inflation policy, and problems caused by national currency manipulation (Japan ZIRP, Swiss Carry trade, Chinese RMB controls) and imbalances in trade that were facilitated by this. The core problem is FIAT money, the gaming of the system it allows by those who get the money first and the regulators that protect them and those in power.
Last name (25th) is to be suggested by the readers
Indeed:
Get emailing…
…I vote the Rally Monkey…
Geraldine Kennedy - Editor of the Irish Times since 2002
No. 25 are the pope’s children who despite being the best educated generation of Irish people in hundreds of years allowed ourselves to be duped into the worlds greatest ponzi scheme. We elected the government and suspended critical analysis and allowed ourselves to be lulled into complacency by the cheerleaders (Property shills in The Irish Times & The Sindo, Austin Hughes, Dan McLaughlin, various estate agents public representatives masking as economists).
We willingly believed the hype “Property only ever goes up”, “The banks will never let it happen”, “I must get on the ladder and make something of my life”, “the government will never let it happen”, “There will be a soft landing”. We took on the 100%+ loans, we lied about our incomes, with the acquiescence of the bank lenders and company accountants. Without us Bertie and the bankers could not have gotten away with it as long as they did.
“If, after the first twenty minutes, you don’t know who the sucker at the poker table is, it’s you.”
- Anonymous
George Redmond and perhaps to a lesser extent Frank Dunlop
+1,000,000
I also include canny mcsavvy in this general population bundle.
It also really pisses me off when people place a blanket blame on the banks (although Im not saying they didn’t play a pivotal role).
One of my friends paid €2.4m for a house at the top of the boom.
He approached 5 banks & B’Socs until the final one gave him what he wanted - the first 4 wouldn’t.
And yet last night, at a dinner party he did nothing but point the fingers at the bankers for their greed and carelessness.
Ive never had to hold my tongue so much as I did then 
Completely and utterly agree with GreenBear.
For me if you were limited to pick only one person to hold accountable for what has happened, it would have to be Bertie Ahern. The biggest facilitator of the super bubble there was - through a mixture of convenience, selfishness and incompetence. It’s difficult to hold back the bile of contempt when people still defend him in the media every time someone has a crack at him.
Amen brother, amen.
He should be hung, Drawn and very slowly quartered with a rusty blade 
Honest to god I’m not a violent person but I really would prefer if bertie was quartered first on live TV then drawn thtough the streets of Dublin and only then hung in a gibbet. I really would get medieval on his ass!
Great post GB.
The list is utterly worthless as you suggest, and the key to understanding is in Bertie’s exit timing. He knew.
The behaviour of the human is pretty well understood - most particularly in the matter of asset price inflation. Money illusion cures the remainder from the next accomplice, who’s motives are simply to make more money [regardless or in spite of of that money’s value]. People will always behave in this manner unless or until they are educated in the subject. Information is freedom. And that’s the job of Government. It’s important also to point out that people will behave in this manner unless prevented from so doing by regulation.
It is after all, a human condition.
Where’s Comical on the list?
Read that too. Publishing Morgan Kelly does give her some sort of defence to work with.
Probably as good a thread as any to mention something I noticed in Dublin Zoo recently. As we walked around I spotted three commemorative plaques at various points. One marked Patrick Hillary’s visit on the occasion of the Zoo’s centenary. Another marked Mary McAleese’s visit to open the African Plains exhibit. And the third marked Bertie Ahern’s first visit to the African Plains exhibit. The latter two plaques were identical in design. The first two are completely normal; marking a milestone for a national institution and noting that the head of state attended. But the Ahern one is like something you might expect to see in Kyrgyzstan or North Korea. Do we really need to even note the fact that the head of government (not the head of state) travelled a couple of miles from his home one Saturday, to eat an overpriced choc-ice and see some rhinos lying in the dirt, on what was otherwise a completely ordinary day at the zoo?
I’m inclined to blame Charlie McCreevy more; Bertie is a craven populist, he could have followed **mildly ** expansionary policies and still won. McCreevy pushed the envelope
finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews … 6749.shtml
The Irish Times Ltd buys MyHome.ie for €50 million
Jul 28, 2006
By Finfacts Team
richarddelevan.com/2008/04/2 … rty-scoop/
Why did the Irish Times spike its own property scoop?
April 28th, 2008
Richard Delevan
Quotes this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9411
Dublin EA’s caught inflating reported sale prices: SBP
marccoleman.ie/?page_id=192
Marc Coleman
Irish Times Economics Editor 2005-07
No
the pope visited Ireland in 1979, so the popes children would be people born in 79, plus or minus 5 years
well these people don’t run the country, and the won’t be running it for another 20 years
what is the average age of the people on the list in the article ? what age is bertie
the popes children are the suckers who were ripped off on the way up, and will pay for it all on the way down
Which bit of ‘reading’ eludes you?