Kevin Cardiff’s account of bank crisis due in book form in 2016

Kevin Cardiff, one of the senior civil servants in the Department of Finance during the economic crisis, has written a book on the period, which is likely to be published in 2016, after publication of the report of the banking inquiry.

Mr Cardiff presented a report of more than 350 pages to the banking inquiry on the crisis and gave lengthy evidence to the inquiry in June. He was present during the key parts of the crisis, heading the department’s banking unit from the end of 2006 to January 2010, a period which included the night of the bank guarantee in September 2008 and the subsequent nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank. He was appointed secretary general of the department in February 2010 and held that job as Ireland went into a bailout in November of that year.

The book, being published by Liffey Press, will be based in large part on the evidence to the inquiry, along with Mr Cardiff’s personal recollections. Mr Cardiff left the department at the end of 2011, when he became Ireland’s appointee to the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg.

Cardiff told the inquiry of his surprise at how the guarantee option emerged so quickly from discussions.