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The experience of this former IFSC banker is a parable of Celtic Tiger Ireland, illustrating the culture of light-touch regulation that led the country to Nama and bank bailouts

When James joined the company in May 2007, he brought glowing references from his previous employer, another financial services company, stating that he was “a person of high integrity, an honest, capable and hard worker and a good team player”. Neither he nor his new bosses realised that the first of those qualities (the high integrity) would come into such sharp conflict with the last (the good team player). The tragedy, not just for James but for Ireland, is that, in the world of Irish banking, it was scarcely possible to be both. At a simple and personal level, James’s story is, in microcosm, the reason why every Irish family has been saddled with a debt of €50,000 to pay for the recklessness and sometimes outright criminality of our banking and regulatory systems.