BANK LINKS TO STATE:IT WAS wrong to maintain a pretence that Ireland had a choice other than to apply for an international bailout, former president of the European Parliament Pat Cox has said.
He said that the banks were inextricably linked with the State and any attempt to deal with the banking situation would have implications for the budgetary policy.
“I think we are wrong to maintain a pretence at the highest level of our political system that we have a choice: this is an illusion of choice.
"There is an irreversible weight of expectations that Ireland will get, and will accept, funding with conditionality, which will be focused on our banking sector but which is, by virtue of the public policy pursued over the last two years, inextricably linked in to the sovereign, which is the State," Mr Cox told RTÉ's News at Oneyesterday.
