EU response on crisis too slow, says Dukes

ANGLO IRISH bank chairman Alan Dukes says the EU has a fortnight to deal with Greek crisis or face greater difficulties in the euro zone.

Mr Dukes, former Fine Gael leader and former director of the Institute of European Affairs, told Raidió na Gaeltachta that the reaction of European leaders to the euro zone crisis was too slow.

As a result, markets were not convinced of their commitment to protect the euro, he said, in an interview yesterday. German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy were being “misleading” in trying to convince their respective electorates that the Greek issue could be resolved without a cost to the German and French people, Mr Dukes continued.

He believed Greece was heading for a crisis point similar to the one that led to the Irish bank guarantee of September 29th, 2008.

Mr Dukes said he did not believe the late Brian Lenihan as minister for finance had made a bad decision at the time of the guarantee, given the circumstances and the information available to him.

He said it was a great pity that “better” information hadn’t been given to Mr Lenihan, as relevant details were available but had not been analysed and compiled for effective interpretation.

New regulations introduced here would avoid future events, rather than dealing with the current situation, and the new systems required implementation by the Central Bank and relevant authorities in other states to monitor the movement of money within and between economies, Mr Dukes said.

This failure to monitor had been at the root of the crisis, as public finances had been in a healthy state until the construction industry collapsed, he added.

Mr Dukes said he did not believe Anglo Irish Bank should have been let go at the time of the bank guarantee, given the considerable contagion effect that this could have caused.