Anglo fallout and the banking guarantee

Sir, – The Anglo tapes remind us of one salient point. If only it had been possible for Willie O’Dea to take corporeal form on the night of the bank guarantee, Ireland could have been saved. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN AHERN,

Meadow Copse,

Clonsilla,

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Dublin 15.

Sir, – Gerry Adams, commenting on the Anglo-Irish tapes, wonders if there is one law for the well-connected, a different law for citizens, and no law for some (Home News, July 3rd).

Perhaps there is one law for well-connected republicans, a different law for citizens, and no justice at all for the victims “disappeared” by the IRA. – Yours, etc,

JOHN SMYTH,

Newcastle Park,

Galway.

Sir, – I presume that when the man from Anglo told the Department of Finance and/or the then financial regulator that Anglo Irish needed €7 billion, that they then asked him how it had been calculated and how they could be sure that his calculation was reasonable? I presume they would have wanted to double-check his estimate and the basis for it and that their experts would have been able to do that, rather than just take his word for it.

Do I rightly recall a debacle a few years ago where the Department of Finance kept miscalculating a figure (by over a billion) even though there was a paper trail indicating that their miscalculation was repeatedly drawn to their attention and they did nothing about it?

So who have we watching out to protect us and who guards the guards? – Yours, etc,

ED McDONALD,

Stradbrook Road,

Blackrock,

Co Dublin.