Banking legislation could inspire a new Charlie Haughey?

Thankfully the Council of State, unlike the Dáil, is willing to meet in Christmas week.
There must be a strong possibility that the President will refer the new banking legislation to the Supreme Court as some of its provisions e.g. denial of the right of appeal to the courts, appear to be unconstitutional.

In conferring such powers on a politician, let’s not forget that Charles Haughey enjoyed extraordinary latitude in his banking arrangements with AIB, enabled by the implicit threat of misuse of his political power to inflict serious economic damage on that bank.

Now the Finance Minister has given himself draconian, possibly unconstitutional, powers which pose an explicit threat to any bank which risks his ire.

In such circumstances, it is essential that we now have full disclosure of the nature and scope of all banking relationships of our elected politicians and the political parties.

It would be foolish to imagine that all our politicians are to be trusted or that we’ll never have another CJH!