The European Central Bank was guilty of a “major failure of supervision” in not restraining European banks from fuelling the Irish property bubble, according to a former prime minister of Ireland.
John Bruton, prime minister in the 1994-97 centre-right Fine Gael-led coalition, on Monday accused British, German, Belgian and French banks of “irresponsible lending . . . in the hope that they too could profit from the Irish construction bubble.”
Mr Bruton, who also formerly served as a European Union ambassador to Washington, said in a speech to the London School of Economics these banks had “lots of information available to them about spiralling house prices in Ireland”.