Just to be clear Ireland's bankers for the most part have so far escaped anything harsher than public censure. These guys committed the unforgivable sin of act

Just to be clear Ireland's bankers for the most part have so far escaped anything harsher than public censure. These guys committed the unforgivable sin of actually thinking they were doing the morally correct thing, encouraged tacitly by a hapless regulator and a terrified government. They did something so obvious and so transparent exactly because they felt they had the assent of the establishment. They just literally lent another bank 7.2 billion so it could say all was well and thus "save" the country from financial meltdown.