The Financial Regulator has decided to retire early. After doing the career equivalent of being Brezhnev's body double after the great man died, Paddy Neary finally jumped ship. An internal report gave his office a good kicking for its handling of the Anglo-Irish Bank "let's allow executives to hide loans from everyone, which is eeeerily like criminal activity (allegedly) but isn't, because they were going to give the money back, honest" scandal.
Well, that's about time he went, isn't it. He fell honourably on his sw...I mean, he put his hands up to his ultimate respons...Well, he saw it com...
...He took early retirement rather than risk being sacked and humiliated. How brave! His office did nothing to prevent bankers behaving recklessly with other people's money. Officials under his command instead alternated their activities between updating their Facebook pages and burying their heads up their arses. His office wasn't up to the job of regulating Neary's private sector buddies and the blame was placed not on him as the F.R., but on lower level types, who failed to pass on warnings of the Anglo shenanigans to the top dogs in the Financial Regulator's office. "I'm going, but it was the underling's fault" is the message of his departure: The buck stopped somewhere near reception.
He'll no doubt be rewarded for his essential negligence with a cosy state pension and without censure or reprimand officially blemishing his Resume. Wonderful that he had the foresight to avoid that disaster.
There is something even more galling to note about this. Aside from witnessing the cowardly sneaking off of an official who did some disservice to this state, not one thing will be learned from the sorry episode. The banking sector, now in free fall, will once again be allowed to behave like kids in a sweet shop the next time things are good. Which will again hamper efforts in the struggle with Ireland's underlying economic vulnerability and our essential greed.
If he fancies, Neary has one option to while away his newly found free time. He could get a part time job giving out dole money, though it might be stressful for him. The queues for his counter would be massive. Sure it'd be easier than winning the Lotto!
