Quite how the Minister for Finance and Taoiseach, not to mention the cabinet were absent from the substantive negotiations of quite the most import deal in the history of the state is beyond belief - and doesn't even seem to have entered public consciousness or political controversy yet.

Seems a good time to use this issue to give the pot a vigorous stir, though possibly in a separate LTE. My suggestion is that three factors entered into this:

1. Cowan and other FF politicians were terrified of this issue and wanted to keep their fingerprints off of it to the extent possible.

2. They have too little understanding of economics to deal effectively with problems of international finance.

3. This is justified by the neo-liberal/neo-classical economics myth that economics is a separate realm from politics and has to be allowed to function according to its own laws -- the better for the economy to eat the society and pass the "profits" to the wealthy. "Filthy lucre" indeed!