Anglo Irish Bank gave €300 million non-recourse loans to prop up the controversial banks share price as Sean Quinn's family, unwound its position in Anglo stock last year. Some of these weren't real loans; there were no personal guarantees or other assets assigned which usually cover loans to buy shares twice over. Some of the loans were secured purely by the shares which are now worth nothing. Just how this was sanctioned by the bank compliance officers and lending committee and overseen by the Financial Regulator is quite extraordinary.

We can no longer rely entirely on the investigations under corporate law by the Director of Corporate Enforcement, it's time to appoint an inspector both to Anglo Irish Bank and to the Financial Regulator, to publish a belt and braces report on its activities and lay the grounds for any prosecution for market rigging within the bank and make public how the regulatory system failed so badly. Not only is this required so that we can learn what happened but it is now vital to restore international investor confidence that we intend managing our affairs properly. You and I are left with up to €300 million in unrecoverable loans from some of Ireland's richest people. No wonder public sector workers were fuming at the recklessness of the banks this week.

Public sector workers are feeling very sore. Nobody, likes to take a pay cut especially the low paid who are angry and want to lash out but in the melee the truth can get lost;

• The economic cost of a pension linked to grade increases is worth an additional 20% to 30% in pay each year. That's the average but promotions to top jobs near retirement can be worth many times annual salary. Even with the new rates set by the Government's unilateral decision, the private sector is still hugely subsidising public sector pensions.
• We'd hoped this year that one Euro in three of taxes collected would cover the €20 billion pay and pensions bill, but now it's costing one Euro in two and the gap of at least €18 billion has to be borrowed. A cut was unavoidable.
• The airwaves have been full of hard stories especially from the low paid but nobody is losing their jobs, their guaranteed increments based on years of service, or their pensions. Meanwhile an extra 30,000 jobs have been lost in January alone in the private sector and by year end we may have 400,000 unemployed. Not one of these job losses will be in the Public Sector.
• Even after this pay cut disguised as a pension levy, Public Sector pay is still hugely above Private sector pay. The vast majority of workers in the private sector have no pensions, are facing bigger pay cuts, loss of bonuses and the cold fear of unemployment on a little over €200 per week. Most of those that have pensions have watched their values halve over recent years and underperform inflation for ten years.

This week's tense spat is just the start. After bungling the crisis with denial, delay and prevarication the Government has been finally forced to grasp the nettle and face the consequences of the bad decisions it made in letting benchmarking runaway with itself. But expect much more soon as the Government seeks to avoid bankruptcy if tax revenues prove much worse than Dept of Finance predictions. The void created by the Government's failure to show credible leadership since the advent of the economic crisis has escalated from a general feeling of apprehension into a very dangerous level of fear and alarm. People with money aren't spending it leading to further job losses and more fear. What we need is an agile Government that can call a halt to the spiral of fear. What we've got this week is an improvement but ultimately we'll need a new Government with a fresh mandate forged in a testing general election where the people decide on who has the most competent plans to lead us out of recession.

Next up is the recapitalisation of the banks. There needs to be a clear out of all boards, the creation of the bad bank model supported by existing shareholders capital and the injection of our capital into banks free of toxic debt. The shareholders in AIB and Bank of Ireland who bet on ever more aggressive lending need to pay the price of having their capital reserves switched to the bad bank while we get on with rebuilding our shattered and discredited banking model. That means The State dictating new terms and taking a much larger stake.