As someone who has only a modest understanding of the continuing financial crisis that has seen Ireland brought to it's knees in recent years, I was particularly interested in the question posed by Vincent Browne to Klaus Masuch last week in a press conference with the European Central Bank.
For the uninitiated Vincent Browne is an old school Irish journalist of print and TV fame and Klaus Masuch is a representative of the ECB. The ECB have become like bankrupt Ireland's bank manager - flying in for meetings to see how we're doing, telling us how much more we need to give them, how, and by when.
Last week members of the ECB \ EU \ IMF held a press conference in Ireland after the latest round of 'talks'.
I'll hand over to Vincent now so that he can get an answer to his question about why Ireland is still required to pay billions of euro to unguaranteed bondholders of a defunct bank even though there is no threat to the financial sector by not doing so because the bank is, erm, well defunct...
I realise it's a bit Father Ted v The Gestapo, and no one is suggesting that Ireland is blameless for part of the crisis we're facing - but this particular little problem of billions of unsecured bonds? Well no actually - that is not our fault.
And Klaus knows it.
Because that is the fault of the fat cats, the bankers, the hedge fund managers, the very top politicians - not just in Ireland mind, but in Europe and the United States.
They are the dodgy dealers, they are the ones who carved up mortgage bonds, shuffled them like a deck of cards, then traded on worthless stock, they are the ones who shorted the market, and they are the ones who walked away with their fat multi-million pound bonuses.
The rest is just ordinary people trying to find a decent house to live in and having enough left over for the odd family trip to the cinema.
And no one cares about them now do they?
Well if you do happen care then why not click here to send Klaus an email, because at the very least we deserve an answer don't we?
So c'mon Klaus ANSWER THE QUESTION!
