'Nobody knew' extent of banking crisis, says Cowen
Former Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen defends his government's 2008 bank guarantee, claiming they were unaware of the full extent of the financial crisis at the time. He maintains that the decision was necessary to prevent a total collapse of the banking system.
Why it matters
This provides historical context on the Irish financial crisis and the political decision-making process during the 2008 economic downturn.
Former taoiseach Brian Cowen, in an Irish language interview with RTE's Fóram programme, has denied that his government knew the full extent of the hole in Anglo Irish Bank's finances at the time they introduced the bank guarantee in September 2008.
''Nobody knew! And the full truth about that was not clear until the following January," he said.
"So, there were three months where we were in with the new people who had taken it over, and it was then that we saw how much worse it was than anyone had thought - not just in that bank but in all of the banks."
This was at the peak of a global financial crisis that came about because of vast shortages of liquidity across the world's banking system. Banks feared that they would run out of the cash that enabled them to operate from day to day.
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