The Irish approach to crisis management is elegantly summarised in this picture, which you can buy here, but the argument for doing nothing is well made by Ciaran O'Hagan on Irish Economy today. Ciaran writes:
The “muddle through”, do nothing, option is more attractive if the government has a rosy view of future growth prospects. If however it is fearful that growth will be anaemic over the coming years, with little to no inflation, then there is all the more urgency to take action now in order to safeguard the integrity of the signature of the state.
There is no denying that such action is hard to undertake, and involves risk. Moreover some action that was available to foreign governments is not as easy to implement in Ireland. The Irish Constitution provides an unusually strong defence of property rights. I have no doubt however that a government would have the necessary leeway if the public understands that its purpose is to allow wider sharing of losses at banks.
Karl Whelan has a different take, however. He sees the Anglo disaster, and the policy response to it, as a series of systems failures.
Today’s announcement is a failure on so many levels that I can honestly say that, even by the low standards that have been set up to now by this government in its handling of the banking crisis, I fear we may have reached a new nadir.
Both pieces are well worth reading today, in their entirety.