Let me see if I have this right. Quinn Group has debts of €4 billion, €2.8 billion of which is owed to Anglo. Quinn Group used some of this money to acquire shares in Anglo which it has lost about €3 billion on. Now Anglo is proposing to take over Quinn Group including its insurance arm but the Financial Regulator isn’t happy with this idea and is going ahead with appointing administrators for Quinn Insurance. (Irish Times story here.) And people are on the streets protesting against the Regulator, apparently favouring a return to light-touch regulation. It’s all pretty strange stuff.
The serious point here: We are where we are in large part due to very serious regulatory failures. If the first time our new regulator steps in and deals with what he sees as serious failures to comply with regulations, there is any sense of the government (any arm of it) stepping in to protect those who failed to comply, then this would do serious damage to our attempts to build an image of having made a fresh start on the regulatory front.