The Guarantee

On the night of September 29, 2008, the Irish government decided to guarantee the entire domestic banking system. That decision was made by a handful of men in a room in the middle of the night. By the time the costs can be fully counted, in another 30 years or so, it will have cost over EUR60 billion - the most expensive bank rescue in history. 'The Guarantee' tells the story of that night, and what led to it. Starting four years earlier, it charts the peak of the boom and the beginning of the bust. The first half of the drama is a story of hubris: how the Irish establishment blithely ignored the warning signs from abroad, and from its own Cassandras, and failed to rein in the property market and the wider economy. The second half of the drama shows the key players in the establishment as they struggle to come to terms with the unfolding of the consequences of their earlier hubris, during the month of September 2008, as the global banking system buckled and the Irish economy faced ...