Sir, - The recent series of scandals has confirmed one thing for me. That is that, even though I never much liked the competitive market economy, Irish big business and business people like it even less! What they want, and have largely got, is an unregulated, non-competitive market.
The banks compete to get customers, using all the tools of modern marketing. But they know they don't have to compete to keep them because 80 per cent of us will stay with the bank we start with. So they sell themselves heavily to get us in and then reclaim their marketing costs through ludicrous charges and usurious interest rates.
Without real price competition they have of course become vastly profitable. This profitability, in turn, is touted as justification for the astronomical salaries executives award themselves.
Institutions are the major shareholders in all our publicly quoted banks. These institutions have executives who also believe they deserve huge salaries. So when they are present at an a.g.m. they support their colleagues by seeing to it that awkward questions about salaries are disposed of quickly.
Otherwise, we might find out what a really competitive market judged was the appropriate salary for banking executives - most of whom have never taken a risk in their lives! - Yours, etc.,
Senator Brendan Ryan
Bishopstown, Cork.