Ireland's banks are weathering the global economic storm that has claimed two of New York's four largest investment banks, the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan said this afternoon.
Speaking at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting in Galway, in the wake of the collapse of Lehman
Brothers and the submerging of Merrill Lynch into Bank of America, Mr Lenihan said: "I think that the Taoiseach and myself are entitled to talk about international factors after that."
"The news that two of the four principal merchant banks in New York no longer exist today is dramatic news in the banking world," he said, during a break in the two-day meeting.
"Clearly, it is tremendous that our banking system has shown resilience in the face of such banking trends. Our banks uniquely have weathered the storm to date despite many more venerable institutions being unable to do that," he said.
