As one who takes the odd flutter on the stock market I have now realised that buying and trading shares in Irish banks was a bit like buying a five-year membership for the leisure centre on the Titanic and the end result would probably be similar.
The last of our great financial institutions, whose shares were suspended recently, probably won't survive as a stand alone identity. Looking back over the past two years it was obvious that banks would not survive because of their reckless approach to lending. When the reality set in we weren't warned.
Banks were allowed to continue trading even though they couldn't meet their commitments. To make matters worse they weren't up front with the facts on their finances and the regulator turned a blind eye.
Anyone in business knows well that it is a criminal offence to trade when you are insolvent. This practice carries a heavy fine or imprisonment for those who behave in this fashion. Obviously there is a two-tier system of regulation in this regard depending on who you are and the type of power you wield.
The Irish stock market has had its share of ups and downs over the years. Pillars of society who fronted high-powered companies on the Irish stock market became spectacular failures and gullible Irish shareholders lost their shirts. Very few of those people were investigated after these fiascos. In many cases they were rewarded and their methods of doing business supported at the expense of the shareholders.
The recent stress tests on our banking system shows we need another €24 billion, a nice round figure - €24,000,000,000 and not €23,500,525,550. They probably rounded it off as it was easier to pronounce the figures.
More than likely these figures are not credible. We don't have a clue how many borrowers will be able to pay back their loans. We don't have a clue how many people are going to be out of work in 12 months from now, we don't have a clue how the businesses of Ireland are going to perform over the next 12 months and we don't have a clue how much taxes the government will collect. Will Irish people trust the banks? Will Irish people rush out to buy shares again in Irish banks?
Have we learned anything from the past with the great eircom flotation? If banks cannot convince customers to lodge money and buy shares, where will the money come from to lend to businesses? It's a chicken and egg situation. In this scenario nobody knows which came first or which will crack first.
The plan is fewer banks, smaller banks, leaner banks and probably 'meaner banks'. We don't have to look to the future; we have it all at present. Most Irish people's finances in Irish banks have become smaller and leaner, with fewer options to turn their fortune around or keep people at work.
Last week I got my own stress tested to try and find out if I had been badly burned. When you lose any investment through no fault of your own your stress tests may run into overdrive.
While we have great sympathy for bondholders in case they get burned we felt perfectly happy to cremate Irish investors. In the latest round of stress tests the Irish investors haven't been mentioned let alone refunded. The stress tests will probably cost the taxpayer millions with no guarantees that our economy will survive or even be in a position to pay off our enormous debt.
Recently we finally got the answers as to who was responsible for the collapse of our banks. The latest Finnish financial expert has given us a breakdown on what finished off the banks and guess who was responsible for the fiasco? The answer: nobody was responsible, so let's move on now that we have the answers to the burning questions that bothered us for the past year.
Minister Noonan says the latest round of bailouts will not be shouldered by the Irish taxpayer, so who pays? We have borrowed €100 billion on behalf of the Irish taxpayer to bail our Irish banks that are now worth about €4 billion so will the banks pay back the €100 billion? It's lunacy in any business scenario and it shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Where was the EU regulator while this was happening? Why did they not meddle in our affairs like they have done on other issues over the years?

As a nation with a population similar to Greater Manchester it is unbelievable that so many people played a part in our downfall and nobody said enough is enough. It was a case of enough is never enough. As we came to a conclusion recently on a 14-year long tribunal, are we about to start another to keep us all amused for the next decade? Will there be another tribunal of enquiry into where it all went wrong? It may be a better option to wait to see where the €24 billion will leave our economy, either fixed or broken.
It now looks like the Irish banks will be obliged to sell off any profitable assets and we're left with lame ducks. The gamblers in the form of bondholders will be rewarded for their gambling at the expense of the Irish taxpayer. It doesn't come across as a logical, prudent solution to any financial disaster.
If this final plan doesn't work we will end up with smaller, leaner and meaner ghost banks that may not survive into the good times, after all the profitable assets are disposed of. I hope I'm wrong.