Brian Lenihan, the minister for finance, rang Cathal Goan, the RTE director-general, to complain about the Liveline programme last Thursday week. Lenihan was upset because Joe Duffy, the programme’s presenter, was suggesting that customers should not trust their banks.

It was irresponsible, the government felt, to create alarm among the general public by discussing the stability of our banking system on the airwaves.

It’s called a credit crunch because banks have stopped giving one another credit. They are afraid to lend each other money and not even the $700 billion (€479 billion) from Hank Paulson, the American treasury secretary, can fix that fundamental lack of trust between banks, regulators and politicians.

So let me get this straight: the banks do not trust each other, but we’re supposed to trust them?

Regular readers will know that I have little patience for the hysterical overreaction of the ill-informed. But on this occasion, callers to Liveline were not inventing anxiety — it was for real.

Up until the past fortnight, I’d been observing the global financial meltdown from the same distance as I’d watched news reports of gang assassinations in far-off suburbs. It’s dreadful, of course, but it’s just bad guys killing each other. What’s a few thousand less Wall St brokers to me? I have a zero-tolerance approach to financial risk and refuse even to take out a pension, as I won’t expose my savings to the vagaries of the stock market. And yes, I confess, I’d been feeling a bit smug about that decision lately.

Then an innocent bystander was killed by a stray bullet. I began to get the uncomfortable feeling that my cash on deposit with a bank was entering the line of fire. Why did people keep mentioning the very bank where my money sits quietly gathering dust and a miserable interest rate? Of course, I know that the Irish government won’t let a bank go under. I know that even

if a bank did collapse, deposits would be safe. The newspapers assure me that rumours of an Irish bank’s demise are the work of dirty rotten short-sellers who thrive on the misery of others.

But up until last weekend, the only cast-iron guarantee I had was that 90% of customers’ deposits up to a limit of €20,000 was secured by the government. I didn’t want to lose 10% of my money. I didn’t want to lose 1% of my money. The butterfly was flapping its wings in China. Was the financial tsunami heading this way? I began to ring my establishment friends looking for a little assurance. I didn’t get any.

The insiders I spoke to were panicking like billyo. Business people, stockbroking types and financial journalists either didn’t want to talk about it, which was bad enough, or warned me to get my money, quick, and stuff it under the nearest mattress.

I fretted and rang around some more. “Look,” the men-in-suits said. “Even if your bank goes down the tubes, you will probably get your money. But it could get tied up in paperwork for months so you should get it out now, while you can. Stuff it in the Post Office.” I hadn’t even listened to Liveline. My own phone lines were live with the financial anxiety of those-in-the-know.

So where did Lenihan get off complaining to RTE? He’s the one who turned green when he took a look at the books after his big promotion. Does he expect us to believe that his civil servants and central bankers are having long lunches and wondering what all the fuss is about? No — panic is for the insiders who can take steps to protect themselves when the pyramid scheme comes crashing down. The function of the public is to pick up the tab. To keep the system working, we have to be the last ones to know that the money is gone.

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