Now I Wish I Were Irish

And it has nothing to do with harps, beer in its various forms, the natural beauty of the land, or the stunning red heads with milky white skins.

Instead, I envy them their banking regulators:

Allied Irish Banks, the lender that is being bailed out by the government, has decided not to award senior staff about 40 million euros ($53 million) in bonuses for 2008 after the country’s finance ministry intervened late Monday.

Ireland’s finance minister, Brian Lenihan, told RTE radio on Tuesday that it was “galling to think” that at a time when taxpayers were investing in the bank, 36 million to 40 million euros “would be paid out of that bank to employees in respect to bonuses during a period that the bank got itself into the difficulties it is now in.”

The bank has already received 3.5 billion euros in government aid.

The ministry acted after months of public outrage over the bonuses to be paid to 2,400 senior bank managers at a time when Ireland was seeking an international bailout of 85 billion euros, largely because of weaknesses in its banking sector. In a letter Monday to the Allied Irish board, Mr. Lenihan said that further cash injections by the government — which the bank desperately needs — were dependent on the condition that no bonuses be paid.

“The provision of further state funding to A.I.B. will be conditional, inter alia, on the nonpayment of any bonuses, no matter when they may have been earned,” Mr. Lenihan wrote. He told the cabinet at a meeting Tuesday that the provision on the bonuses would be added to a bank restructuring bill being discussed.

I wish I lived in a country that regulated its banking sector as honestly and effectively as the Irish.

If you are uncertain as to whether that last sentence is serious of sarcastic, well so am I.