Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Friday (June 28) condemned the conduct of Irish bankers who were caught on tape joking about a bailout deal and mocking Germany, calling the recordings a 'thunderbolt' damaging the country's reputation.

"I agree with the comments of the Chancellor last night in respect of her comments about revelations from tapes concerning Anglo Irish Bank. These tapes are a thunderbolt. They show the contempt and the arrogance and the insolence of senior personnel working in that bank towards everybody - towards government, towards citizens, with impact on every company, every community, and every family in our country," he said.

"This has damaged our reputation, but I think that every leader in the room at the European Council understands that this was a time in the past insofar as far as Ireland was concerned. And we do need to be able to examine the culture of the so-called "tiger years" which led to this situation of a toxic nexus between the banking world and the world of government and senior personnel," he added.