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Drama on 4: The Bail-Out

The Bail-Out

24/02/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, The Bail-Out

Ireland's acceptance of an IMF bail-out marked the end of a dream of easy prosperity.

The crisis Election following a government collapse has forced the Irish to ask some hard questions about greed, graft and collective responsibility.

On Feb 24th 2011 (the Eve of the Irish General Election) we flashback to the end of November 2010, when Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, made an announcement that confirmed the nation's spectacular decline from economic miracle to European basket-case. A decade of mismanagement and barefaced corruption had left the economy in freefall. 
The Bailout chronicles the resignations, the rancour, the public fury and the gradual dissolution of a parliament barely able to ratify the IMF loan before it collapses in disarray at the end of January 2011. And we follow events as they unfold right up to the eve of the general election on 25th February the day after our broadcast.
Using an urgent, fast-moving drama-documentary approach, The Bail-Out follows 3 months of tumult - which leaves the British listener thinking, there but for the grace of God.....
Karen Ardiff, Richard Dormer, Pat Fitzsymons and Ali White star as two couples one in Dublin and one in London, who are forced to come to terms with the collapse of what they realise was an illusion of prosperity, and must decide what the hell they are going to do now. With Mark Lambert as Professor Culloty a Professor of Economics and Niall Cusack as a campaigning journalist, Ger McQuaid.
Director Eoin O'Callaghan
Writer Hugh Costello and producer Eoin O'Callaghan have a proven track record when it comes to interrogating the shibboleths of modern Ireland. Their recent Radio 4 collaborations include Smoke and Daggers, which exposed the amoral underbelly of the Celtic Tiger, and What the Bishops Knew, which shone a revealing light on the Catholic church's inept response to the abuse crisis.


CAST

Annie Clancy - Karen Ardiff 
And Niall Clancy - Patrick Fitzsymons 
Colm Keating - Richard Dormer
Lorraine Keating - Ali White
Eamon Cullotty -Mark Lambert 
Ger McQuaid - Niall Cusack 
The Radio Presenter - Miche Doherty
And a Woman in street - Aine McCartney 

Producer - Eoin O'Callaghan.

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