The European Central Bank’s actions had cost Ireland billions of euros in the financial crash, Stephen Donnelly said

Opposition parties have called for wide-ranging reforms after the publication of the banking inquiry report.

Stephen Donnelly, co-leader of the Social Democrats, said that the state should consider taking legal action against the European Central Bank.

He claimed the report showed that, in effect, the ECB bullied the state into a bailout and barred it from burning bondholders, which could have saved the country billions of euros.

“The report demonstrates that the ECB explicitly threatened the Irish state on at least two separate occasions — in November 2010 and March 2011,” Mr Donnelly said.

“We now know that they threatened that if senior bondholders had losses imposed, the ECB would withdraw emergency liquidity assistance to Irish banks. This could have had a very negative effect