There's a great book written by a civil servant in Ireland's foreign ministry in the 80s.
He said he had two maps on his wall, one of the eastern bloc enemy and a bigger one of his minister's constituency - a crisis (eg a pothole) in the constituency was the priority.
Most of these are high street banks (equivalent to S+L) that were making housing loans. You want to tell pensioners that their life savings are gone and the government is not going to do anything?
It might work - but it also means people will stop putting their money into banks, which means no credit cards, no business loans, no mortgages, no saving, no insurance.
So everybody will only deal in cash which means no taxes.
Admittedly ireland is probably closer to a 12th century barter economy than the rest of europe - but I don't think it really wants to go there.