“Quinn is trying to scare us into thinking these bondholders are going to come in…”

From the Irish Times… David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, believed Seán Quinn was trying to “scare” the bank into lending him more money as the financial crisis deepened in June 2008. Tape recordings of conversations between bankers inside Anglo reveal the bank believed Mr Quinn was threatening it to keep funding his position in Anglo, which was held using contracts for difference (CFDs), or risk his international bondholders seizing control of his empire. This would …

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Conned

Unnerving. This is a must read in today’s Irish Times. It was originally printed last week in the German newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’. Entitled, ‘Conned’: a German view of Ireland, it gives an insight into the ‘conning’ of Ireland – over several decades – by its political masters with some added comment and footnotes by Derek Scally. Drawing a line through failures to negotiate an equitable fisheries deal with the EEC in 1973, through Ray Burke and Bertie Aherns giveaway of …

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After the #AngloTapes revelations, “you cannot put people in jail for stupidity…”

This a great conversation from last night’s Prime Time Special (apologies for cutting out Paul Williams of the Irish Indo who’s scoop is driving most of this renewed and energetic discussion)… Worth highlighting is Colm McCarthy’s point that whilst any Irish citizen can download a 2000 page report of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers, there is virtually no bank by bank explanation as to how every single bank in the country had to be bailed out by either the Irish …

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Shane Ross on calls for an Inquiry: “This is already a political battlefield…”

Following up on John’s post, Shane Ross said on RTE this morning that any inquiry into the Anglo Banking mess must be take place outside the political arena. He noted that Labour is already attacking Sinn Fein over their support of the bank guarantee scheme back in 2008. As John has already pointed out this is very delicate politically for Fianna Fail (tune in for Leaders Questions this afternoon for the first installment)… Ross says the courts should be the …

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#Anglotapes: If they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide they have a choice.

Following the release of tapes of Anglo staff discussing how they present their case for support, in the lead up to the bank guarantee, there are more revelations in todays Irish Independent (which has been breaking the story). You can listen to the tapes via the Indo’s website (at the links above), but here are a couple of key quotes, as transcribed by the Journal.ie: Bowe on what the actual monetary requirement could be: That number is seven [billion] but …

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