Economy

Ireland’s Four Year “National Recovery” Plan

| Readers 16

The Irish Government has announced details of its, IMF/ECB agreed, four year national recovery plan [pdf file].  The BBC provides some key points.  And The Guardian continues its live-coverage of Ireland’s financial crisis. 2.37pm: Cowen has explained that negotiations with the IMF are based on the assumption that €6bn of the €15bn cutbacks will be implemented in 2011. That means that 40% of the total programme is ‘front-loaded’. The aim is to slash Ireland’s deficit to 3% of its GDP. …

Read more…

Coalition must address Northern Ireland’s exposure to Republic’s banks

| Readers 9

Gavin has dug out this instructive interview with Patrick Neary the former Irish Financial Regulator. It’s just after the Irish Government’s comprehensive bank guarantee. Neary repeatedly insists that the Irish banking system was adequately capitalised. This presumably is what he told Minister Lenihan too. But as Pete picked up at the time, the Guarantee was issued on Monday, by Thursday Morgan Kelly was already warning the real problem was not being addressed (emphasis added): Effectively the Irish banks are heading …

Read more…

Fintan O’Toole sounds great but he’s got it wrong

| Readers 78

The Republic supports two latter day raging Jonathan Swifts, Vincent Browne who  had the plug pulled on him by RTE and Fintan O’Toole. To be sure, there’s a horrible banality as well as tragedy about being in hock to bankers just as it was to 19th landlords or ironclad industrial capitalists. Fintan  comes close to recommending revolt, surely a risky approach at this time of high anxiety and volatility. And where is the real strategy in this howl of protest? The primary goal of the IMF-EU …

Read more…

Bank of Ireland – Government takes a majority stake

| Readers 4

… according to Reuters anyway and coming after a long plunge in today’s trading and a decision to hold a firesale of the family silver. They’re stopping short of full nationalisation though. It’s casting fresh doubt on the credibility of the stress-testing that both the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank went through in July. Not much more detail than that available at the moment, but we’ll keep you posted. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and …

Read more…

“It is the long term nature of this crisis that is just beginning to gain recognition.”

| Readers 5

If there was any uncertainty about the markets’ reaction yesterday to Ireland’s bail-out, and to subsequent events, today’s plummeting Irish bank shares and more evidence of the fear of contagion in the markets should remove all doubt. The euro has hit a seven-week low against the dollar and global stock markets retreated today on fears that the Republic’s debt crisis may spread to other European countries with large budget deficits. Investors fear that Portugal and Spain may also have to seek financial help. The Spanish …

Read more…

Irish Times Letters

| Readers 28

Irish Times Letters – Can’t quite link directly but two fabulous letters in today’s Irish Times: 1) Madam, If all our heroes and patriots stopped turning in their graves we might get some stability – Yours etc. Bill Ambrose, Dublin. 2) A chara – Following the generous offerings of aid from other quarters, can I ask if anything has been heard from the Choctaw Nation? – Is mise, Sean O Coilean, Corcaigh. DewiWelsh Nationalist. Rugby Fan. Know a bit about …

Read more…

Owen Paterson: “in facing the challenges and exploiting every opportunity offered we function best when we are a team”

| Readers 3

While the Irish Government struggles to cope with the game of geo-political hardball they are engaged in, the BBC reports that our own special little pleaders – the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers – have issued a statement following a meeting of the UK Joint Ministerial Committee. In case you didn’t know The Joint Ministerial Committee is established by the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Its purpose …

Read more…

FF: Just too cute this time?

| Readers 6

Today FF and the Greens looked interested in leaving behind bobby traps for any incoming government as they face a humiliating removal from office. Both have declared their actions as in the national interest. But how much of recent events have been about FF, in particular trying to minimise their forthcoming time in the electoral wilderness and how much is really about the national interest? Following the Doherty court challenge and his likely victory in DSW, with further by-elections in …

Read more…

Stephanomics: “broad lessons for the eurozone are already clear, and not encouraging”

| Readers 4

Market Moves notes the reaction to today’s events in their London Market’s closing comments Worries over stability in the Emerald Isle are being compounded as the bailout becomes more and more political by the day, with the opposition party Fine Gael calling for a snap general election, citing public distrust over the handling of the crisis. The risk of contagion still lingers over European markets, with traders now eyeing up the next sacrificial lamb. Spanish and Italian markets are down …

Read more…

Olli Rehn: ‘it is likely unfortunately to imply tax increases’

| Readers 3

I’d wait for the detail, Brian, before declaring anything ‘safe’.  RTÉ reports the latest comments from European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, on Ireland’s bail-out application.  From the RTÉ report European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn has reiterated that Ireland would no longer be a low tax economy. When asked in an interview with RTÉ News if the corporate tax rate was now off the table for good, Mr Rehn said that by Ireland ceasing …

Read more…

The Minister for Hardship

| Readers 14

I understand that this clip is a send-up of former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, but it’s got a bit of currency left, hasn’t it? (Hat tip: Padraig Reidy) In other news, Duncan has three questions which partly boil down into one big one: Is Ireland really the place to adopt the mantra that ‘the markets have failed – we need more markets’? And Charlie McMenemin (no mean blogger himself) has some very pertinent questions in Duncan’s comment thread about how recent …

Read more…

On Ireland and the case for Scottish independence

| Readers 33

One wonders whether in the future small and medium-sized countries will begin to worry when commentators start using their economies as case-studies: whom the gods of economic history wish to destroy, first they make them examples from which wider lessons should be drawn? Everyone remembers that this was the case with Ireland and its apparent economic miracle. For free-marketeers, Ireland showed the virtues of providing a business-friendly environment with its competitive cuts in corporation tax. Young George Osborne, for example, …

Read more…

Economic Crisis Blogburst 5: Outsourcing the nation’s debt?

| Readers 5

– Okay, let’s start off with Gavin Sheridan on The Cycle of Market Emotions… Some of which you can pick up in the letters page of the Irish Times this morning… – And the Independent reports the bail out could come to as much as €100 Billion… – Phillip Lane at IrishEconomy.ie worries that (with a mild economic recovery in the offing) the price of back pay may be a further crippling of growth in the Irish economy: Given the …

Read more…

“Could a bank bring down a country?”

| Readers 4

As was indicated previously, the Irish Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, has confirmed the conditions under which a bail-out will be required Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has said that it is clear Ireland will need some sort of external assistance to address the problems in the banking sector. Mr Lenihan said officials from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union were not in Dublin to direct Irish affairs, but to offer advice on the four-year budgetary plan and …

Read more…

Backfilling a black-hole

| Readers 4

Our very own tragicomedy appears in the form of elites whose strategic choices are made contradictory by the fact that, in their haste to wage their own class war against the peoples of Europe, they surreptitiously undermine the very currency union which was their own idea for facilitating capital accumulation on the continent

DETI seeking disqualification of 6 PMS directors

| Readers 31

The News Letter reports that the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry has written to six directors of the [in adminstration] Presbyterian Mutual Society [PMS] to inform them that the department has decided “that it is in the public interest to seek disqualification orders” against them.  From the News Letter report The DETI letter said the intention to disqualify the accused was based on conduct which “makes you unfit to be concerned in the management of a limited company”. …

Read more…

“In hindsight…”

| Readers 5

In the Irish Times Stephen Collins signs off with a line on the electoral prospects of Fianna Fáil that’s worth considering as the ECB and the IMF have those detailed discussions in Dublin. The voters who rewarded it for being so irresponsible in the good times are likely to be merciless now that everything has gone so badly wrong. Read the whole thing. Pete Baker

Economic Crisis Blogburst 4: The collision of dreams and reality

| Readers 6

– Michael Hennigan of Finfacts explains just why the big boys are in old Dublin town today… – And, the word from the FT… Ireland’s basic problem is that it now has to choose between its own sovereign solvency and the solvency of its banks. Other European countries – in and out of the eurozone – may soon face the same choice. In such a world, keeping banks afloat with public capital risks sinking the sovereign – and with it, the …

Read more…