It’s not often I get to Mass in my home parish of Holywood, but I was there last Sunday. A number of things struck me. One is that attenders are mostly of the older demographic, with, by and large, my own 70s generation taking up the rear. And two, that the collections are proportionally not pulling in anything like they were thirty years ago. Whilst I don’t imagine exactly same rules apply to Holywood as might say in inner city …
Spelling out the full horror of it, Robert Peston describes a crisis even deeper than publicly admitted. The one glimmer of hope is that the rich States of the EU and other major investors now admit they are intimately implicated. Rather than presenting themselves as strict but magnanimous bailers out of little Ireland, they are gradually being forced to recognise their self-interest in a better system to protect ther own savers who invested in Ireland in the first place. And yet the final form of that recognition …
Is there an alternative strategy after all? Might the euro’s continuing adversity become Ireland’s opportunity? The first thing to notice is that the Irish government rejected the Financial Times’ stern advice and succumbed to overwhelming pressure. Ireland is readying itself to sign the dotted line of a rescue package foisted on it by Europe. It should not accept before securing terms that avert a bail-out of European lenders paid for by Irish taxpayers thrown into debt bondage. Although we won’t …
“The best under the circumstances”, says Cowen or “almost unaffordable” according to Noonan? The battle lines for the general election are drawn up immediately. But the contest won’t be about real alternatives. It’ll be about how the Irish people respond to a settlement they have to work through whoever is in power, give or take a tweak or two. This poses a big challenge for Michael Noonan, Joan Bruton and the rest of the government in waiting. They have to change …
As flagged up by Mack yesterday, the Irish Times reports that the EU/ECB/IMF team is examining how to force bondholders to share the burden with Irish taxpayers of the 15 billion euro deficit reduction plan. At present attention centres on two similar schemes. In the first, bank debt would be converted into equity shares. In the second, bond investors would be given the choice of injecting fresh capital into banks or face a cut in their investment. This seems an …
Economists and the markets are rating Irish political stability morer highly than I would have thought. The prominence of their concern undermines the despairing view that whoever forms the next government doesn’t much matter. It’s the EU,IMF, the markets whoever…. that really run the show. I pay attention when Stephen Collins political editor of the Irish Times states confidently that the Budget will pass despite TDs ” huffing and puffing”. Stephen is among the government’s most scorching critics but he believes they …
As I feared and after all the hype, the presumed coping stone for a Northern Ireland expansion strategy has been kicked in the long grass. ( Did Cameron stub his toe?) Even though the 12.5 % company tax looks safe in the Republic, (although still tbc) the British government has balked at introducing a similar rate for Northern Ireland, according to the Prime Minister in an interview with the Bel Tel. The reasons are not hard to find and are overwhelmingly …
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 …
Nerves will be stretched until the exact terms of the deal are known. Meanwhile government spin continues to minimise the extent of the damage. The bond markets at least seem satisfied for the moment but what about the Irish people, still much in the dark?. A huge sigh of relief will go up at the one bit of good news for Ireland. At least for the first year, the EU terms will be no worse than the Croke Park agreement. …
Hey, Irish, cheer up. There’s no necessary correlation between wellbeing and financial crisis. Yous’ns is not the only ones to have been visited upon by the IMF. Remember UK 1976? How can I ever forget it? And that was over “only” a $4 billion loan ( at 1976 prices ) and was never actually drawn upon. Years later they made a remarkable discovery. An index of economic, social and environmental progress yesterday declared 1976 to be the best on record for quality …
Now that the Irish government has come clean albeit through gritted teeth , anxiety mounts over the terms of the bailout, in particular the fate of 12.5% corporation tax. Given the total stand- off between the parties, this seems like a issue of confidence for the survival of the Fianna Fail-led coalition. Internally in the short term at least, they should come through. This is no time for a general election or a handover to a different coalition, particularly one without an …
Is this genuine, generous solidarity, the like of which would not be extended to any other country or a cunning Irish write-in? Ireland bailout: should Britain foot the bill? 59.2% Yes 40.8% No Bearing in mind… Ireland bailout: UK taxpayers could face £7bn bill But the Wall St Journal plays down the threat to sterling… Debt stresses in nearby Ireland therefore are unlikely to derail the pound’s outlook for now at least. In fact, they are “something of a small positive …
“The creditors say please take the money, and the debtor says ‘we don’t want it’. It’s very odd..” says one observer of the Irish financial crisis. Dublin is resisting an ECB-inspired bailout because it fears the likely terms will damage their holy grail, the prospects for future growth, by imposing virtually insupportable terms like ending 12.5% company tax. On the other hand, you might think it’s just as peculiar for the ECB to insist on Ireland taking the money when …
3 pm . While RTE reports only the Commission saying ” it isn’t us” The Irish Times reports that the pressure for a bailout is coming from the European Central Bank in order to ease pressure on Irish banks rather than the State directly.. European Central Bank vice president Vitor Constancio said Ireland could use the European Financial Stability Facility to help prop up its banking system to restore investor confidence. “The problems of the Irish banking sector are not …
Wars , famine and internal government crises were meat and drink to my generation of journalists as we were growing up. Sure enough, we vaguely registered ” the gnomes of Zurich ” who had to be appeased moments before yet another devolution of sterling crashed over us. But the end of “Bretton Woods” and the birth of ” the snake” were all arcana from the pink pages we could safely leave to the better-dressed money people as we coped with …
Now that the depth of Anglo’s pit has been divined (though have AIB and Irish Nationwide been stress tested enough?) the Irish Economy blog makes a cogent case for a November election before the budget. The question of whether the government had a mandate to introduce unpopular measures would disappear. And despite regular claims from journalists that the opposition are irresponsible and have no policies, both Fine Gael and Labour did produce plans last year detailing how they would implement …
