Blog Archives
Politics and Money – Irish Style
Reilly faces new day in court over nursing home deal gone sour
HEALTH Minister James Reilly faces another court date next week over an investment that went sour and saw him named on a debt defaulters’ list. read full article
independent.ie
2Colleagues fear Perry finished in Dail after €2.5m judgment
JUNIOR Minister John Perry’s allies in Fine Gael believe that he is doomed politically, due to the judgment of almost €2.5m against him. read full article
94Lowry furious after Revenue sends 15 officials to raid home
THE Revenue sent 15 officials accompanied by a garda and a locksmith to carry out a raid at former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry‘s home. read full article
1Treasury Holdings’ co-founders in line to get €5million in NAMA deal
PROPERTY developers Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett are in line to get almost €5m each in cash under a complex deal with the tax payer-owend National Asset Management Agency and liquid read full article
Revenue inquiry on Irish clients of HSBC with Swiss accounts
Tax authority has collected €30 million from individuals linked to offshore activity read full article
68Undeclared rental income targeted in Revenue crackdown
Landlords responsible for €42 million in upaid tax last year, records show read full article
76McNulty liable for €90m to Nama
Businessman advances what judge describes as mostly ‘technical’ defences to Nama claim for judgment read full article
Cut number of TDs to 100 and save €15m a year – Independent.ie
* ‘Quality in preference to quantity’ and ‘evidence of value for money’ must be the two ‘vitals’ for a reformed new government. read full article
55Tough Budget looms as Central Bank says: stick to austerity path
MORE hairshirt budgets are in prospect after the Central Bank urged the Government not to let up on austerity and Finance Minister Michael Noonan admitted next year’s cuts and taxes wil read full article
McGeever back in prison as judge refuses to reduce bail
BUSINESSMAN Kevin McGeever has been told to go to the High Court if he wants his €12,500 bail terms reduced. read full article
March Ireland- Jail the Bankers
-
Hello thanks so much for the invite to the page. I am living in the bog lands my whole life and these EU makey uppy laws are a crock. Thought you guys might like this event. Might be good time to get your messages seen on some placards. Its very frustrating how little people know about the bog. It could really help people realise what is happening.
Keep up the good work!
March 🙂400 people marched on Sat 29th June through Dublin and decided to call a follow up protest at the Dail while it sits on Weds night at 6pm.
The Dail is open until 9pm on Weds.
So tell everyone to get to the protest this Weds!
https://www.facebook.com/events/169550859889655
we have 72 hours build up to this even if you are not free invite all your friends they might end up inviting someone who is free . its us or them what will you spend your time posting about ???
SUPPORT THE PROTEST COPY & PASTE THIS MESSAGE
Alan Shatter
He won’t resign because, as a member of Fine Gael, he is incapable of having done anything seriously wrong. The spirit of Paddy Donegan lives on.
But when one notes that;
(A) The gardai wanted to test him for drink-driving so they must have formed a suspiction about him.
(B) That he’s using an unconvincing excuse to explain why he didn’t take the breathalyser test. If you’ve enough puff to make long speeches in the Dail you can blow into a tube.
(C) He obviously invoked Dail privilege, there was no reason for him to mention where he was coming from otherwise.
I’d say on the balance of probabilities it looks like Shatter was in breach of the law on that day and weaselled out of it. Though we can’t know this for certain.
I’d hope that those who pounced on the ‘hypocrisy’ of Ming and Wallace will be as zealous about exposing the contradictions of Shatter’s stance.
For one thing his humbuggery about being so keen to stick the boot into political opponents because he wants to protect the good name of the Gardai rings a bit hollow given that (A) he dropped the Commissioner into the shit to save his own face and (B) his love obviously isn’t requited given that they’ve just dropped him into it.
He’s a petty little bully who wouldn’t be tolerated in office anywhere else. But let’s watch Gilmore and the Labour Party suck it up as they show their unlimited capacity to endure humiliation.
via They say the situation is… | The Cedar Lounge Revolution.
Is Perry the worst Minister of State Ever?
John Perry TD for Sligo-North Leitrim and Minister of State for Small Business must be the worst appointment ever to a junior minister’s job.
Generally, this man only opens his mouth to change the foot he has wedged in there. When the two feet are not at home, he comes out with gems that do not inspire confidence… “There must be assistance for small businesses that are creating unemployment throughout the country”(Dáil speech).
Rest assured this man will do nothing concrete to stimulate the retail sector where approx 40,000 jobs have been lost in the past five years. Regretfully due to Government policies, many more localized jobs are uncertain due to the inactivity of this no-getter. Even so, then again, what can you expect from a man who cannot even get around to fixing the local potholes?
John the Promise in another open-mouthed gesture guaranteed the restoration of Breast cancer services to Sligo General hospital within 100 days of Government. During a live interview with Ocean FM concerning the return of cancer services to the North West of Ireland. Perry hung up the phone when questioned on his failure to deliver on his promise. He claimed that the presenter had an agenda against him. What a cringing cop out, what paucity of thought. Perhaps a taste of things to come – A true-blue arrogant fascist to the end.
I have just done this man a slight disservice for I understand he is a high flier when it comes to claiming the few bob.
For expenses in his first twelve months, this man topped the bill. Among his colleagues, he is known as the King of uncertified reimbursement.
In conclusion, what can one say about Perry? Maybe he is a bit like the invisible man. Could you pick him out from a line-up of expense villains? That folk is the story of Perry the obscure, invisible before the election and unseen after it just waiting for his Bisto pension.
Luke Ming Flanagan
Ming get active and take your complaint to the National Consumer Agency (NCA).
You probably would have them on Food labelling, Product labelling and deceptive trading practices,
Paying €3.1bn for Anglo note ‘difficult’ – Noonan
Any bets on what is going to happen in this situation. I have a bad feeling this is leading in the direction of Johnny Citizen.
Will we have a special tax to pay off this installment?
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has told the Dáil it would be “difficult” for Ireland to pay the next €3.1 billion installment of the promissory notes due at the end of March.
However Mr Noonan said he was “still confident of a positive outcome” to negotiations with the ECB.
He was responded to a question from Sinn Féin‘s Pearse Doherty, who said the State was not in a position to pay the €3.1bn and the Government should tell the ECB that.
He referred to the negotiations as “pussyfooting” and said Ireland should be seeking a write-down of debt, not an extension of the term for paying it back.
Mr Doherty also asked for details of whether the ECB had rejected a proposal, if an alternative proposal would be ready for the next meeting of the ECB board; and what the Government would regard as a satisfactory outcome.
Mr Noonan said it would not be helpful to go into detail, and accused Sinn Féin of positioning itself to reject whatever deal was agreed.
He reiterated his expectation of a deal on the note in the coming weeks and said it was his belief that the Government will get a satisfactory arrangement by the 31 March deadline.
via Paying €3.1bn for Anglo note ‘difficult’ – Noonan – RTÉ News.
All Hail Ming! The Ruler of The Dáil!
All Hail Ming! Ruler of The New Dáil!.
via All Hail Ming! Ruler of The New Dáil!.
his ultimate goal is to one day rule the Universe
The people never agreed to pay €3.1bn a year
We are duty bound to ask ourselves if it is acceptable to pay €3.1bn in March to get nothing in return, writes VINCENT P MARTIN
Last week our Government presented a crippling budget in an attempt to save €3.5 billion next year.
In 2010, the government of the day provided promissory notes, made by the State, to fund the bailout of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, now merged as the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).
This financial rescue was in the form of IOUs at a cost of €31 billion to the taxpayer. The promissory notes were given to make a zombie bank solvent as it now had an asset and it was on this basis that the Central Bank lent the IRBC €31 billion, which is then paid on to third-party bondholders.
Under article 123 of the Treaty of the European Union it is expressly forbidden for a Central Bank to lend to an insolvent credit institution like Anglo. The clever promissory note ruse circumvented this prohibition.
While matters were kept within EU rules, Anglo was made to look solvent so that the Central Bank could give it the money to repay its bondholders.
The European Central Bank had no banking default nightmare to deal with, but the Irish people were on the hook for the whole amount. And so every March the Irish people must repay over €3 billion.
And the payment is not to anybody. The money is just destroyed (taken out of the system). The sick are not treated, the young are not educated, hundreds of thousands face unemployment and emigration and at least one in five private residential mortgages are in severe trouble – and we burn €3.1 billion!
This is a truly staggering amount of money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend but one US marketing agency helped demystify its sheer magnitude as follows: “a billion seconds ago it was 1959, a billion minutes ago Julius Caesar was alive, and a billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age”.
Seven hospitals
The sum to be paid in March could build seven national children’s hospitals – and we are to repeat this insanity every year!
This all-too-smart accountancy trick destroyed our national finances and has led to the loss of our economic sovereignty.
So in this context we are duty bound to ask ourselves whether it is acceptable to pay out the €3.1 billion next March to get nothing in return.
To answer such an important question we ought to look at both sides of the story.
There is an established argument which supports the payment. It is this – we agreed to pay and we are bound by that agreement. There is force to this argument. If we cannot be sure that people will honour their commitments this makes us less likely to trade or exchange with them and that is damaging to us all.
But the law has always recognised that a party to a contract must have agreed to its terms. If a party has not agreed then the contract is not a contract at all and the party is not bound.
Did the Irish people, who must make these staggering payments year on year and for no benefit, agree to be bound in this way? It appears to me that the Irish people did not.
The Constitution, which forms the basis of how we operate as a nation, created a number of institutions of State and mandated those institutions to operate according to defined roles.
One of those institutions is Dáil Éireann. It is the most important of all the institutions for it is the “law-making” body. Apart from making the laws the Dáil has a very important power. The Dáil holds the chequebook.
Like all other democratic systems around the globe the people’s elected representatives must agree to the spending of public monies and that is a solemn responsibility placed on the Dáil.
Put simply, no minister can spend a cent of public money unless the Dáil has approved such spending.
Did the members of Dáil Éireann vote to make and provide the promissory notes or did they vote on any payment made on foot of the notes? It is critically important that the people of Ireland realise that the answer to this question is that the elected members of the Dáil never voted to make those promissory notes and have never authorised payments on foot of them.
It was the minister for finance alone who made the notes and who then made payment on foot of them. The lawfulness of this unprecedented situation will be tested in the courts early next year.
In simple terms, the question posed to the High Court relates to the essence of our democratic system. Can the elected representatives of the people of Ireland be bypassed when making such monumental decisions affecting the people for generations to come?
‘Inability to pay’
Pat Rabbitte is the first senior member of the Government to flag the country’s “inability to pay” argument. Provided this does not turn out to be a dressed-up reinvention of “kicking the can down the road”, it is to be welcomed.
But surely the same principle can and should be applied to our own people struggling to save their homes?
It is expected that the latest Central Bank figures will show a further escalation in mortgage arrears for homeowners and this is when the Government has decided to unleash a property tax.
There is no reality in expecting people in significant mortgage arrears to pay this tax when they already are unable to pay their mortgages.
This tax will only pile on further misery on middle-income Ireland, and is akin to throwing water on a drowning man.
Surely our country’s struggling homeowners also should be entitled to plead “inability to pay”.
Vincent Martin is a practising barrister and co-founder of New Beginning, an advocacy group founded to campaign for Ireland’s financial recovery by reaching a fair solution to over-indebtedne ss
via The people never agreed to pay €3.1bn a year – The Irish Times – Thu, Dec 13, 2012.
via The people never agreed to pay €3.1bn a year – The Irish Times – Thu, Dec 13, 2012.
Video: American economist destroys Michael Noonan on TV
Michael Noonan is powerless over his own stupidity, but not on how bankers get paid. That’s according to Max Keiser who recently had a rant about our own Minister… Have a listen above.
In this clip from the news network Russia Today, the American economist Max Keiser (sound familiar?) lambasts Michael Noonan calling him a “social misfit” and saying that he should be removed from office immediately. Would you agree?
The clip was actually recorded back in November, but Max’s feelings towards the Minister for Finance are surely being felt by the rest of country, especially since last week’s Budget.
Now, while you might not agree with everything Max has to say, he certainly raises some good points. Make sure to have a listen if you’re heading home on the bus and let us know what you think of what Max has to say.
via World affairs | Video: American economist destroys Michael Noonan on TV.
via World affairs | Video: American economist destroys Michael Noonan on TV.
A Bannon On Women’s Rights- More Flimflam from FG
You may have heard Fine Gael TD James Bannon‘s Dail speech on Thursday night.
Here’s a flava:
One could perhaps call the revelations about Savita’s death coincidental, but the resultant media outbursts and overwrought reactions seem too opportunistic for that. From being a weapon to try to force the Government’s hand, I hope that calm will prevail and that this report will be assessed and viewed in an independent light. However, I am anxious that any legislation should not be rushed through in a knee-jerk reaction to the report, the death of Savita and the other matters that are impacting on it.
Having had major reservations about the timing of the news of Savita’s death, the publication of which came as a shock and surprise to her family, the fact that there is now a question mark over some of the reporting of the facts of the case only serves to add credence to the opportunism of the exposure of this tragic death. I am shocked to read that the sequence of events may have been at least muddled but, at worst, distorted. That what was reported or not reported, whatever way one looks at it, prompted a recent independent inquiry into the death of Savita, was inexcusable.
…We have come a long way in this country since the days when a husband would be told in the same breath that his wife had died and that he had a beautiful baby girl or boy. The reality was often indescribably tragic. A family might already consist of six or more children who would be left without a mother and a grieving husband without a wife. Sense has prevailed and directed our actions. I hope that will continue to be the case.
Dail debate: Expert Group (Oireachtas.ie)
LB writes:
Breathtaking. I had to remind myself this isn’t Ireland of the 1950s. He explicitly implies that the exposure of Savita’s death was “opportunistic”. Maybe it’s just the way he was ‘braw hup”. He also expresses his admiration for Hillary Clinton in his 2011 campaign video. Now that’s just a tiny bit ironic.
Some comments
’6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls’
I assume he was one of the 6 who were neither boys nor girls.
=========================================
Bannon in his speech said “Having had major reservations about the timing of the news of Savita’s death, the publication of which came as a shock and surprise to her family”.
As far as I know Kitty Holland spoke extensively to Praveen and to Savita’s friends in Galway before the story broke.
==========================================
Terribly delivered, muddled and inarticulate, but you can decipher a point in there!
Its just his emphases, and maybe motive, that are perhaps questionable.
But there is absoluletly no doubt that this tragedy was hijacked!!
That’s a given, isn’t it?????
========================================
Yes, that wicked husband of hers, hijacking his own wife’s death! What a monster!
Or if it’s still politic to be sympathetic to him, then:
The poor, poor husband, who had his grief exploited by evil and opportunistic anti-lifers.
misebogland 