Category: Comment

Interesting development over the weekend with Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen both – finally – accepting it wasn’t all the fault of those crafty Lehman Brothers. I meant to get round to a blog post on it earlier but have been snowed under.

It’s fairly little and way too late but… something. Something tiny but something.

Harry McGee has a strong post on the Taoiseach’s speech which I’d encourage you to read. Ahern’s mea cupla hasn’t got quite as much coverage. The Irish Times report by Stephen Collins and Mary Minihan puts it concisely…

Mr Ahern said he agreed with everything in the speech Taoiseach Brian Cowen delivered at Dublin City University on Thursday night.

“Even the self-criticisms in it I accept also, which was mainly the tax incentives,” Mr Ahern said, when asked about the issue at the launch of the Aviva stadium in Dublin.

“We probably should have closed those down a good bit earlier but there were always fierce pressures, there was endless pressures to keep them. There was endless pressures to extend them,” he said.

He said the pressure had come from developers, owners of sites, areas that didn’t have the developments, community councils, politicians and civic society.

The tax incentives he refers to, I’m guessing, are section 23s  on residential property and the tax reliefs on hotel developments which were kept open due to lobbying from developers. The hotel incentives were due to close in 2002 but were held open resulting in a flood of developments in late 2004, the consequence of which is the mess of a hotel and development market we have today.

Ahern’s statements are a pretty clear acceptance that Fianna Fáil donors had massive influence on Government policy during the boom years.

What’s perhaps more startling is Martin Mansergh’s admission on The Saturday View that the influence remains today. Mansergh was on with Fine Gael’s Charlie Flanagan and Mark Hennessey of The Irish Times.

He said… Continue reading “The confessions of Ahern and Cowen”

We love archives, and thanks to Anthony over at publicinquiry.eu, we have got our hands on some old newspapers. ‘Thar be gold in dem der hills. This nugget is from the Irish Independent weekender, November 27, 1993. There are a number of funny elements to it.

First up is the mention of ‘Brian Cowan’ who is often the victim of misspellings (it happens to the best of us). Angela Phelan, writing about the Fianna Fail party that week at the Burlington notes:

But Taoiseach, look out for young Minister Brian Cowan. To the strains of Help Me Make It Through The Night and Ride. Sally Ride, Brian displayed divine dexterity on the dance floor and undoubtedly knows that politics is as much about rock ‘n roll as anything else.

I can see it now.

There was huge applause and shouts of “fix” when Paddy Connellan, one of the Reynolds’ best friends from Longford, won the trip for two to Barbados.

Yes, Albert would know about trips to the Caribbean, too. Ahem.

Of course there were others at this 1993 Fianna Fail shindig:

Among the biz bods at the party were beef baron Pascal Phelan, hotelier Sean McEniff. property developer Bernard McNamara, airline operator PJ McGoldrick, Smurfits supremo Paddy Wright. . . and on it goes.

Clearly Bernard has seen better days.

Alas though:

As for the other giant, ‘Where’s Charlie has now become a kind of Where’s Waldo contest. I didn’t see a Haughey anywhere in the hall.

Fianna Fail party 1993

I’m sick of posting links, but anyway, too busy with other things, more from Der Speigel.

The Last Opportunity for a Strong Currency – Henrik Muller

Level-headed analysis, this time, rather than explanatory journalism. On the single European currency;

The euro is a paradox: a political project that has long lacked political support. Is it really a surprise to anyone that the feeling of togetherness and solidarity amongst Europeans has remained weak? Without a binding emotional basis, it is hardly conceivable that the euro will hold together in the long run.

Good piece, I like how it goes through the history of the how the currency came to exist. My own preference would be for a considered demolition (I refuse to say “orderly wind down”) over ceding more budgetary power to Brussels.

Thing is; the same opinion is likely held by most Europeans and that’s a major part of why we’re in this mess now (I also refuse to say “why we are where we are”).

TIME magazine has a short piece on NAMA in the latest edition. The anti-NAMA quotes are from McWilliams (who has been stunning over the last few months – Morgan Kelly-esque – but might be overdoing on the media appearances as of late! The dude is everywhere…)

It will potentially become the country’s largest landowner, with a portfolio including many of Ireland’s hotels and a number of notable landmark buildings. The toxic bank option is one that several nations considered at the start of global financial crisis — and then dismissed as a bad idea. In Ireland, the risk that the experimental scheme could wreak even more havoc on the country’s frail economy has many worried. “NAMA will bankrupt Ireland,” says economist and commentator David McWilliams. “It is forcing us to borrow from tomorrow to pay for yesterday and, in the process, destroy the opportunities of today.”

Government view from department of finance press officer, Eoin Dorgan…

“The difference between Ireland and elsewhere is that what we had here was essentially an old-fashioned property bubble,” says Eoin Dorgan, communications officer at Ireland’s Department of Finance. “So, while debts in the U.K. and U.S. were based on complicated financial instruments that were very difficult to value, we could just base our valuation on the collateral, which was the land.” So, the government decided that if Ireland was to avoid the chaos that Greece and other teetering euro-zone economies face now, it needed to do something radical. “It made sense for us to do something direct and up-front by creating a ‘bad bank’ to bring certainty to the market,” says Dorgan.

Ah yes, certainty.

Early in the week is always crazy busy for me, hence posts of substance tend not to appear under this byline ever between Sunday and Wednesday.

I do get a lot of reading done, and talk to many smart people in that time period however – compared to the rest of the week when I sit at a desk beside some strange dude who keeps rocking in his chair and repeating “t-t-transparency, c-c-c-corruption, t-t-transparency, c-c-corruption…” ad nauseum – usually resulting in short quick posts centred on links to interesting articles elsewhere.

In that vein… Simon Johnson and Peter Boone on the Eurozone. They’re worried that people have stopped talking about Ireland.

Note…

It could be that in two years time Europe’s deficits are much lower, the ECB has hardly bought any bonds, and they have successfully managed a Greek debt restructuring while Spain is out of trouble, and Portugal and Ireland are scraping by in limbo but now isolated problems.

Oh dear.

Interesting post from Seamus Coffey on the Irish CAP figures (published top 100 here recently).

Natural curiosity brought me to examine the figures from my home parish.

Here I saw that there were 150 recipients in the parish who received an average payout of €12,142, slightly below the national average.  The total monies received by residents of the parish under the scheme was €1,821,339.  It’s like the parish wins a lotto jackpot every year – guaranteed!

…

According to the 2006 Census data there were 26 males and 5 females with recorded occupations of ‘Farming, Fishing and Forestry Managers’ in the Cappamore DED.  There were also three males and one female recorded as ‘Other Agricultural Workers’.  This would suggest there is a maximum of 35 people employed as farmers in the Cappamore DED.  The parish of Cappamore had 150 recipients (131 males and 19 females) under the CAP scheme.

A blog worth reading, that’un.