RTEs Richard Crowley had a very difficult time getting a simple answer from our lying Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, last Sunday (This Week, 21st).
The question was simple – How much are we going to borrow from the EU/IMF?
Crowley: How much are we looking for?
Lenihan: Blah, blah blah, blah…
Crowley: What’s the figure Minister, how much are we looking for?
Lenihan: Blah, blah, blah, blah…
Crowley: How much are we applying for on this loan?
Lenihan: Blah, blah, blah, blah…
Crowley: How much?
Lenihan: Blah, blah, blah, blah…
Crowley: Roughly
Lenihan: Blah, blah, blah, blah…
Crowley: Are we talking tens of billions?
Lenihan: Yes, we are talking tens of billions.
Crowley: So it could be 70, 80, 90 billion?
Lenihan: No, nowhere near that.
We’re borrowing €85 billion.
Well, technically we already own 17.5bn of the 85 so we’re borrowing 67.5bn. So it *was* close to 70bn, so he doesn’t even have the doublespeak of “It wasn’t close, it was that exactly” to fall back on…
Hope we are not paying interest on the 17.5 billion, the way these inept fools do “deals” it wouldnt surprise me!