Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
The Government and Liam Carroll have one single aim – to keep ACC Bank at bay until Carroll’s financial problems can be safely brought under the generous wing of the Irish taxpayer via NAMA.
They will be much relieved therefore to see that the judge dealing with the case, who also works for the Government, has decided to make a long deferment, until September 14th , before making a decision on the issue.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a stark warning to the Government not to pay too much for property loans bound for the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).
The president of the ECB, Mr. Jean Claude Trichet, has also warned that it will be vital to keep tabs on the banks to ensure that they lend to business and not just use money from NAMA to rebuild their balance sheets.
Irish taxpayers have serious cause to worry at such naivety from the ECB.
It is crystal clear that this government is planning to pay well above the market value for properties in order to bail out the banks and property developers.
As for keeping tab on Irish banks? Mr. Trichet is obviously completely unaware that it is Irish banks that instruct politicians and so called regulatory agencies on policy and not the other way around.
Nigeria, one of the most corrupt countries in the world, has arrested fifteen top bankers on charges of conspiracy and money laundering.
The head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said that the bankers were taken into custody to make sure they didn’t leave the country as officials examined banks that have piled up billions in bad debts.
The governor of the Nigerian Central Bank has also fired the heads of five banks for mismanagement.
Ireland, which likes to see itself as a first division Western democratic state, has never, in its entire history, arrested a banker despite the fact that countless millions have been robbed by financial institutions over the years.
Ireland’s Central Bank has never, in its entire history, fired a banker.
Ireland does not, and never has had, an anti corruption agency equivalent to Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Note: It’s interesting to see that the EFCC has a ‘most wanted’ list. Could Irish citizens, even in their most demented dreams, ever conceive of seeing such a list on the Financial Regulator’s website?
Copy to:
Financial Regulator
Central Bank
Brian Lenihan has effectively admitted that the banks will eventually have to be at least partly nationalised but, and this is the crucial point, not before the setting up of NAMA (Irish Independent).
This confirms what NAMA is all about – The transfer of all loans and liabilities currently held by the banks and property developers onto the shoulders of taxpayers before the setting up of NAMA will protect the interests of bankers and developers while leaving generations of taxpayers to clean up the mess with no advantage whatsoever.
This letter in today’s Irish Independent hits the nail on the head regarding the Carroll farce.
Has no-one told ACC Bank that above the Supreme Court, we have the Very Supreme Court and possibly the Very Very Supreme Court ?
Gerry O’Donnell
Dublin 15
This letter writer to the Irish Independent asks the question:
Do our politicians not understand the damage that is being done to our democracy by both this behaviour and, more importantly, by the lack of challenge from them, our elected leaders?
For example, why are they not demanding to know who within the banks is actually authorising these decisions; and why are the banks adopting this strategy of continuing to support a developer when the courts rejected his survival plan as “fanciful and lacking in reality”?
The answer is simple – It’s the bankers who are in charge, it was the bankers who called in the politicians last September and issued instructions on what was to be done. It is the bankers who are issuing instructions on the whole NAMA scam, the politicians are mere puppets.
NAMA letters in today’s Irish Examiner and Irish Independent.
NAMA is nothing short of economic treason.
THE column by Brian O’Mahony headlined ‘NAMA delays would be bad for the country’ (August 8) was, to quote Judge Peter Kelly, “trespassing on fantasy”.
NAMA must not be rushed. Had the Government properly managed evoting, PPARS, PULSE or decentralisation, we might have got some value from the millions it wasted on these projects.
With its latest project, its not millions but billions of taxpayers’ revenues that are being wasted on overvalued rubbish. Had the financial regulator (Government watchdog?) done its job properly and not just walked, our troubles would undoubtedly not be so great.
And we are giving the same Government the same power? Again? It’s legitimate to demand an unequivocal answer as to why the state, via the actions of the Government, favours de facto private interest over the citizens?
NAMA, in its current form, is nothing short of economic treason — banking legislation written by bankers for bankers and for the good of nobody except bankers and their property development debtors.
Currently it has got all the hallmarks and financial engineering brilliance of Enron. The old Celtic Tiger could afford previous levels of Government waste and incompetence but Ireland — European Capital of Incompetence 2009 — cannot afford to get NAMA wrong.
Don’t let the Government hoodwink the nation into accepting the flawed NAMA bill in its current form and please, please, don’t allow it to be rushed.
Paul Feeney
Botanic Hall
Glasnevin
Dublin 11
NAMA ‘death warrant’ hanging over us
The voice of reason has been spoken by the Supreme Court on the Liam Carroll appeal for enough time to stick the taxpayer, through NAMA, with paying bloated values for property assets which have no basis for assessing their true worth now or any time soon.
It is incredible how, within an hour of the ruling, that the Department of Finance could issue a statement to the effect that NAMA will proceed unaffected by the judgment. Clearly the disdain shown by the State to its citizens is set to continue unabated.
Three months ago, you published a letter from me calling for a referendum on NAMA. I believe that the dangers inherent in NAMA are staggering. I have no confidence in this Government to do anything other than facilitate an enormous over-payment of our money to the banks for property assets that have no prospect of recovering to even 50pc of the value ascribed to them when the irresponsible lending took place.
This will be a disaster for Ireland.
Regrettably there is but one solution to this problem and that is to nationalise the banks. NAMA can make sense after nationalisation. It cannot be the other way round as we will see our money paid out in exchange for grossly over-valued assets and we will have no control over those who are in charge of the banks.
If we do nothing then the NAMA legislation will be passed and sent to the President for her signature by the end of September. The enormity of this brings to mind the sadly prophetic words of Michael Collins on signing the treaty as “feeling I have just signed my own death warrant”.
Patrick Byrne
Dublin 14
The Irish taxpayer will be screwed left, right and centre when NAMA is up and running.
The Government will tax us more to repay the massive debt they will accrue on our behalf and the banks will hike rates so they can make the huge profits they need to justify their existence to shareholders.
It is about time we woke up and smelt the coffee. The only people who will benefit from NAMA are the banks, the private investment funds and the shareholders. And the home buyers are being hung out to dry.
Justice in this country is the preserve of the elite.
Martin Barnes
Carrick on Shannon
Co Leitrim
The critical question surrounding the National Assets Management Authority (NAMA) project is – What price is the Government, on behalf of the taxpayer, going to place on the assets of the various financial institutions?
Here’s how Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan answered the question (Morning Ireland, 1st report, 3rd item).
That is the absolutely fundamental question and we’re working on the valuation of these properties and I will announce on behalf of the Government the approximated, estimated figure for how much state bond will be required in the Dail debate in September…I haven’t finalised the figure yet and of course the announcement of that figure is one of considerable market sensitivity.
Here’s my translation:
I’m not going to answer that question now and if I’m forced to do so in September I will only give an ‘approximated, estimated figure’. I’ll refuse to answer any awkward questions at that time by simply saying that the exact figures are of ‘considerable market sensitivity’.
I agree with the Labour Party’s suggestion that the banks should be temporarily nationalised, a strategy that would cost about €5 billion. That would still leave the taxpayer responsible for billions of bad loans currently held by the banks but at least we would know the risks we are facing and have some degree of control over events.
And that’s exactly what the Government is working to avoid. The Government strategy is actually very simple. It wants to transfer the massive liabilities currently bringing down the financial institutions onto to the shoulders of the taxpayer while at the same time ensuring that those institutions remain, to the greatest extent possible, in private ownership.
Private ownership protects profits and ensures continued state protection, principally by the Financial Regulator, for the widespread criminality that has long infected the Irish financal sector.
The hope is that when the dust settles the banks can return to what they do best – squeezing massive profits out of unprotected consumers. The burden of cleaning up the mess created by the reckless and greedy bankers will be left to generations of future taxpayers.
There is, however, one potentially serious obstacle in the way of this cosy strategy between politicians and their banking masters. Ordinary Irish citizens might not wear it; they might, for the first time in modern history, actually rebel.
An editorial in yesterday’s Sunday Independent on the NAMA question refers to a poll in the same newspaper in which a clear majority were in favour of nationalising the banks. The editorial concluded:
The poll reveals a truly worrying level of cynicism about the beneficiaries of public policy, and that cynicism is poisonous to society.
The Government has a duty to rebuild public faith in the political system and it must start by debating its policy decisions openly and honestly. There cannot be the faintest hint of favouritism or cronyism in a decision that could impoverish a generation and it demands justification on a grand scale.
The Government is gambling the future: the people need to know why, and they need to know who benefits.
Public faith in the political system? Openness and honesty in debating public policy? An end to cronyism?
The present corrupt system of administration in this country will never allow such enlightened policies to emerge; only an actual rebellion will do that.
The chief executive officer of the EBS building society, Fergus Murphy, has said he hopes the Government’s National Assets Management Agency will consider taking up to €800 worth of development and related loans off its books.
He said the EBS would like an invitation to work with NAMA. On the question of mortgage interest rates he didn’t rule out an increase over the coming months.
Public Inquiry translation.
Dear (peasant) Taxpayer,
I have applied to the Government for permission to dip my hands into your pockets to replace €800 million that we gambled and lost through irresponsible and reckless lending which was triggered by our uncontrollable greed.
You will be aware, of course, that the application is nothing more than a formality, merely for the optics old chap. That we will get your money is an absolute certainty – We do, after all, own the body politic.
I must also inform you that we will be imposing a significant mortgage interest rate in October. You will have noted that (our) Brian has already given permission for this in his response to the recent TSB increase.
There’s no need for you to fret about the reasons for this increase, it’s all to do with complex economic mechanisms that you wouldn’t understand.
Yours sincerely
Fergus
PS: Suckers
Senator Shane Ross was writing about the Financial Regulator’s annual report last Sunday. The Senator continues to be astonished and staggered by the activities of our so called regulators.
Here are some of the things that staggered and astonished the Senator.
The chairman of the Financial Regulator, Jim Farrell, is a banker. Farrell was the boss of Citibank for many years. The publication of such details are the norm in accountable democracies but apparently rare in Ireland.
Such incestuous behaviour is not, however, unusual in Ireland. The bankers are on the regulators staff and it is quite common for regulators to end up as bankers after retirement. All part of the ‘old boy’s network’, old chap.
The Senator goes on to speak about the culture of secrecy at the Financial Regulator’s Press Office.
Their instincts for secrecy are ingrained. The watchdog’s press office must be a paranoiac’s paradise. Every question asked, however innocent, receives an evasive answer.
Tell me about it Senator. My efforts to get a straight answer from the Senior Press Officer last week was like trying to get blood from a stone.
And then there’s the ‘business travel’. Last year it came to €795,000 and this year will see a massive 22% increase to over €970,000. But, alas, as the Senator points out, taxpayer’s (peasants) are forbidden from knowing the details because the FR is protected by State secrecy laws.
In common with the rest of the media Senator Ross didn’t seem to notice that Farrell had, apparently, announced a major new policy to replace the principled based approach to financial regulation.
I rang the Department of Finance today to ask some questions about this alleged new policy and what happened, yes you’ve guessed. I received the same treatment that I received from the FR Press Office – waffle, stonewalling and riddles.
So just let me repeat – Neither the financial regulatory system nor the attitude of its staff has changed one iota. It is still the same secretive, arrogant system that has for many years protected the scumbags that infest the Irish financial sector.
Copy to:
Financial Regulator
Senator Shane Ross