Irish Govt raises four-year austerity target to €15bn

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Irish insolence of wanting to share the table with the grown ups has a price. Like children, the Irish need punishment to remind them of the order of things. Your priest will explain it to you, the beauty and clarity of servitude. Explain there's a reward in the next life if you endure your slavery in this one with docility. Explain to you why it is right your children sweat, yet live in want, while those of others feast on the products of your hands and the fruits of your land.


Look at it from the bright side: the restoration of Irish destitution will no doubt result in a renaissance of the best of Ireland: melancholy songs, theatre, literature lamenting the plight of the Irish.


It is all for the best.

[Banquo's Ghost]

The Irish insolence of wanting to share the table with the grown ups has a price. Like children, the Irish need punishment to remind them of the order of things. Your priest will explain it to you, the beauty and clarity of servitude. Explain there's a reward in the next life if you endure your slavery in this one with docility. Explain to you why it is right your children sweat, yet live in want, while those of others feast on the products of your hands and the fruits of your land.

I'm aware that your posts on this subject are deliberately provocative, but the tone is increasingly unpleasant, Louis. It's all redolent of the same sort of schadenfreude that seems to be resurfacing in the British media.

Nonetheless, you are not alone. If there's one thing we do well, it's Catholic guilt.

Even if all the economic indicators didn't point to this sad state of affairs, our recent sporting record might have suggested it. But it was the weather that really sealed the deal for us. When's the last time we got thunder and lightning mixed with sub-zero temperatures and hail? Presumably a plague of locusts will be next. We got too cocky and God is putting us back in our box.

You see, for years, Irish people were happy to be the clowns of the world. We were like the freckly ginger kid in the corner of the class who was great fun but who never really got to hang with the blonde, sleek, superficial, popular kids. And then, like in Mean Girls, we were led to believe we could make the jump into the popular crowd. We weren't just good at "the craic" (getting drunk), suddenly we were into finance and property. So we dyed our hair blonde, we dyed ourselves orange and we joined in.

That article finishes with the one thing that is on everyone's lips here. Default. To stretch the author's metaphor, a "Carrie" moment beckons. If larger nations wish to crush us and humiliate us, fine. I see the ghostly, sneering figure of vengeance over Lisbon high on your tower. But have a care that your castle of pride is not founded on a mine with Irish explosives primed therein.

It's about time the greedy bondholders of the very financial markets that caused the crash, and now that hunt the weak for profit (weakened by giving their very children for the markets to eat, as you so colourfully suggested) find that we bite back. Time, I think, to shock the system back.

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I'm aware that your posts on this subject are deliberately provocative, but the tone is increasingly unpleasant, Louis. It's all redolent of the same sort of schadenfreude that seems to be resurfacing in the British media.

Hmm...maybe I should've borne the critical situation in mind more. Now is not a tme for provocations or biting satire. At any rate, it's all meant not for the common Irishman, but for those who would mistreat the Irish, who'd have it reduced to destitution again, who give preference to a spreadsheet or profit or political gain over the Irish pensioner.

I thought it would be clear that my allegiance is with the working Irish, and my anger directed at corrupt politicians, financial markets, the ECB, and everybody else who puts his own interest above the well-being of an entire country. If it were up to me, the Irish would rise up and blow up the entire system, including the whole of Brussels and the Euro.

[Furunculus]

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

this is sadly a very important moment.

it should have come in 2009 when the Karlsruhe in Germany ruled that further transfers of power cannot continue without a democratic mandate, until then the Bundestag was the supreme authority.

it could have come in 2010 when the Conservatives announced there intention to issue a referendum lock on major transfers, parliamentary debate on minor transfers, and a declaration of parliamentary sovereignty.

it will probably come in 2011 when the rest of europe stands on the brink of a spanish collapse, and then looks back to the examples of how greece, ireland and portugal were made satrapies of brussels, and realise that it could be their country next.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Financial Times' review of 'Ship of Fools'. The book that described how the once fun Celtic Tiger was, not unlike the real tiger, brought to the brink of collapse. A 'salutary reminder that cronyism, light regulation and loose ethics can be a deadly combination':

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank The Celtic Tiger

By Fintan O’Toole

Faber and Faber, £12.99

Barely two years ago, Ireland was being hailed as the model of free-market globalisation, an example to small countries everywhere. Alex Salmond, first minister of Scotland’s devolved government, pledged to “create a Celtic Lion to rival the Celtic Tiger across the Irish Sea”.

Now, in Fintan O’Toole’s words, the tiger has become a “bedraggled alley cat”. Ravaged by a property crash, it faces the deepest downturn of any advanced country. Its budget this week will be the harshest in its 88-year history as the government seeks €4bn ($6bn) in spending cuts and tax increases to close a deficit set to reach 12 per cent next year.


O’Toole, Irish Times columnist and doyen of leftwing Dublin intellectuals, has produced a coruscating polemic against the cronyism and corruption that in his view helped to fuel the boom.
His invective accords few redeeming features to the Celtic Tiger model, with its low taxes and light-touch regulation. He has some justification to be angry, though, having warned that the boom was unsustainable while others were complacent.

Ireland was hardly alone in succumbing to property mania: the US, UK and Spain suffered too. O’Toole is strongest in identifying the cultural factors that let it reach such extremes in his country, including a historical addiction to owning land and property, and a political system based on cliques and personal patronage.

Ireland, having missed out on the Industrial Revolution, was trying to go from pre-modern to post-modern without ever fully creating the structures and habits of a modern democracy.
The fall was so painful because Ireland’s rise in the late 1990s had been so startling. Gross domestic product rose from two-thirds of the European Union average to 111 per cent. Inward investment soared as Ireland became the world’s largest exporter of computer software. Emigration gave way to large-scale immigration. “In its rise and fall, Ireland made Icarus look boringly stable,” writes O’Toole.


From 1995 to 2001, Ireland was catching up after decades of economic underperformance – a time of hope for a country long steeped in failure. O’Toole’s complaint is that the chance to invest in public services and infrastructure was missed, and that, as productivity gains ran out, politicians embarked on a reckless second phase by stoking the boom with an array of property-based tax breaks.

His main culprit is the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat government led from 1997 to 2008 by Bertie Ahern. Mr Ahern’s mentor was Charles Haughey, the former prime minister who not only amassed €45m in office – 171 times his total salary payments as a politician – but even stole €250,000 from a fund set up to pay for a liver transplant for one of his closest friends.

A culture of cronyism emerged, O’Toole argues, in which it was not seen as wrong for politicians to take private donations from property developers and in which tax evasion, bribery and giving false evidence under oath went unpunished. Lax ethics permeated the establishment. The chairman of Anglo Irish Bank resigned when it transpired he had received €84m of loans from his bank, concealed in a manner that was, astonishingly, not illegal. Yet the public put up with all this. O’Toole attributes this in part to “localism and clientelism”, whereby politicians are elected not to implement policies but to provide a personal service to individuals and constituencies. It is also true that, after myriad revelations and inquiries brought no action, people grew cynical about politics.

O’Toole argues that the property developers and hangers-on amounted to a new aristocracy, invulnerable because they were Catholics whose nationalist forebears had challenged the land rights of the old Protestant Ascendancy, exploiting the public’s belief that there were no class distinctions in Ireland. Business ethics, especially in banking, became lax, he suggests, because Ireland’s religious culture saw sin as something to do with sex rather than money.

Somewhat idealistically, O’Toole advocates a Second Republic based on probity, institutional reform and realignment of a system currently based on two populist centre-right parties. That seems unlikely. While the population of Iceland overturned their establishment in anger at the ruination of their country, the Irish have reacted more fatalistically.
O’Toole no doubt underplays the good sides to the Celtic Tiger – the features that attracted so many US investors. More of value may survive than he allows. But his highly readable book is a salutary reminder that cronyism, light regulation and loose ethics can be a deadly combination.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/87d54e78-e...#axzz16XgPHGdp

What next, then, for Ireland?

The same author calls for a new republic

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic by Fintan O’Toole – review

Sean O'Hagan | November 21st, 2010 at 12:02 am |


[IMG]http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.1/52292?ns=guardian&pageName=Enough+is+Enough:+How+to+Build+a+New+Republic+by+Fintan+O%27Toole+*+revie w:Article:1480496&ch=Books&c3=Obs&c4=Business+and+finance+%28Books+genre%29,Politics+%28Books+genre% 29,Ireland+%28News%29,Ireland+bailout,Culture,Books,World+news,Business&c5=Unclassified,Not+commerci ally+useful,Business+Markets&c6=Sean+O%27Hagan&c7=10-Nov-21&c8=1480496&c9=Article&c10=Review&c11=Books&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU/Books/Business+and+finance[/IMG]
Fintan O'Toole's manifesto for a new Ireland is radical and rooted in decency

In Ship of Fools, published this time last year, the Irish Times journalist Fintan O'Toole laid bare the causes of – and castigated those responsible for – Ireland's ongoing economic implosion. The book described in often mind-boggling detail the financial ineptitude, endemic corruption and barefaced greed that led to the collapse of the so-called Celtic Tiger economy.

Now, as Ireland grapples with the dreadful aftermath of that implosion, O'Toole has written a different kind of polemic, not just a prescription for recovery, but a kind of manifesto for a new republic based on the founding ideals of decency, fairness and the pursuit of the common good. In his introduction, he notes: "The twin towers of southern Irish identity – Catholicism and nationalism – were already teetering before the great boom began in 1995." The long sectarian war in Northern Ireland, together with the Republic's Europeanisation throughout the 1990s, seemed to have put paid to the dream of a united Ireland. At the same time, the storm of scandals that has rocked the Catholic church speeded the process of secularisation that began in the 1960s. "The Celtic Tiger wasn't just an economic ideology," O'Toole writes. "It was also a substitute identity. It was a new way of being that arrived just at the point when Catholicism and nationalism were not working any more."

At its basest, O'Toole notes, this hastily constructed and ill-defined identity was recklessly consumer-driven and manifested itself "in an arrogance towards the rest of the world" and "a wilful refusal of all ties of history and tradition". At its best, it denoted a break with the old, insular, parochial Ireland where the parish priest was as powerful – and as unaccountable – as the local politician. It also spoke, albeit too loudly and brashly, of a new spirit of European Irishness defined by "optimism, confidence, a new openness and ease, an absence of fear".

All of that confidence has ebbed away. Ireland today seems a vulnerable and anxious place, its uncertain future tied to borrowing and bailouts, the sheer size of which set the head reeling. Suddenly, too, the spectre of the old, pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland looms large, a place defined not by hope and optimism but by high unemployment, poverty and mass emigration. Blessedly, Fintan O'Toole is not a doom-monger but a voice of restraint, reason and rigorous analysis. In a very real way, he is writing against the rising sense of anxiety and fear in Ireland today. If Ship of Fools was an often angry obituary for the excesses and short-sightedness of the Celtic Tiger years, it was also underscored by a tentative optimism for a future in which Ireland might learn the hard way from its recent mistakes and excesses. Enough is Enough lays out the ways in which that might happen, the chief one being, as the book's subtitle suggests, a reinvestment in the notion of what it means to be a republic.

In many ways, Ireland's recent political – and, indeed, business – culture echoed its older religious one, insofar as what O'Toole calls its "self-serving elites" looked out for themselves while remaining blithely unaware of – or, in many cases, actively opposed to – any notion of the greater good. O'Toole has already written in some depth about the croneyism and clientelism that bedevils Irish politics: the widespread and almost taken-for-granted granting of favours to family members, friends, associates and local supporters. Here, he returns to that theme to make a much bigger point.

"The culture of massive salaries", he writes, "was imported from the private sector into the public sector, in the process virtually destroying an idea that is essential to a republic – the notion that people in positions of leadership have the privilege of serving the public."

This betrayal of a defining political ideal is the core theme of O'Toole's book. He begins by demolishing the "five myths" of the Irish Republic, the two most topical being the "myth of representation" and the "myth of wealth". He then lays out what he calls the "five decencies" that might lead its citizens into a safer, fairer, less market-driven future: security, health, education, equality and citizenship. Like the late Tony Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, Enough is Enough often seems to be saying that a fairer society can only be rebuilt on our collective rediscovery of progressive social democratic values. And, as with Judt's manifesto for a fairer Britain, O'Toole's reclaiming of the ideal of the republic seems at times as radical as a latterday socialist – or indeed communist – manifesto.

Its radicalism, though, only appears as such because we have drifted so far away from the belief in what O Toole calls "our collective capacity to create a country to be proud of". To this end, he calls for a return to "the dignity of citizenship" and an end to "the pursuit of private gain" at the expense of the public good. Only time will tell if the disgust and anger currently directed at those self-serving elites can transform itself into the kind of organised political action needed to reform Irish politics and society. As it stands, the new republic that O'Toole so brilliantly outlines seems more like an improbable, if not impossible, dream. But, then again, so did the old one.

The thoughts in the last paragraph in particular strike a chord in me. Suddenly, lately, I am made to feel like a radical communist. thought of as a socialist radical. When from my point of view, all I am doing is trying to salvage and protect what's left of Republican values in the current onslaught. What has been under siege to me is indeed "our collective capacity to create a country to be proud of".

With the author, I call 'for a return to "the dignity of citizenship" and an end to "the pursuit of private gain" at the expense of the public good.
Only time will tell if the disgust and anger currently directed at those self-serving elites can transform itself into the kind of organised political action needed to reform Irish politics and society.'

[gaelic cowboy]

Default and be damned. What then your precious euro? What then the snide triumphalism of the markets and the powerful economies?

On Sep 15 2008 Lehmans collapsed giving us a new saying "Credit Crunch" the worlds banking went into contraction as everyone hoarded there own capital and called in payment this basically finished Anglo Irish Bank and fatally weakened Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland.

(this hoarding was fatal to them as they were basically bust due to our bubble)

Interestingly it is now more and more obvious that the infamous "Bank Guarantee" which forced my country into the IMF/EU bailout was itself a product of an ECB fear of a Lehmans style shock to European banking, Trichet impressed upon Lenihan that NO bank must fail as the system could not take the hit in Europe because so many other European banks were owed money by Irish banks.

Our completely clueless FF politicians were caught completely off guard as the heads of our three main banks arrived to government buildings like mafia dons in the chauffeur limos with a nuclear weapon "we will finish your economy tomorrow if were not saved tonight" the rest as they say is history.

Irish politicians probably never thought the ECB would stop funding the banks because they doing what they were asked, but once the EFSF was setup the ECB was likely interested in using it to get off the hook of our sick banks thereby forcing the risk on someone else.

I say default and be dammed what the hell are we doing this stupid bailout for when it is not going to work, market types have not reduced the rate on Irish bonds they are apparently already writing in a 20-30% cut as of now for When we default.

FF/ECB followed a policy which could only work short term cos the banks basically lied about there solvency, they pretended it was a mere liquidity crisis and not a solvency one. They whole thing was a bluff and it almost worked but for Angela Merkel and her haircut to bondholders comments(the ECB was very annoyed about it cos they probably knew the likely reaction it would cause for our banks.)

The Irish banks bond rate soared even though the governments did not need any money however faced with having our banks shut down the talks began on the bailout due to ECB refusal to underwrite anymore loans to them.

The decision to bailout Ireland is again another sign of foolish policy to "Leave no Bondholder Behind" and mark my words it will end in more tears. We have not fed the lion even half enough not by a long shot. Quite why were all being forced to bail banks out or to cut money in order to pay back for bailing them out when there already pricing in the default amazes me.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I say default and be dammed

Do it. Why should the Irish taxpayer be the one left with the bill when the music stops?

Pretty bloody cheeky really, taking everyones money and giving it to the richest most powerful people in the world, and then telling the victims of this robbery that they have to eat massive spending cuts - just to bail out the failed businesses and speculations of the rich.



Why should you stand for this bollox? Get some clubs and smash up Dublin, then the City, then Brussels.

[gaelic cowboy]

Why should you stand for this bollox? Get some clubs and smash up Dublin, then the City, then Brussels.

Maigh Eo Abu tonight I march on Dublin

[Furunculus]

Do it. Why should the Irish taxpayer be the one left with the bill when the music stops?

Pretty bloody cheeky really, taking everyones money and giving it to the richest most powerful people in the world, and then telling the victims of this robbery that they have to eat massive spending cuts - just to bail out the failed businesses and speculations of the rich.



Why should you stand for this bollox? Get some clubs and smash up Dublin, then the City, then Brussels.

how's that common european consent coming along?

[gaelic cowboy]

Anglo brand to disappear, deposits to move

RTE News: Anglo brand to disappear, deposits to move.

The Central Bank has said that the brand name of Anglo Irish Bank is expected to disappear in the coming weeks and its deposits will be moved to a separate entity.
However, its loan book will be wound down over a number of years.
In a statement, the bank said Anglo's depositors will remain fully covered by the deposit guarantee.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The announcement comes a day after the Government and the EU announced that funding of €85bn would be provided for Ireland.
Speaking on RTÉ's News At One, Governor of the Central Bank Professor Patrick Honohan said he discussed the winding down of Anglo with one of the international negotiators during the recent talks.
Professor Honohan said he believed Anglo Irish Bank will be wound down early next year as part of the EU/IMF rescue for Ireland.
He added that the memorandum of understanding relating to the rescue deal will give future governments flexibility and autonomy in dealing with their financial decisions.
The document would include much detail on what will have to be done over the next year, but much less detail for the following years, he said.
Mr Honohan said the rescue package will make it possible to achieve a rapid downsizing of Irish banks and put the banking system on a secure footing.
The package includes €10bn to be immediately poured into banks to recapitalise them.
A €25bn contingency fund is also available if they require more money in the future.
Bank of Ireland has said that it will seek to raise almost €2.2bn of capital by February.

At least one of those will never see the light of day again one down two to go.

[Furunculus]

interesting article on the ireland situation:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...for-the-irish/

how it's not so bad, and hitting business rather than consumer wouldn't have worked.

[gaelic cowboy]

There is a case to be made for two Irelands

Ireland A has real export potential blah blah etc happily for it there is a bout of deflation on which is driving costs down etc.

Ireland B is in serious negative equity and as a result has strangled domestic demand this is the real problem.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Ireland's property obsession explained for foreigners:





Language warning! Some, erm....'vernacular' Irish.

Also, did they catch Banquo's Ghost on film (1:00 - 1:30)?.

[gaelic cowboy]

the guy at 50 to 57 was a developer

'No more cars in the park, just pay me €65m,' O'Gara

McSavage let him spout a load of spoof to show someone engaged in Gombeenism the case was famous here on telly an everything

[Furunculus]

lol Louis, didn't think we'd track BG down s9o quickly!

[Banquo's Ghost]

Also, did they catch Banquo's Ghost on film (1:00 - 1:30)?.

lol Louis, didn't think we'd track BG down s9o quickly!

Harrumph. I'll have you know that I hunt peasants the sporting way, with horse and hounds. The fellow depicted is clearly arriviste.

I'm also disappointed that you think any gentleman would take two shots to down a bog-hopper.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Stricken Allied Irish Banks is preparing to hand out €40m (£34m) of bonuses next week – despite being on the brink of receiving another emergency bailout from the Irish government.

As many as 2,400 bankers in its Dublin capital markets division are to receive the payments on 17 December under agreements struck with the bank in 2008.

The bank, 19% owned by Ireland's taxpayers but expected to reach 95% state-ownership, had originally been blocked from making the payments under one of the government's bailout programmes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...espite-bailout

The cheek.


What are those Republican paramilitary groups trying to blow up things in Britain for when there are still banks left standing in the Irish (banana) Republic?

[Beskar]

The cheek.


What are those Republican paramilitary groups trying to blow up things in Britain for when there are still banks left standing in the Irish (Cheese) Republic?

Fixed. Though quite amusing, since we called the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys, it now applies to the Irish.

[gaelic cowboy]

Beskar your obsessed with Cheese for some reason.

The Cheese is for needy families as a once off part of there social welfare it is not for putting on fancy cream crackers.

The government has always actually given these people free butter as a once off and there being given cheese now cos it's cheaper.

[gaelic cowboy]

The cheek.


What are those Republican paramilitary groups trying to blow up things in Britain for when there are still banks left standing in the Irish (banana) Republic?

Dont even joke about it Louis thats the very last thing we need here.

You will be happy to know the bankers will be bared from any bonus craic next time, unfortunately the court upheld there old contract so they had to get a bonus this time.

Bonus tax not to apply to €40m AIB payments

After it emerged that AIB is paying €40m in bonuses to executives at the bank, the Minister for Finance has proposed a 90% tax on any future bank bonuses.
However this would not affect the AIB bonuses revealed today.
AIB Executive Chairman David Hodgkinson told staff this afternoon that the issuing of the €40m in bonuses to executives 'reflects the past'.
Mr Hodgkinson made his comments in a note to staff this morning after it emerged that 2,400 workers will receive an average bonus of €16,700.
AIB will give the bonuses after several staff took court action to secure the payments.
The payments are part of contracts signed before the financial crisis began in 2008.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It is believed that cheques will be posted to executives on 17 December.
'Whilst this is legally required of us, it reflects the past and is not the way we intend to conduct ourselves in future,' Mr Hodgkinson said.
He added: 'The issues we are facing mean that the bank currently relies on government and taxpayer support and I am working to ensure that, in future, our pay and benefits policy is more reflective of our organisation's responsibilities, performance and of the economic climate in general.'
The bank has so far received €3.5bn of recapitalisation funds from the State.
Shares in the bank have plummeted from €23.95 to just 50c over the last two years.
The €40m represents a significant part of the €572.9m the bank is worth on the ISEQ today. Almost €55m was paid to staff in bonuses last year.
IDA Ireland Chief Executive Barry O'Leary has said it is 'bizarre' that AIB is paying €40m in bonuses to executives.
Mr O'Leary told RTÉ Radio that he wished the IDA had that sort of money to repair the country's tarnished reputation on the international scene.
The issue was raised by Opposition parties in the Dáil this morning.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said that the bonuses would amount to more than what a carer would get all year.
Elsewhere, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny described the payment as scandalous.
He said it was an obscenity that the Irish taxpayer was being asked to fork out for these bonuses while the most vulnerable in society had to bear the brunt of the 'recklessness and incompetence' of Government.
The party is to propose amendments to legislation to impose a 99% 'super tax' on bankers' bonuses.
The amendments are to be put down to the Financial Emergency Measures Bill, which is due to clear all stages in the Dáil by tomorrow afternoon.
Banking Spokesperson Damien English said the proposed amendments would 'tax these immoral bonuses out of existence.'
Minister Lenihan said this afternoon that legislation brought in on foot of the bank guarantee already prohibits the payment of any performance bonuses to senior bank executives.
No bonuses have been paid to bankers for 2009 or for this year.

[drone]

I'm having AIG flashbacks.
Congress Moves to Slap Heavy Tax on Bonuses

90% Levy for Biggest Payouts at Bailed-Out Firms
Friday, March 20, 2009

Congress moved yesterday to levy punitive taxes on bonuses paid by financial firms receiving government aid, threatening to undermine federal efforts to rescue the financial system by driving away participants in the programs.

A quickly assembled House bill was approved 328 to 93. It struck hard at Wall Street's compensation system, which has come under fire because of the $165 million in bonuses distributed last week by American International Group to executives of the troubled unit that helped lead the insurance giant to the brink of collapse. Under the legislation, those who received bonuses of more than $125,000 would surrender 90 percent of their payments to a special income tax.

[gaelic cowboy]

I'm having AIG flashbacks.
Congress Moves to Slap Heavy Tax on Bonuses

There talking about bringing in some kind of deferred bonus system for companies outside bailout central.

The idea is to defer payment for 3 yr and if they have a big loss it will be clawed back.

[drone]

In an ideal world, corporate retention bonuses would have a sensible nullification clause. If you run the company into the ground, sorry, no bonus.

[Louis VI the Fat]

You will be happy to know the bankers will be bared from any bonus craic next time, unfortunately the court upheld there old contract so they had to get a bonus this time.

Yes, I understand that the bonus is over 2008.

But, old contracts are not at all upheld. The very point of the bailout is that banks do not have to suffer the financial consequences of their pre-bailout obligations. However, apparantly the bankers are shielded from negative consequences, but protected in positive consequences of pre-bailout arrangements. That is not on.

Dont even joke about it Louis thats the very last thing we need here.

Joke? What makes you think I'm joking when I suggest blowing up this bank?

In fact, as we speak, on the news there's this video of Irish Republican paramilitaries who tried to blow up the car of a banking executive. They all burned their lips on the exhaust pipe.

Now that, that was a joke. (Bet you have never heard it before )

[Strike For The South]

1. Those accents are ridiculous

2. "When we run out of pheasant, we shoot peasant" is something I can see BG saying :)

[gaelic cowboy]

1. Those accents are ridiculous

2. "When we run out of pheasant, we shoot peasant" is something I can see BG saying :)

The quality live a differant life

A postcard from: Sir Jack Leslie

About 10 years ago I decided I would go to my first disco. So I jumped on the village bus and went to The Oasis in Monaghan and never found so many friendly people in my life -- although they would steal my cap! About two years after, I went to Manumission in Ibiza and had a wonderful time.

Bear in mind now that when he went to Manumission in 2001 he was 85 yrs of age and he still goes to the local club in Monaghan



Sir Jack prob taken in the Oasis in Monaghan

[Louis VI the Fat]

AIB has decided not to pay the €40m in bonuses to some of its senior staff members after Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan threatened to cut State funding.

AIB says its board has decided not to pay the controversial €40m in bonuses to some of its senior staff members. The move follows a letter from Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to the bank's board.

The Minister said the payment of financial support needed by the bank from the State would be conditional on the non-payment of bonuses 'no matter when they may have been earned'.
Mr Lenihan said: 'I appreciate that AIB was not in a position to put up a sworn defence in the High Court proceedings and that the Executive Chairman and the Board have acted with complete propriety in this matter.'
The bank said tonight its legal advice had been that it was obliged to pay the bonuses but that the Minister's intervention overtook that obligation.

It said: 'The bank very much appreciates the support it has received to date from the State and the Irish taxpayers and acknowledges that it will continue to rely on this support for some time to come.'
AIB Executive Chairman David Hodgkinson said the bank was 'relieved' to be in a position not to pay the bonuses.

Head of Corporate Services at AIB, Alan Kelly, said that the board of the bank had been embarrassed at the prospect of paying the bonuses.
The bank, which has received €3.5bn from the Government in assistance, was due to pay the bonuses for 2008 as a result of a High Court ruling earlier this year.
A staff member had taken the legal action to force the bank to pay him his bonus.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1213/harneym.html

Common sense at last.


Even if I did, somewhat, understood everybody's position - the individual banker wants his 2008 bonus from before the bailout, the judge must rule to honour existing contracts, the bank must abide by that, a government must not interfere with individual court decisions - still, the overwhelming emotion was: what were they all even thinking!?

[Beskar]

Should do what they did with the NHS. Force everyone to have a sign a new contract within a couple of months, or they find themselves out of a job and without redundancy pay.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Should do what they did with the NHS. Force everyone to have a sign a new contract within a couple of months, or they find themselves out of a job and without redundancy pay.

Sometimes, my dear perfidious neighbours, there is such a merciless brutality to Britain that it borders on common sense.

[Furunculus]

lessons for ireland from iceland:

http://www.economist.com/node/177329...n/tw/te/rss/pe