Brian Lenihan to appear on Vincent Browne tonight at 11.05

hotmail.com

Lenihan will take on Vincent Browne later tonight on TV3. Should be interesting viewing. Sick of RTE presenters taking the rubbish.

maynooth_rules

I hope Browne doesnt give him an easy ride. Listening to Dobson patethic interviews with Biffo on 6.01 yesterday and today was hard to take

Liam Byrne

To be fair O'Callaghan asked the right questions earlier, the only problem was that she didn't challenge his bull**** replies.

VB will hopefully rip the bull**** to shreds so we might finally get an answer as to why this guy is so obsessed with wasting our money bailing out his party's former mates from the Galway Tent.

20Cent

This should be good.

Zynks

Does anyone expect to hear any thing other than the highly predictable BS? I could almost predict everything that he is going to say, but am kind of pissed off with all that rubbish, which the Brians seem to think we will accept as truth if they repeat it enough times... Bank debt does not equate to sovereign debt, we won't be blacklisted for the rest of our lives if we don't jump in to save the bondholders.

These black widows are not happy enough with killing their mates (PDs Greens), they will only settle once there is no life left anywhere.

Feck it, I' ve been holding not to say this, but my savings are leaving the country tomorrow.

Shea O'Meara

I believe Lenihan will come clean out of loyalty to the Irish people and explain that because since Haughey's time the banks, (such as Anglo & A.I.B.) have been in symbiosis with FFail and the reason we need to keep bailing them out is because they have the goods, that being records of numerous shady deals with FFail........
Sorry, I've got a whacky flu at the minute...it'll be the usual bluster with Lenihan repeating previous responses in different ways when a hard question is asked.

daltonm

Hmmm, I have yet to be convinced. Look forward to it though as long as VB doesn't fal for the *cough* Lenihan charm.........

Tony_Yeboah

Hope he tears him a new one.

Can anyone get a feed on tv3.ie?

A Dub in Glasgo

I thought it was just me!

I get this '303: Failed to load a resource: Unable to load resources: Error #2032'

hotmail.com

The interview is pre recorded.

Liam Byrne

Quote of the night : "I have not encountered any anger directed at me"

The guy is as deluded as Ahern.

hotmail.com

Vincent puts Miriam to shame.

Coillte_Bhoy

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Quote of the night : "I have not encountered any anger directed at me"

The guy is as deluded as Ahern.

I dont detect any noticeable anger towards him per se tbh. Towrads FF in general, a different story obv.

Liam Byrne

Lenihan is now claiming that "we did what other countries did".

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't he claim at the time that his "solution" was groundbreaking and others copied it ?

hotmail.com

Lenihan is looking like an idiot. Fair play Vincent!

Tony_Yeboah

"Let's keep our fingers crossed"

Not to worry lads, the man has a plan and it involves crossing our fingers.....sweet baby jesus.

Mister men

Lenihan needs help. He is deluded.

gizmo555

All you need to know about his mindset was contained in the comment he just made, that he also made several times at this morning's press conference:

Our task and the task of the government is to restore Allied Irish Banks to its former greatness . . .

To which the obvious response is "why?"

Liam Byrne

I loved the fact that Browne got him to expose the usual FF mantra towards the end.

"There is no suggestion that any member of FF did anything criminal"

Browne wasn't claiming that they did anything criminal; he was pointing out that they did the wrong things and did serious damage - a fact that Lenihan had previously pointed out himself.

But no - in FF terms there's no "doing wrong" unless it's actually criminal.

Sickening exposure of the blinkered deluded mindset of FF.

Fair play Vincent.

Maybe some of the 20% will be able to see through these idiotic con-men now.

We live in hope!

Rubik.

Its a bit curious that there is no FG'er on the panel, tonight of all nights.

Coillte_Bhoy

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I loved the fact that Browne got him to expose the usual FF mantra towards the end.

"There is no suggestion that any member of FF did anything criminal"

Browne wasn't claiming that they did anything criminal;

Did he not make reference to the Icelandic pm etc being charged???

Liam Byrne

Coillte_Bhoy wrote: »

Did he not make reference to the Icelandic pm etc being charged???

Lenihan tried to head that off in advance by claiming that Iceland was worse off than we are.

RATM

Mad Dog Browne did a good job. It's a shame he is one of the few journalists we've got who really hold the government to account .

He was superb when questioning Ahern in that 2007 election press conference but I get the feeling that if any young journos did it FF would have their press passes confiscated.

Wide Road

"Isn't it strange that he (Joe McNamara) gets brought before the courts in charge of criminal offences and others who have been responsible including members of your govt, who have been responsible far more damage to this society, get off scot free".
Those are Vincent's words, what is he (Vincent) implying?

20Cent

Nice one by Brown.
Liked the question at the end about Cement Truck guy being arrested and given a trial date in 24hours. Bernie Madoff was arrested and jailed within a year, even the 911 commission was done in two years. Seanie et all are still living the high life while we "share the pain". It was mentioned on the 6 one news as well.

hotmail.com

Wide Road wrote: »

"Isn't it strange that he (Joe McNamara) gets brought before the courts in charge of criminal offences and others who have been responsible including members of your govt, who have been responsible far more damage to this society, get off scot free".
Those are Vincent's words, what is he (Vincent) implying?

Well it's kind of obvious.

poppyvalley

hotmail.com wrote: »

Lenihan will take on Vincent Browne later tonight on TV3. Should be interesting viewing. Sick of RTE presenters taking the rubbish.

No VB didint give him a hard time at all imo. It was all "Brian" (not "minister")& "Vincent" like oul pals. Sickening really especially if you watched the earlier interview with MOCallaghan, where he tried to stare her down & intimidate her. Blamed Prime Time and other aspects of the media for negative comments. Came across as a bit of a bully!!

hotmail.com

poppyvalley wrote: »

No VB didint give him a hard time at all imo. It was all "Brian" (not "minister")& "Vincent" like oul pals. Sickening really especially if you watched the earlier interview with MOCallaghan, where he tried to stare her down & intimidate her. Blamed Prime Time and other aspects of the media for negative comments. Came across as a bit of a bully!!

Strangely I didn't notice him calling him Brian, I do notice when the RTE presenters address them as minister for some reason. Why can't they address them using their first name like everyone else?

hinault

Lenihan is taking the piss surely?
"Allied Irish banks wasn't insolvent"?

AIB was bloody insolvent Brian! That's why we had to recapitalise it, brian!

The Minister is clearly delusional.

professore

I don't get Lenihan. There is at least a 90% probability that the man will be dead before the year is out - don't believe all the media BS that says otherwise - yet he insists continuing with this FF charade instead of retiring from politics and spending his remaining time with his wife and kids.

I can only think he actually believes what he is saying. The shame is that he is killing the country economically.

Sticky_Fingers

^^^+1

Brian please resign, go home to your wife and kids and forget about this mess.
I expect to be cut a new one but I cannot blame this guy for the quagmire we are in. He had a part to play, a major part but placing all this crap on his shoulders is just wrong. IMO his only crime is being incompetent and having over confidence in his own abilities, there is no sinister plot or shady conspiracy to defraud the nation. He made some very very bad calls and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I blame the people who gave him the job, the people who were truly instrumental in the creation of this disaster. This guy is just the janitor, given a mop and bucket and told to deal with it. He is way out of his depth and is struggling to keep his head above water while turds like Bertie, Cowen and Seanie float on by.

The sad fact is that he was never cut out for the job and so he should never have been offered it in the first place though keeping the job and defiantly sticking with it (and this sham of a government) when it was obvious he could not make the grade is his responsibility and his alone and something that he should be held accountable for.

digme

professore wrote: »

I don't get Lenihan. There is at least a 90% probability that the man will be dead before the year is out - don't believe all the media BS that says otherwise - yet he insists continuing with this FF charade instead of retiring from politics and spending his remaining time with his wife and kids.

I can only think he actually believes what he is saying. The shame is that he is killing the country economically.

He's a sociopath.

gizmo555

gizmo555 wrote: »

All you need to know about his mindset was contained in the comment he just made, that he also made several times at this morning's press conference:

Our task and the task of the government is to restore Allied Irish Banks to its former greatness . . .

To which the obvious response is "why?"

And as John Murray has just pointed out on RTE radio, this "greatness" included (quite apart from the present catastrophe) such highlights as the ICI debacle (for which we have been paying for decades via the insurance levy), the DIRT scandal, serial overcharging of customers on things like foreign exchange, and John Rusnak.

fricatus

gizmo555 wrote: »

And as John Murray has just pointed out on RTE radio, this "greatness" included (quite apart from the present catastrophe) such highlights as the ICI debacle (for which we have been paying for decades via the insurance levy), the DIRT scandal, serial overcharging of customers on things like foreign exchange, and John Rusnak.

Brilliant stuff John Murray! I couldn't get over Lenihan's "former greatness" BS yesterday. I nearly crashed the car!

Two other choice cuts of prime Bull from the finance minister on the same Morning Ireland interview: "people ramming JCBs into the gates of Leinster House" (there was no JCB and no ramming; free the Toxic Truck Driver!), and "the brave men and women selling our bonds" (no doubt they have to get past the Taliban to do so :rolleyes:).

dan_d

Have to say, I don't get him either.

There's a photo of him on the front of some paper yesterday (well okay, all the papers!!), and he just looks - sick.He looks so unwell.

Why is he doing this to himself? Seriously? Unless it distracts him from the state of his health - and to be fair, cancer is something that you'd need a pretty big distraction from, and a country going down the tubes probably ranks as "pretty big"......but still. I'd rather the state of the Government's affairs was a priority as opposed to a distraction.

As for AIB....well, enough said.

Denerick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHTNTptUEe8

daltonm

poppyvalley wrote: »

No VB didint give him a hard time at all imo. It was all "Brian" (not "minister")& "Vincent" like oul pals. Sickening really especially if you watched the earlier interview with MOCallaghan, where he tried to stare her down & intimidate her. Blamed Prime Time and other aspects of the media for negative comments. Came across as a bit of a bully!!

Fully agree. It was a poor performance by VB.

A couple of things struck me as bizarre to say the least.

The first is - if he didn't know the extent of the problem in 2008 then why did he feel the need to give a full blanket guarentee?

Secondly - BL blames it all on the banks - his figures were correct because he was working on the information that the banks gave him - so the banks came to him on more than 3 occasions with the WRONG information? And no-one is taken to task about this, particulary himself for allowing that to be the case - and should it have not rung major alarm bells if the banks themselves didn't know the extent of the losses?

He is a liar and how we know that is his "4 year budget plan" that will be announced in November.

This plan will be done up in 4 weeks. Considering it took him 2 years at the abacus to get where Peter Mathews et al have been for months, can you imagine the crap that will be in this plan.

And why bother with a 4 year plan - when we can safely say that FF will be lucky to be in power this time next year.

He truly is the face of FF - an arrogant deluded specimen who has taken a road that has cost us dearly - and who believes that we did the right thing - yet the reaction of the markets and the high cost of borrowing clearly say we did not.

The December budget will be the straw that breaks the camels back imo.

nacho libre

Sticky_Fingers wrote: »

^^^+1

Brian please resign, go home to your wife and kids and forget about this mess.
I expect to be cut a new one but I cannot blame this guy for the quagmire we are in. He had a part to play, a major part but placing all this crap on his shoulders is just wrong. IMO his only crime is being incompetent and having over confidence in his own abilities, there is no sinister plot or shady conspiracy to defraud the nation. He made some very very bad calls and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I blame the people who gave him the job, the people who were truly instrumental in the creation of this disaster. This guy is just the janitor, given a mop and bucket and told to deal with it. He is way out of his depth and is struggling to keep his head above water while turds like Bertie, Cowen and Seanie float on by.

The sad fact is that he was never cut out for the job and so he should never have been offered it in the first place though keeping the job and defiantly sticking with it (and this sham of a government) when it was obvious he could not make the grade is his responsibility and his alone and something that he should be held accountable for.

i tend to agree. as McWilliams said Lenihan being appointed finance minister was akin to an economist, like himself, being appointed attorney general at the time of a constitutional crisis. Lenihan was clearly out of his depth and at times showed a bit of arrogance, possible because of his background as a barrister, that he knew what he was doing. i heard he did a lot of reading on finance but again that likes an IT expert getting as many books on neurosurgey as possible and then expecting to be able to perform a successful brain operation within a few months. what should have been done back in late 2008 was an economic expert from the private scetor, like Morgan Kelly or McWilliams, should have been given the job of finance minister- if that wasn't feasible, at least bring them in to give proper advice to the person appointed as finance minister

unit 1

As for Brian Lenihan, he's hoping the guy who lent us the money will forget.:mad:

steelcityblues

His competence does not match his arrogance!

round tower huntsman

i watched it, the mans a moron.....aib is solvent:rolleyes: then why the fcuk are we giving it billions??
we're doomed.

Liam Byrne

round tower huntsman wrote: »

i watched it, the mans a moron.....aib is solvent:rolleyes: then why the fcuk are we giving it billions??.

If you watched it, then you'll know why.

Because - as Brian said - "we want to return it to its former glory" (whoever "we" is).

Remember ? The "glory" that was already bailed out by the taxpayer in the 80s and helpfully wrote off a massive debt that a former corrupt FF Taoiseach had run up ?

Apparently the FF party has better memories than Ahern when remembering those who previously gave it a "dig-out".

Mr.Micro

I wonder if Lenihan had any notion 2 years ago how much Anglo was/is going to cost when he agreed blanket funding for the banks? I think not. At the time he and the Government were advised by Merll Lynch( if I recall correctly) not to give blanket coverage. Now Lenihan has no choice but to try and put a good face on it. That incompetent Neary the so called former Financial Regulator said on TV 2 years ago, that all the banks had enough capital and liquidity to deal with any crisis that may arise. What a spanner, where did he learn banking and then got 650,000 payoff.

I note from his responses that Lenihan puts the current decisions he made on based on the advices of the current Financial regulator and the new Governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan......so any blame will be with them if it goes pear shaped, but who will take the credit if it works out in 20 years time.

Callan57

unit 1 wrote: »

As for Brian Lenihan, he's hoping the guy who lent us the money will forget.:mad:

Fingers crossed :eek::eek::eek:

oppenheimer1

nacho libre wrote: »

i tend to agree. as McWilliams said Lenihan being appointed finance minister was akin to an economist, like himself, being appointed attorney general at the time of a constitutional crisis. Lenihan was clearly out of his depth and at times showed a bit of arrogance, possible because of his background as a barrister, that he knew what he was doing. i heard he did a lot of reading on finance but again that likes an IT expert getting as many books on neurosurgey as possible and then expecting to be able to perform a successful brain operation within a few months. what should have been done back in late 2008 was an economic expert from the private scetor, like Morgan Kelly or McWilliams, should have been given the job of finance minister- if that wasn't feasible, at least bring them in to give proper advice to the person appointed as finance minister

Didn't they bring in Alan Aherne?

unit 1

Callan57 wrote: »

Fingers crossed :eek::eek::eek:

You have seen that apres match sketch havent you?:D

oppenheimer1

professore wrote: »

I don't get Lenihan. There is at least a 90% probability that the man will be dead before the year is out - don't believe all the media BS that says otherwise - yet he insists continuing with this FF charade instead of retiring from politics and spending his remaining time with his wife and kids.

I can only think he actually believes what he is saying. The shame is that he is killing the country economically.

Are you privy to the details of Mr. Lenihans medical records? Are you a doctor/oncologist? Saying that there is a 90% chance of him dying in the next 4 months is purely conjecture on your part, and quite offensive.

keary79

i think brian is doing a good job. its not him that got us into this mess its the minister for finances and taoiseachs before him he just trying to get us out of this mess.
i do hope aib isnt insolvent because if it was or any of the main banks it would be a complete disaster for the country
and i do hope the brian or any of his family dont read this to say that he could be dead by the ended of the year is horrible thing to say to anyone who has cancer or to their family especially when he is going through it publicly

hinault

daltonm wrote: »

Fully agree. It was a poor performance by VB.

A couple of things struck me as bizarre to say the least.

The first is - if he didn't know the extent of the problem in 2008 then why did he feel the need to give a full blanket guarentee?

Secondly - BL blames it all on the banks - his figures were correct because he was working on the information that the banks gave him - so the banks came to him on more than 3 occasions with the WRONG information? And no-one is taken to task about this, particulary himself for allowing that to be the case - and should it have not rung major alarm bells if the banks themselves didn't know the extent of the losses?

He is a liar and how we know that is his "4 year budget plan" that will be announced in November.

This plan will be done up in 4 weeks. Considering it took him 2 years at the abacus to get where Peter Mathews et al have been for months, can you imagine the crap that will be in this plan.

And why bother with a 4 year plan - when we can safely say that FF will be lucky to be in power this time next year.

He truly is the face of FF - an arrogant deluded specimen who has taken a road that has cost us dearly - and who believes that we did the right thing - yet the reaction of the markets and the high cost of borrowing clearly say we did not.

The December budget will be the straw that breaks the camels back imo.

Good post.

I think a lot of what Lenihan has being saying, particularly in the past 12 months, has bordered on delusional.

Insisting on saying that the economy has "turned corners" and then saying things like "the banks are solvent" when it is clear that the banks were not solvent (otherwise they would not need to be recapitalised).

Again last night, he once again insisted that AIB is solvent.

Naturally when he assumed office, it takes time to learn to the ropes but two years in to this mess it is abundantly clear that Lenihan hasn't grasped the concept that the Irish banks were (are?) insolvent and that with the continuing deterioration of the economy spell further trouble for our banks.

Liam Byrne

keary79 wrote: »

i think brian is doing a good job. its not him that got us into this mess its the minister for finances and taoiseachs before him he just trying to get us out of this mess.
i do hope aib isnt insolvent because if it was or any of the main banks it would be a complete disaster for the country
and i do hope the brian or any of his family dont read this to say that he could be dead by the ended of the year is horrible thing to say to anyone who has cancer or to their family especially when he is going through it publicly

He did not get us into this mess, but he was part of the party that did, and he then built on that by driving us further into the mess via crap decisions.