Strokestown **Mod Note in Post #4461**

donkeykong5 wrote: »

Peter Casey for taoiseach

end of the road wrote: »

not going to happen. thankfully.

EXACTLY A YEAR on from Leo Varadkar’s now infamous “not another cent” comments during the general election, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has restated that Ireland will not impose losses on bondholders.

Kenny has told Bloomberg television that Ireland will not seek any write-down on its debt and will not impose losses on bondholders.

The former Anglo Irish Bank, which was merged with Irish Nationwide Building Society and renamed the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, was liquidated in 2013. Taxpayers committed €34.7 billion in total, with the prospect of little if any recovery.

The Taoiseach rejected the “roll over Leo” moniker Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty attributed to him. Mr Doherty said Fine Gael, including the Taoiseach when he was a minister in 2015, pledged that there would be no repayment to bondholders.

“We were all assured that they would not be paid back,” he said, adding that it was Christmas present for bondholders while taxpayers pick up tab for a bank that should never have been bailed out in the first place.
Bondholders

Mr Doherty said the former governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan argued strenuously against paying these bondholders.

“He said there was a moral case for making sure that any money recovered from the liquidation was returned to taxpayer and not junior bondholders.”

Mr Doherty told the Taoiseach that “under your watch bondholders are in line for a bumper pay out, scandalous stuff. They gambled on a bust bank and can’t believe their luck with this Government”.

He accused the Government of prioritising banks, vulture funds and bondholders. The State would take on the victims of cervical cancer or those misdiagnosed in Kerry with it or people going to court to seek rights for their children “but when it comes to bond holders who are unguaranteed,” the State would pay €33 billion of debt.

Mr Doherty asked the Taoiseach “are your promises given to the Irish people in 2015 not worth the paper they are written on?”

A group of Anglo Irish Bank junior bondholders, who resisted attempts to make them share the failed lender’s losses, are set to recoup all that they are owed.

And many junior bondholders will be paid back the full value of bonds they bought during the crisis at deeply discounted prices.

Mr Varadkar’s now famous line to Mr Doherty, “it doesn’t take very long for your balaclava to slip”, was akin to striking a match to an oil field. It was all you could see, hear, and talk about, commanding metres in column inches and gigahertz in radio waves.

Division complete. Distraction on course. Job pretty much done.

Except it’s far, far from done.

Here are some facts — courtesy of the Central Bank of Ireland.

There are 29,000 homes in arrears in Ireland. We are not talking a missed payment here and there. We are talking 29,000 residential mortgages that have “accumulated at least two years worth of missed payments”.

OK, so 29,000 homeowners not paying their mortgage, no big deal?

Well, let’s ignore the spin and the headlines again, and once more rely on the Central Bank of Ireland for some clarity here.

It is estimated that half of those 29,000 will be repossessed. So all that furore up in Roscommon, all the moving parts of that story, the schoolboy debating in the Dáil, the row over who and who isn’t explicitly condemning violence, is, you could say, perhaps a distraction from the real issue here.

This isn’t just about one eviction in Roscommon, this is about another 15,000 evictions coming down the line.

The alarm bells have been ringing on this for some time.

“Over half of the cases progressing to long-term arrears [those 29,000 homes] are classified as involving the potential for loss of ownership outcomes,” said the Central Bank in its quarterly bulletin on April 10, 2018.

“It is important to understand that loss of ownership may take place in two main ways for PDH [(private dwelling homes] accounts: Voluntary or enforcement.”

So far in Ireland, over two-thirds of “loss of ownership” have come about voluntarily, and one-third through repossessions, as we saw in Roscommon last week.

Some more facts: 17% of all long-term mortgage arrears are held by unregulated loan owners, those so-called vulture funds. And God only knows how they will go about getting men, women, and children out from under their roofs.

If these soon-to-be-repossessed 15,000 homes go down the Roscommon route of forced eviction, who is and who isn’t condemning violence will be the least of our country’s worries.

There are already 10,000 people in homelessness in Ireland. If at least two people live in each of those 15,000 soon-to-be-repossessed properties, does that mean we will see another 30,000 of our citizens being declared as homeless?

It is estimated by some that there may even be three people in each of those homes — not to be alarmist but does that mean another 45,000 people out on the streets or in hubs?

If we already have 10,000 homeless and, worst-case scenario, we add 45,000 others to that, we are looking at being a modern democratic English-speaking first-world country with a homeless population of 55,000 people.

How did we ever end up here?

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

So what do you suggest?

Burn all the banks to the ground with all our money in them?

Great, then what????