The Republic has not fallen.

If ever there was a proof required that the govt. in Dublin was not capable of defending, encouraging and bringing to full fruition the Irish Republic then the last week was full testament to how they have failed once again. There have been many witty uses of the proclamation text over the last week or so. The Irish Left Review and the Irish examiner both have examples which skilfully set the destructive arrogance of the Fianna Fail govt. in stark contrast against the selflessness and vision of the founders of this Republic. Further commentators have noted that the Republic is dead, disestablished in 2010, last Thursday to be exact. Typically we hear that the patriot dead of the rising and tan war would be spinning in their graves.

The sentiment is understandable. The southern state has suffered a very serious loss of control over its own fate. Its laudable that people are going back to the well - to the proclamation which is not just a historical document but alongside the programme of the first dail effectively the constituting document of the Republic that was founded in 1916.

The anger of people who believe that for all purposes the Republic has fallen due to the actions of the Fianna Fail govt is understandable. Yet its mistaken so far as it believes that the Irish Republic is Fianna Fail's or the Dublin Govt's to destroy.

One version of the oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood had its members "swear allegiance to the Irish Republic, now virtually established". A republic established in principle in the 1860s and in reality in 1916 is not and never will be Fianna Fail's to destroy.

Which raises the question then of how the men of 1916 would view this. From their own words and their proclamation we know what there vision for Ireland was.

Did they envisage a 'Republic' whose governing class would welcome emigration twice in the space of three decades?

Did they envisage a 'Republic' where you are scared when your relative goes to hospital because it will probably kill them rather than save them?

Did they envisage a 'Republic' where the wealth of a generation was squandered to the defend the interests of a well heeled ascendancy, a native aristocracy of gombeens and arrogant crooks whose interest lays in their own land developer class over the mere Irish.

Did they envisage a 'Republic' which ignored the apartheid statelet's discriminaton to the north?

Connolly who was shot unconscious in a chair hardly would be happy to see an 80 year old woman in Sligo hosptial suffering from Lung cancer being slapped into a chair for the night.

The men of 1916 didnt die to establish Irish sovereignty alone. Each of them had a vision whether it be cultural (which the state is failing), educational (which the state is failing), social equality ( which the state is failing) etc etc.

If the men of 1916 where spinning in their graves last Thursday then they have been doing it for decades.

Last Thursday was a new low, another step away from the Republic, not marking the end of the Republic, but maybe marking the realisation for may people that the so called republic was not a republic and has not been for decades. What was called the 'republic' was an oligarchy geared to the benefit of the few and failing at practically every task it turned its hand to whether that be the development of robust and functioning institutions, a stable economy, a revival of our national language or maintaing fiscal control.

So has the Republic fallen. No it has not. Its still there. The task is the same task it has been for a while now - to dismantle the oligarchical states and replace them with a functioning republic.

The 6 county orange state has been broken down and is being destroyed more and more and now the Fianna Fail state has destroyed itself.

But the Republic still exists and maybe today with the prospect of the end of the gombeen state built by Fianna Fail and tolerated by Fine Gael the men of 1916 are spinning a bit slower in their graves

Just Like That.

How do you get rid of €1.8 billion just like that? Well you dont get goofball comedian Tommy Cooper. Instead you get a goofball finance minister and hey presto the National Pensions Reserve Fund is down by €1.8 billion. The Sinn Fein budget proposals calls for a multi-year investment strategy to reflate the economy using money from the National Pension Reserve Fund. Can anyone seriously tell me that throwing away €1.8 billion in a flash is a better option than using the money to invest in the economy. Yet against all common sense I am sure the Govt. will say it.

As noted on the NamaWineLake blog and taken up again on IrishEconomy.ie Lenihan has engaged in another bail out of AIB shareholders and subordinated debt holders for reasons that are hard to fathom.

Brian Lenihan made a statement of October 30 that "AIB's upcoming €5.4 billion will be fully underwritten by the National Pension Reserve Fund Commission (NPRFC) at a fixed price of €0.50 per share."  The catch as noted by Karl Whelan is "Unfortunately, the shares closed on Friday at €0.337."
So the way things are being set up the Fund is going to drop an impressive €1.8 billion when those shares are bought. So what would be the alternative. IS there an alternative. Well one possible option layed out is " Cancel the underwriting, nationalise the bank and appoint an assessor to value the shares. If, for instance, the shares were valued at their closing price on Friday, this would cost us €364 million. Which sounds better? Losing €1.8 billion or losing €364 million. Is it worth €1.4 billion to retain a tiny private ownership share?"
Which again would be the SF position. Get these banks nationalised. Grasp the nettle and stop trying to keep them in private hands via huge, unwarranted state subventions for no benefit to the state.
How can Brian Lenihan agree to just provide a 1.8 Billion subvention simply to avoid nationalisation. They are totally in hock to the bond holders and the developers as noted by Martin Ferris and Pearse Doherty. And the property developers and bond holders are no fools. There advise is good advice. Good for bond holders and good for developers. Indeed the only fools here would appear to be the Min. of Finance and his team who despite all their pro-market fawning have only succeeded in driving interest rates over 7%.
They have brought us to the Greeks level of debt. The way things are going we'll end up fire saling every single asset which will be bought for next to nothing by investors. That may well be the end game here.  

Ruin a gate and your nailed. Ruin an economy and you'r scot free.

Its plain wrong that a man will be indicted tomorrow, probably for criminal damages, for driving a cement truck into the gates of Leinster House for damages that will run to maybe a few thousand. Who has been prosecuted for driving a coach and four horses through financial regulation, through the banking system, through the whole economy?

No one yet and if it wan't for Sinn Fein pushing a banking fraud inquiry then maybe it might not even be an issue for investigation.

Fraud Inquiriy - Bankers and Fianna Fail politicians have questions to answer

Great post from Rathangan Republican News blog on Eoin o'Broin's recent call for a fraud inquiry.  Steps like this allied with the wide ranging campaigns on housing, hospitals etc are bringing the fight to those who thought they were above the law or have no responsibility. The culture of inpunity is going to have to end in this country.

Dublin Sinn Féin representative, Eoin O' Broin is demanding that Gardaí launch a fraud inquiry to investigate the Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and top officials at Bank of Ireland and AIB. Mr O' Broin has contacted Gardaí at Pearse Street in Dublin, saying the men should face questions on whether they deliberately withheld information from the Dáil regarding the insolvency of Anglo Irish Bank. He also wants the chiefs of the banks to answer questions on whether they withheld information from Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan in meetings before the enactment of the bank guarantee scheme which led to huge financial loss for the Irish taxpayer.

Criminals should be prosecuted.

O' Broins move comes in the wake of the decision by Iceland authorities to bring charges against former government ministers over their alleged failings connected to the economic crisis. The ministers, including former PM Geir H. Haarde will now be sent to court where they will have to prove their innocence. In such a climate, it comes as no surprise that someone should bring similar charges against our own incompetent government. Every man, woman and child in this country has been effected by their failures to deal with the economic decimation of our nation, and if you walk into any public gathering in Ireland, you will hear our citizens criticising this government for their inaction.



The only surprise is that it was left to a Sinn Féin representative to do this, while the supposed main opposition of Fine Gael/ Labour sat on their thumbs, sniggering about Brian Cowens alcohol problems. It was left to a Sinn Féin representative to take action while the many banner waving "socialist" parties did nothing, except perhaps critising Sinn féins status as a peoples party because they don't waste time holding meetings to discuss the finer points of dogma created by men who have been dead for a century. It was left to a Sinn Féin representative to take the peoples fight to the heart of the corrupt regime in Leinster house while the rest did nothing.



Eoin O' Broin deserves a medal for bringing this action against these people, who have been protected by the inadequacies of the opposition, and their amiable relationship with the O' Reilly media for so long. Now is not the time to sit back and allow Joe Duffy to tell us that this is Ireland, and not Iceland or Greece. Don't listen to Kevin Myers tell you that Eoin O' Broin  is a supporter of terrorism who wants to eat your children and turn the country into a homosexual, vegetarian, communist utopia. Don't mind George Hook when he tells you that the Government are to blame but bringing them to court is a step to far, and will turn Ireland into a joke.

"Breaking stones in the mid day sun..."

They have already succeeded in turning Ireland into a joke.

The protesters in Greece carried banners declaring proudly, "WE ARE NOT THE IRISH".

This is not the view of Ireland I want the rest of the world to have. This is not the way I would like future generations of Irish men and Irish women to remember us.

We are Irish and we are proud. We don't lie down for anyone, and we certainly don't allow rulers to get away with hell and leave us lying in the gutter. Just ask the english.

Ninety four years ago, brave Irish men and Irish women rose up against a corrupt regime that seemed untouchable at the time. Though few in number, and though eventually forced to surrender, the news of their actions spread around the globe, and the memory of their rising has inspired Irish people the world over since.

Our own Irish Republican Super Hero, O' Broinman?

Eoin O' Broin has taken the fight to the government, but he cant do so alone. It is time for all of us to rise up and stand behind O' Broin. Its time to get rid of these criminals and the equally guilty main opposition that have allowed them to stay in their Ivory tower for so long.

Glorious leader gains recognition despite an ungrateful people

According to Newsweek magazine sth. Ireland is ruled by one of the World's great leaders. A man who has managed to win some serious respect in international circles.

Newsweek has, maybe for the craic, listed Brian Cowen as no. 5 in a list of 10 impressive world leaders.

Instead of calling him the Big Ignorant Fu$%er From Offaly he shall now be know as The Fiscal Taskmaster.  Brian and his "able Finance Minister have pushed through austerity packages drastic enough to win the admiration of the international community, raised taxes, and slashed some public salaries by more than 10 percent. But the Irish aren't showing much gratitude".

Could that be because our economy is on life support, our young emigrating and our old people being treated like second class citizens all so we can bail out the bould Brian's developer and banker friends.

If Newsweek likes Brian Cowen for his slash and burn, bail out the boys who gave FF money, approach then they will love Brian Lenihan - a finance minister who comes from the "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" school of finance.

Irish Times Sycophantics

Recently the issue of Irish men serving with the British Army came up. The context was Irish soldiers in World War 1. True we needed to look and figure out what that means in 2010 for republicans. Its fair to say we can remember their deaths with sadness while opposing the foreign army that slaughtered them and the craven men who recruited them to their deaths. Today that craven attitude is still on show. The Irish Times has an article which glorifies a British regiment called the "Micks" and postively recommends signing up and heading out to Afghanistan.

Why Irish men join I dont know but they are not the focus of my ire. Instead its more apt to challenge those who push such recruitment in Ireland and to persuade them that such misguided efforts are not in anyway reconciliatory or evidence of a maturing relationship between Ireland and Britain.

So who are the Micks. Its a regiment that has a wolfhound, gets shamrock from a royal and has twee songs about Oirland and and which did two tours of occupation in Fermanagh and East Tyrone.

Its sad to see Irish men join a foreign army to play paddy.

Its sad to see Irish men join a foreign army that has brutalised communities here.

But its sickening to see a paper like the Irish Times pushing recruitment to such an outfit. When those poor eejits loose legs, arms, their sight, or even their lives out in Afghanistan the Irish Times wont be helping them or their surviving families. They wont give a damn.

We will move on from the conflict in the north. We will build better relationships with Britain but that does not mean we need to become a supine recruiting pool for their foreign adventures so young Irish men can die in Kandahar.

Was this article a misguided attempt at reconcillation or the Irish Times London correspondent proving his trust-worthiness and loyalty?

People should be in no dount that Republicans are capable of moving out of their comfort zone to build trust and new relationships. Nobody has worked harder than Republicans at doing this. Certainly not the preaching Dublin media. But building genuine relationships and deep trust cannot be built by toady demonstrations of inoffensiveness. That just belittles us and demeans us as a nation.

Be in no doubt that there will be a relentless push by interests such as Henessy or others with Harris like views on the north to push Britishness into every facet of the island as the process of reunification continues. This will be done so as to supposedly make the south a warm house for unionists.

Ultimmately it will fail because the union is fraying not least in Scotland and Wales.

It will fail because as long as Sinn Fein is leading the reapprochement with Irish unionists in the north it will be able to resist the push of sycophants in the south who would like to abandon every single aspect of Irish identity in a misguided attempt at reconciliation.

Mark Henessy and the Irish Times may think they are contributing to the development of new relationships but tipping the hat was tried before and it didnt work. Reconiliation will be built as equals not by sending our young to die in foreign wars.

Oh and Mark why dont you join up and head out to Afghanistan yourself.
Nah didnt think you would but you'll happily see loads of Irish lads go there.

ONE DOWN FIFTEEN TO GO

One down!

Fifteen to go.

Set up the next cabinet minister we are only getting started.

Moral hazard or moral turpitude in the hotel industry.

Last week the labour court was hearing how it was necessary for the irish hotel sector, and other hospitality sector companies to cut minimum wages in order to increase their survivability.

Their survivability is something that interests us of course. We want to see strong economic activity in the country, companies paying decent wages and keeping the local and national economy ticking over and folks in jobs.

Many folks in Ireland and of course the media will meekly accept that this is bad but necessary. But rather than tackle the usual Govt. spoon fed line that There Is No Alternative (TINA) to shafting these ordinary people I'd like to focus on another common phrase these days - moral hazard.

one defintion of moral hazard is:

Moral hazard occurs when a party insulated from risk may behave differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.

Which means if I know you'll bail me out every time I fall flat on my face then why should I change my behaviour and cop on.

and...

Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not take the full consequences and responsibilities of its doings, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it alternately would, leaving another party to hold some responsibility for the consequences of those actions.

Less careful than it otherwise would! Leaving another party to hold some responsibility! Could this in anyway be similar to whats happened to the minimum wage workers. Is it possible that they are carrying the can for others mistakes.

Sinead Pentony in an excellent post on the progressive economics site TASC looks at the issue of hotel insolvency and examines an important twist on the minimum wage issue being discussed.

Peter Bacon of NAMA fame has reviewed the south Irish hotel industry and found a mess - (As an aside its interesting to note how Bacon is the go to man for reports it seems – NAMA, reports for the car industry, for the Hotel industry etc etc.)

The hotel sector is insolvent basically. But this is no recent swing of events. Its not one bad year that’s turned the tide on a healthy sector. No quick plaster of a minimum wage cut will do here. Far from being a bad patch the report makes apparent that the hotel sector has much bigger issues. By the end of 2008 there were a total of 59,000 hotel rooms in the south of which 15,000 should be closed down urgently. In other words there is gross over capacity. How could this have been allowed to happen? More on that later.

Not only is there gross over capacity there is also an estimated €1billion in debt in the industry which is not secured by assets. This was clearly an industry out of control. What could have driven such insanity or is it case of “we are where we are” and somehow or other this just magicked out of thin air.

Well the report highlights a couple of reasons why this happened. Firstly tax breaks for the hotel sector created significant over-supply of hotels. Hotels whose viability was questionable from the outset. According to Bacon the stock of new hotels has been seriously insolvent since 2005 and in every year since 2002, new hotels on average have been insolvent from the year of their construction. Clearly there was no useful strategic vision for this sector and that falls into the Govt’s. lap. Tourism is a key aspect of our economy and here as elsewhere they failed to provide positive direction and leadership

The report also highlights the sorry nexus with the financial institutions and banks. The report suspects banks are keeping afloat a large number of insolvent hotels so as to avoid any write downs of their loan books. The banks want to keep open these walking dead hotels because they “need … hotels to remain open for seven years to allow investors to avail of capital allowances and to avoid the creation of a tax liability due to a clawback”. In order to ensure the developers continue to enjoy the advantage of tax breaks which created about 25% unneeded room capacity and landed the sector with €1 billion in unbacked loans the banks are going to take it easy on the hotels and developers and let the zombie hotels keep on going..

The upshot is that hotels with a fighting chance are being forced to compete against “zombie hotels” who are remaining only to ensure previously granted tax breaks are enjoyed. The whole hotel sector is now paying the price and saveable jobs are being put at risk. And whats worse there is suspicion that the solvent hotels are not being lent sufficient credit because the zombies are more important to the banks.

How to solve this dilemma? The Bacon report recommends the next financial act allow these zombie hotels leave the sector without having to pay back the tax incentives.

As Tasc notes :
Essentially, the Report is recommending that developers who took advantage of tax breaks to build hotels that were never going to be viable should not be subject to the clawback of those capital allowances - because they won’t have an incentive to close these hotels but rather, keep them open for the seven years, which will further undermine the hotel industry.

This is the moral hazard described earlier. The rules are bent later in the day to help the developers who over supplied the market. And who will bend the rules. The Govt. that put in place the policies that caused the over supply in the first place.

The estimated amount of hotel related capital allowances which remain to be claimed or have already been claimed, and which potentially could be clawed back by the Revenue, are estimated at over €1.5bn.

The Govt. was instrumental in driving the build up of significant over –capacity without, demonstrably, any clear plans for the tourist sector with the end result that the entire hotel sector is a mess.

So whats the plan? The first step is to cut the minimum wages of those working in the hotel sector which brings us back to our definition of moral hazard. The hotels, developers and Govt. walk away from the problem about as happily as they can and someone else, the minimum wage workers carry the can for a total lack of strategic vision by the govt.

The debate in the background is about wages destroying our competitiveness. Yet nary a peep about the lack of purpose to Govt. planning, the introduction and abuse of distorting tax allowances and what may well be another bailout of developers. All of which have cost us hugely and are the real problem.

There will be no increase to Irish competitiveness while the issue of gross mismanagement and either lack of strategic vision or maybe simply corruption is tolerated in southern Ireland.

So let the Media propose reducing the minimum wage down to zero if they want for hotel workers! Maybe then we could have a debate on what the real problem is and what will help our economy re-establish itself.

Will minimum wages cuts make up for the blind work that brought hotels so low?
Will it wipe of the €1billion in unbacked debt?
Will it make south Ireland a country that invests wisely, plan for the future and structure its growth in a sustainable way?

As David McWilliams said today “The country needs to be fixed, not patched up”.

Hacking the minimum wage is a patch and a patch designed to leave those who have really destroyed compeitiveness off the hook.

Dempsey snubs public.

Weather is a funny old beast no doubt about it. While we have always had more than our fair share of water in this land generally its been to our advantage as Brendan Behan noted. However more recently its been kicking the crap out of us. In late 2009 we had the floodings where unfortunately half of the country was inundated under water. And of course if we want to go back a few years more we can think back to Galway - the modern European city, investment hub etc. etc. where people could not drink water from a tap because of its was contaminated with shite, to be frank.

At the time of the November flood we highlighted that the OECD had published a report only a week before saying that while progress was being made the Govt. had a lot more to do to ensure an adequate water management system was in place. Now waiting for the govt. to do something adequate is waiting for Godot. Small chance of it happening.

So when the snow started to fall over Christmas it was a sense of déjà vu. How would the state handle water when it was frozen? We all expected the govt. to be confused by this change but we didn’t expect the confusion to last so long. Road after road was left impassable as rock salt ran out. Some counties, Clare If I recall correctly, ran out of salt faster than other counties. Effectively mismanagement, slow reaction, whatever meant that if you lived in Clare your were at greater risk than your friends elsewhere in the state. Nice thought that but then where you live has always been a factor in how you are treated.

But back to water. Now that the ice is going to melt its expected that there is going to some fairly significant damage to pipes and so on. The Irish times does a run down of the mess: A spike in demand in Dublin saw water pressure lowered to conserve supply and several areas are without water as highlighted by Mary Lou. In Cork the same story but there even places like the Mercy hospital have a compromised supply.
Leitrim householders have been experiencing disruption to their supply since before Christmas.
Reservoirs in Galway are very low with cuts in supply reported in Loughrea, Rosmuc, Moycullen and Gort. Galway County Council has provided tankers for emergency supplies. If there is one city that needs someone to take the finger out its Galway. They are having a miserable time of it and they deserve some leadership.

So what type of leadership did they get. Well Irishelection.com notes that the Mediterranean playboy Noel Dempsey certainly has no regrets about lying on a beach while the country’s transport system collapsed. If he could walk to the beach then we could walk to work.

Noel said it was never a bad decision to go on holiday and he did not accept people needed to “see and hear” from him when the conditions were most severe.
“Ministers for Transport don’t actually go out and grit the roads,” he said.

Sounds like he is giving the public a Gogarty there. And as Caoimhin pointed out if there is no more salt then use sand . Why did common sense not prevail? Maybe because with the top man tanning in the sun the Transport dept. went into dull bureaucrat mode because nobody was ultimately in charge. But in reality he knows he can get away with it because unfortunately in Irish govt. structures the higher up you go the less responsibility you have.
If anyone lives near Noel Dempsey can they please buy him a shovel and a bag of grit because he needs to learn that if required even a minister must get out and grit the roads.

The lazy sod!