The Republic of Munster rising again?

The EuroZone now exists for one reason: to give more and more money to incompetently managed banks by blaming governments for the financial mess the banks created and imposing austerities, that is, ending social democracy. The banks are the new landlord class not just in Ireland but in all of the EuroZone.

Well done, Ballyhea! You're an inspiration to the world.

The Irishman who coined the term 'rectal fistitude' wasn't wrong, and the pain involved is on the increase.

No arguments here.

Michael Noonan admitted in December as he announced £1.4bn in tax and charge rises in a bid to drive down the country's debt from a shocking 10.1% of the country's GDP to 8.6% this year.

I see journalists at the Guardian are still struggling with the concept of debt and deficit :)

Michael Noonan can call it as he sees it all he wants, as a TD he is just stating the bloody obvious, my question is, what is FG/Lab going to do about it? at least this little town in Munster have the balls to say 'No' to the IMF/ECB. Cowen and the late Brian Lenhinan, not directly, allowed the greed and the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick and his partner in crime and namesake Quinn to bankrupt the country- just say no like Iceland, do you see them cowering under the table when the EU/IMF come a calling.

'hurling, a traditional Gaelic ball and stick game, is hugely important in the area and gives the parishes their strong identity'

No harm to ye, but you're gonna have to do better than that. I have only been at a single match and it is breathtaking.

The banks & the big corporations have done as much damage to this generation of Irish people as the British ever did to their ancestors, yet today's Irish meekly accept the injustice.

Its amazing.

Come, now, mr citizen o; these are the wealth creators, whom you decry and slander, and some of them have not taken as large bonuses as they are entitled to, believing, as does the unelected prime minister - and many of his unelected cabinet - that we are all in this together, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on our importance to ourselves and our friends. What we need, here, at the Guardian, is a good deal more something or other and a good deal less of your carping, indeed, instead of moaning, here, why don't you go and start a small business. You will find that the banks are very helpful, although they will wisely stop short of lending you back any of your own money. And who can blame them?

Good for Ballyhea they lead by example. If you are not happy with your politicians then don't sit at home and moan, do something , anything, just act.

I have yet to hear a cogent argument from anyone on the Guardian forums as to how not paying the banks would be better for the country and its citizens, than actually paying them. Not paying = complete economic collapse in every aspect of the economy and peoples lives.

Not paying makes it so much worse and its too bad to be childish.

Pay your debts and learn to act like adults.

Er, those two banners the marchers had. Did they say;
"Down with this sort of thing / Careful now"

Sigh at Guardian economic illiteracy:

finance minister Michael Noonan admitted in December as he announced £1.4bn in tax and charge rises in a bid to drive down the country's debt from a shocking 10.1% of the country's GDP to 8.6% this year.

If this really was the case, far from being shocking it would be one of the best rates in the Western world. Do you mean the (fundamentally different concept of) deficit?

Just because they both begin with 'd' and are to do with a lack of money, doesn't mean they're the same.

Shame Byrne, Murphy, Mandelson and Glasman and all those undermining Labour from within don't have their guts to stick it to the government

For the record, I hadn't noticed this little protest and to the best of my knowledge it has gone completely unreported in Ireland.

But the anger is understandable.

The reaction to the banking crisis in Ireland was called a bailout for Ireland from large EU nations. In fact when you follow the money trail you realise that the Irish taxpayer is bailing out large German, French and British banks who made pisspoor investments in the Irish property market.

We are living in a world economy that was designed by Reagan and Thatcher. It's a world in which the markets rule. Maggie said you can't buck the markets and the inference was that you have no right to try. The gamblers who run the banks have to be protected. So when the world's financial institutions are run by a generation of dazzlingly incompetent casino capitalists it's the taxpayer who pays. And Ireland's taxpayers are paying more than most because the Irish property market was one of the major casinos.

Hadn't heard of this before. Not even on Pat Kenny or Matt Cooper. Had anyone heard of this?

It isn't their debts though. It is debts of its banks that have been socialised by the taxpayers being put on the hook to pay out for bonds issued by private banks in order to prevent those private banks going bust.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0507/1224296372123.html

Read a bit more about it. Frankly the Irish should be hanging their politicians from lamp posts.

The IMF wanted bond holders to take a haircut, but the US and ECB intervened to prevent that.

"A lot of people might agree with the issue but they wouldn't walk. I think a lot of people are angry, but don't like to show their feelings or be singled out ... it's just not Irish."

What a fabulous example to the younger generation - just shut up and don't make a fuss. Pathetic. This kind of attitude has seen so many frustrated people leave the country throughout the years regardless of the economic situation. And history repeats and repeats....

Great to see the tenacity of good people being reported.

Yes, it's an obvious scam when the EU and the IMF are making people who weren't the borrowers pay for the losses incurred by the gamblers.

Keep on marching, Ballyhea.

Er, those two banners the marchers had. Did they say;
"Down with this sort of thing / Careful now"

Now you!

Agree totally. Prohibition is the only thing that would get the masses protesting in Ireland.

I'm Irish, I 100% sympathize with these people and understand how they feel; but I don't know what the answers are to the mess we are in in, and I'm not sure anyone else does.

It's clear that the last government should never have guaranteed the Irish banks, that was lunacy, and an act for which we still lack real answers as to why it happened. Though most of us have our suspsions.

So, what does the present government do?

Collapsing our own banking system by refusing to accept the terms of the current IMF/EU bailout and refusing to accept that we have repay the bondholders of these banks would be satisfying indeed, but it would not cover the money that has already been paid out, and what would we do the next day for a banking system or a current account to run the country with? That sucks, and it's a bitter pill to have to swallow, but that is the situation that the last government lumbered us with, and its now almost impossible for us to remove ourselves from it, without creating further economic mayhem.

Would ordinary people really accept the consequences of that, and the precipitous fall in living standards it would require us to endure, once it had sank in after a week or two?

Knowing Irish people, and their love of the consumer society, I doubt it.

What is clear is that the current situation is also untenable though, and it can't go on. Either in Ireland, or across Europe. And when something can't go on anymore, eventually.....it stops.

We need to keep our heads down until that happens across Europe, and then demand as part of a general settlement of the European banking and debt crisis, that a new solution is sought.

But we also need to assess our own value-system, and stop trying to pretend that there is an easy solution to this, or that we can just point the finger at other people and pretend that we ultimately, have to take responsibility for how we have allowed our own country to be governed.

@tiredofwhiners:
I would be happy to pay my own debts. In fact our family is debt free and has been for 15 years or so. And taxes? Unlike a lot of tax dodging corporations and high income earners, we have paid our fair share. So why would we want to "pay our debts" to those same corporations and high income earners who have been shirking their responsibility while we have accepted ours? I'm with the (avowedly conservative) people of Ballyhea in saying no thank you.

It was our own government that enforced the banking losses on us, not the EU and IMF, lets not start that myth again.

I know that but unfortunately too many people cannot think past the first stage of the collapse.

Your points are correct, so lets say they don't socialise the debt' and let the banks go bust.

Banks don't have any money of their own - they have the money of the public and so what you are saying is that the Banks walk away and leave its investors high and dry, with all funds lost. pension funds take a huge hit, savers lose a handle and forget a government bailout of these funds - there's no money.

It would cause a run on the banks as depositors rushed to move their euros abroad before the balances could be converted to something over than Euros as they would have leave the Euro. Irish borrowers would still owe euros to foreigners. Because the new currency would instantly depreciate, the borrowers would have a diminished capacity to service those debts, causing new waves of bankruptcies.

And if we are realistic, Ireland has very little to export, living s it has off the service sector and with a busted credit rating, few are going to invest in somewhere that owes everyone billions of Euro's.

Just because your country goes bust doesn't mean that everyone will forget you owe them money - Argentina being a case in point where it is still restricted overseas die to asset forfeiture threats.

A quick search of the RTE news website return 0 (ZERO) articles on this protest.

A quick search of the Irish Times website returns 2 articles, the most recent of which is from April last year.

A quick search of the Irish Independent website returns 3 articles, all authored by Gene Kerrigan.

Pretty clear whose interests are represented by these Quisling propagandists masquerading as impartial broadcasters.

The Irish government will absolutely hate this article as the thing they fear above anything else is looking stupid on the international stage.

Of course, its normal human nature to take the benefits of the Euro economy when its good, and then to try and deny you had any benefit from it when times are hard. If you feel so strongly that you are blameless, get elected and default. (see my earlier post regarding the effect)

Ireland had a huge investment in the infrastructure of the country which it could not have otherwise afford so sorry folks, you are on the hook, and the protest walks, charming as they are will have precisely zero effect, other than to improve their health.

Sorry, no sympathy.

I am amazed the banks have got anytime to make any money , what with having to go around to peoples houses and pointing guns at their head to make them by new cars , TV's

Anyone whose visited small town Ireland over the the last few year as seen in the growth in flash cars and big houses which has resulted in whole estates of unsaleable houses, and while it was all going well who was asking were all the money was coming from for all of that ? Answer very few in Ireland who enjoy the party while it lasted and now don't won't the bill nor the headache that goes with such a 'good time'

Nice place , nice people but they spent it like it was water with little thought of tomorrow and that has been the case for the years of the 'Celtic tiger '

The bankers have got us by the balls, and it's time we chopped their hands off.

Question from an economic illiterate, what would happen if the banks were told to sing dixie?

Considering lots of countries got into trouble in the banking crisis, I'm not aware of any that allowed the banks to fail. Why?

I think it means that the people we elect, in our democracies, are not the ones with the real power.

Not paying = complete economic collapse in every aspect of the economy and peoples lives.

How's that koolade working for ya?

Parallel:
You and your mates put $100 in the whip.
The guy holding the whip puts it all in the bandit with a view to winning himself $$$.
You ask for your $100 back.
He says he hasn't got it and whats more, if you dont give him another $100 he won't be able to buy any drinks and the whole night out will collapse.
Thats cool with you, is that what I'm hearing?
You'd put into the whip twice so this tit can carry on as normal?

Me? Im breaking my foot off in his ass and finding someone else to hold the whip.

Blaming the EU/IMF and the euro is a cop-out.
Why is Ireland in this mess?
Here are just some pointers on a micro level:
*Christmas shopping trips to New York (and all year round, really)
*Buying properties in Bulgaria etc
*Skiing trips just weeks after the excesses Christmas
*The second highest expenditure on Christmas presents per capita in the EU (this one just gone, supposedly in the depths of a crippling recession)
*Changing cars every second year
*Fourth-highest cocaine use per capita in Europe
*A world-class binge drinking culture
*Paying over the odds for worthless property (€500k for a dilapidated Coronation Street-style terraced home in Ringsend anyone?)
*Splashing out €200+ to travel to Britain for PL and SPL matches (an estimated 6,000 every weekend)

And here are some on a macro level:
*Banks that thought property prices were never going to go down
*Banks that loaned money to each other to make it look like they had more deposits
*Banks that loaned money to clients so they would buy shares in those banks
*Banks that told foreign banks that they was no risk lending to Irish banks when there was
*Banks that loaned their own staff so much money that they can't afford to lay them off now because they wouldn't have the resources to repay those loans
*Banks that lied to the State about how bad their loan books were
*Banks that racked up such debts that the State saw itself forced to guarantee them to prevent a run on the banks
*Bank and building society bosses that loaned money to themselves and friends without due process, such as proof of income or assets
*An ingénue finance minister who by bailing out the banks made the banks' debt a sovereign debt (thanks, Brian, thanks a billion)
*A discredited government that by promising not to burn the bondholders has made a U-turn almost impossible
*So-called investors who paid £750m for the Berkeley, Claridges and the Connaught hotels in London - how could they ever make a profit? - and now the State has to assume their debts
*A finance minister who during the good times - 15 years uninterrupted - kept lowering taxes and increasing public service pay (€200k+ for hospital consultants; €297k for the head of the Irish forestry commission; €310k for Bertie as taoiseach, plus a €135k pension...)
*A €60m bridge that cost six-times more than the initial budget but you can only drive straight across because allowing left or right turns would make the toll bridge 2km down the road redundant and thus kill off an exorbitant source of revenue

The Irish behaved as the nouveau riche of Europe. Sorry dear Irish people for pointing out how greed and stupidity caused the crisis. But to blame the Germans, IMF/EU and the euro for it is the ultimate cop-out. Yes, they haven't been nice and rubbed your noses in it but they were not responsible for any of the above - bar lending money to Irish banks through bonds, which is a very normal thing to do in a capitalist society - so to blame them for a plague you brought upon yourselves is, I repeat, a cop-out.
Burning the bondholders has come to be seen as the panacea for all Ireland's problems. But why are the bondholders being paid? Brian Lenihan promised to pay them. Who wouldn't let the bondholders be burned? The EU? The IMF? No, American treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and the ECB. And if Ireland thinks that it shouldn't have to pay the banks' debts its government made the people's, then why should I pay my mortgage or my car loan? Heck, why should I pay my childrens' school fees?

The Blueshirts wont give a shit either way

@ tiredofwhiners

I have yet to hear a cogent argument from anyone on the Guardian forums as to how not paying the banks would be better for the country and its citizens, than actually paying them. Not paying = complete economic collapse in every aspect of the economy and peoples lives.

Before we discuss paying or not paying the banks, let's first nationalize them with compensation on the basis of proven need. (I wouldn't want to penalize some old couple who might be dependent on investment income from Barclays.) Once they are being run on democratic socialist lines and past debt for individual householders, say, has been renegotiated (in some cases, written off), I see no problem in observing the general principle of paying back what you've borrowed.

There's a lot of truth in what you write here, & I've personally been a fervent critic of the carry-on you highlight & of an awful lot else about Irish society, but I think the point at this stage is, that those most responsible for this carnage are getting away scot-free while those who partook in the orgy you describe to a greater or lesser extent, & those who didn't partake at all (the disabled, the sick, many of the elderly/poor/children/etc etc etc) are the ones being saddled with a ludicrously disproportionate burden of the pain.

And there's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjl8OIZijjY

An amusing, but sad & accurate indictment of so much of Irish politics for so so long.

Ireland had a huge investment in the infrastructure of the country which it could not have otherwise afford

That's where you've got it wrong, you see.

When the FF/PD government came to power in 1997 Ireland was already in the midst of an economic boom. And it was a proper boom, too; an export-led boom. Unfortunately the government bought heavily into the Reagan/Thatcher idea of letting the markets rule using the now notorious mantra of 'regulation with a light touch' which of course means no regulation at all.

So the markets were allowed to turn the boom into a bubble and now we have to bail the markets out.

But the original boom was potent enough to ensure the huge investment in infrastructure you mention. The bubble wasn't necessary. The few billion that were invested in the motorway network would easily have been available. However, the failure of capitalism since then led to the Irish taxpayer being left with a banking debt that is more than ten times the cost of the investment in infrastructure.

It doesn't bother me that you have no sympathy for the fact that I am forced to bail out massively incompetent financial institutions. But, frankly, it's ridiculous to suggest the country benefited from those incompetent financial institutions in the first place.

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I know, it's called an injustice.
It's sickening. Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, Seán Quinn, Seán Dunne, Seán FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton, Bernard McNamara, Joe O'Reilly, Kevin Cardiff, Charlie McCreevy et al are chastened but all are on kick-ass pensions/ new jobs or transferred their assets to their wives - and had their debts taken over by the taxpayer.
It's a stitch-up. But the culprits are all Irish, not German or European, which is what sections of the political class and media have attempted to portray.

Well I don't think that's strictly true either. I think there are plenty of culprits of all nationalities, eg Hyporeal/Defra were/was a German bank that got up to all sorts of shenanigans in the IFSC (the wild west of European finance granted), stuff that was outlawed back home. And they weren't the only foreign exploiters of Ireland's wild west (de)regulation.

Hi Ben2,

On the matter of hanging politicians from lamp posts. I'm afraid the history of lynch mobs in implementing social justice is mixed at best. We might be best working it out in more boring but less homicidal ways. Plenty of blood has been spilled in Ireland down the years. We don't need any more.

As for Morgan Kelly - I'd be taking anything that man says with a pinch of salt myself. Ireland is being used as a pawn in a bigger game, certainly. But adding to mess by having prophets rending their garments in the opinion pages of the newspapers doesn't always help people to keep calm and carry on either.

Love the pic, btw.

Paying debts, yes, you're a kind hearted soul aren't you, sure some working people did OK off the Septic Tiger but at the end of the day AIB in cahoots with their builder chums have brought us to this, how could BOI write a cheque to the sum of get this ....2 billion euro to one Individual (Sean Quinn)

My advice is before you go start shouting your mouth off, read a little bit more of the subject instead of glib repsonses like 'Pay your debts'.

Eamonncull I am not "allsorts" I am educated to degree level but furious when I see my Irish relatives living without paying for poll tax orwater payments and getting free telephone and free this and that, carers etc. of course I do not begrudge older people getting help but what help do our older citizens get? Nothing.. For your information the vast majority of them despise English but will happily take the bail out then argue about paying it back, Get real. or you could try speaking in a pub in the country parts of rural Ireland with an English accent if you do not believe me.

You are right, of course. But the FF/PD governments were so Thatcherite that they made the Iron Lady herself seem a Troskyite, hence the conditions that allowed Hyporeal/Defra, Anglo, AIB, Irish Nationwide to run amok. And let's be honest, when the good times were rolling, no one said diddly squat.

Well to be honest if you go into Irish pubs with that attitude I'm not surprised you get a bit of stick really.

We are living in a world economy that was designed by Reagan and Thatcher.

So are you forgiving, forgetting, or denying Nixion's role?

Only those living in Dublin don't pay water charges. And I don't see how that should make you 'furious'. That people in Antwerp pay less for engagement rings than my husband did doesn't bother me. And it shouldn't bother you, either.

Nobody is claiming there are not adjustments to be made, but I think you are being fairly disingenuous by ignoring the fact that the Governments of every Eurozone country were directed not to let any of their banks fail.

If you think that is an urban myth, then why are is the ECB so dogmatic about not letting any bondholders suffer?

People here are suffering for their mistakes, and most are willing to accept their share of the burden. But people have a justified claim in expecting German private banks to share the burden of their collossal errors.

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