Archive for the ‘Ireland’ Category

Tapes expose Irish Bankers warts and .. warts!

June 30, 2013

That Banks and Bankers all over Europe have made a killing over all the “bailouts” is no great secret. Just how they have done it – and very often in collusion with friends within Governments – is slowly coming to light.

This week it has been the turn of the bankers at the Anglo Irish Bank. The Bank was finally nationalised costing Irish taxpayers some €30 billion. That is over €6,000 per head of population! No doubt the bankers made sure of their severance packages before they bowed out.

ABC News: In the age of austerity, senior bankers laughing about public-funded bail-outs is not a good look, but that is exactly what has happened in Ireland. There is outrage after a national newspaper published details of a taped phone conversation between bank executives mocking regulators and boasting they fooled them. The bank ended up collapsing, costing tax payers around 30 billion euros.

David Drumm ” We need the moolah”: CEO Anglo Irish

Irish Independent29th June:

Anglo Tapes: Anatomy of the bank that broke Ireland

Irish Independent 30th June: Fresh revelations in the Anglo-tapes scandal about Brian Cowen’s administration shows his party was willing to save the failing bank at any cost, his political opponents claimed. ……. 

……….. Fine Gael Dail finance committee member Dara Murphy alleged it was further proof of the cosy relationship that existed between Fianna Fail, developers and Anglo Irish. “While there is no doubt that the entire country has been sickened to its very core at what the Anglo tapes have revealed this week, the reality is that tens of thousands of families are living with a daily reminder of the greed, avarice and utter contempt that was shown to the Irish people in respect of the dealings at Anglo,” he said. (more…)

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UK to outsource wind farms to Ireland

June 20, 2011

From the ever-reliable Guardian comes the story of high level diplomatic activity to get Ireland to be the wind-power producer for the UK.

I wonder if this means that all the UK taxpayers subsidies for wind power will also then flow to Ireland?

Ireland’s unspoiled, windswept west coast could become the focus of a new wave of wind farm construction in the wake of a high-level diplomatic meeting to be held tomorrow in London.

UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and other senior members of the British-Irish Council will gather to discuss a plan to expand electricity grid connections throughout the British Isles. In particular, they want to build new inter-connectors to link the electricity grids of Ireland and Britain in order to transmit power from new windfarms in Ireland to England.

The aim of the plan, created by the British government, is to open up remote regions that could provide Britain with more power generated by wind farms, as well as by tide and wave plants, and so reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Republic of Ireland, Kerry county, Dingle peninsula, Sleahead beach

Sleahead beach on the Dingle peninsula in Kerry, Ireland, which fierce winds make suitable for turbines. Photograph: Hemis/Alamy

“The west coast of Ireland has some of the fiercest winds in Europe,” said Charles Hendry, the UK energy minister, who will be attending the meeting. “They whip in off the Atlantic which makes it is an ideal location for wind farms. However, the Irish market for electricity is less than a tenth of that of Britain. That means that companies cannot afford to build wind farms in Ireland because there is no market for their power. We want to put that right.”

The construction of wind farms in Ireland that would supply power to neighbouring countries could help to put the UK back on track in its use of clean, renewable energy. Britain has recently been criticised for falling short of its targets for constructing wind power plants and for cutting its carbon emissions. Importing clean power could help to resolve the problem.

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The Emerald Isle has lost its Green

February 27, 2011

Green Ireland

All the six members (TD’s) of the Green Party in the Irish Parliament – the Dáil Éireann (House of Deputies) – have lost their seats in the General Election held on Friday. The Greens were part of the ruling coalition with Fianna Fáil and suffer in the fallout of the economic debacle. While a Fine Gael led government may well be forced to question Ireland’s  participation in the Euro (and the strongest card they have against Germany and France is precisely the threat to leave the Euro), Ireland will not be chained by the regressive policies of the Greens on GM crops, on uneconomic support of renewables and the fanatic opposition to oil. Enda Kenny will be the new Prime Minister (the Taoiseach) but to begin with he is going to have little room for manouevre with regard to the financial requirements and demands being made by the European Union and the IMF.

The primary counting is over and:

Fine Gael has become the largest party in the State, and Labour the second largest, in an historic election which has seen Fianna Fáil relegated to third place, and the Green Party wiped out. …. After a long and dramatic day, the voters have taken their revenge on the most unpopular government in the history of the State.

….. Fianna Fáil saw its first preference vote more than halved, down to just 17.4% – add to that a lack of transfers, and the party was quickly in serious trouble.

Fianna Fáil has only one TD in Dublin so far, Brian Lenihan – with an outside chance of Mary Hanafin joining him when the count in Dun Laoghaire resumes. But there are no Fianna Fáil TDs in Meath, Tipperary, Sligo, Leitrim or Roscommon.

Even worse news for the Greens, as all six of the party’s TDs lost their seats. …….

The big winner, though, is Fine Gael, which is set to lead the next Government. It appears Enda Kenny won’t have the numbers for a single party government – but he won’t be far off it – and who would have predicted that a few months ago.

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