Madam, – I am already in my 60s, and as I grow older and more disabled I fear the future.
Because of the billions that Minster for Finance Brian Lenihan has given to the banks, there will probably be no funds available to assist me meet the costs of adapting my home. Nor is it likely that there will be money to pay for the improvements that our health service needs. I no longer have the money to pay for these things. I thought that we continued to have a society that looked after old people, like my parents were cared for in their time. The Government and their supporters have proven me wrong. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Every Government has a sovereign duty to put the wellbeing of its citizens first. In times of war it must defend the homeland and protect its population. In this economic equivalent of a war scenario in which we are now engulfed, we are witnessing an extraordinary distortion of prioritising of who should be protected by those entrusted with making such crucial decisions.
The Minister for Finance, supported by senior executives in the Department of Finance and external advisers, is clearly laying down the principle that the highest priority in this awful time of crisis is to protect this country’s reputation abroad in terms of not being seen as a nation that defaults on commercial contracts.
I believe with all of my being, that this is tragically misguided.
The taxpayers of Ireland are not responsible for the errant lending practices of Anglo Irish Bank. Yes, the Government bears a large degree of culpability in as much as the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator blatantly failed to adequately police the banks, and for that the country has already paid dearly by nationalising Anglo and shoring up a large degree of losses incurred through the injection of enormous sums of taxpayers’ monies.
To take this further and continue to pour more borrowed money into a very bad black hole runs counter to the moral responsibility the Government of the day has to its people. This has to stop now. Close Anglo and close Nationwide. The providers of unsubordinated loan capital and other bondholders who invested in Anglo must be allowed suffer the consequences of their bad investments in the bad bank.
The consistent mantra of our Minister for Finance is that Ireland will forfeit her capacity to borrow abroad if any bank in this country is let fail, is a dreadful falsehood. Letting Anglo and Nationwide close down is not a default by Ireland. It is nothing more than the inevitable consequence of bad business. That is the rock on which our capitalist system stands.
Success is rewarded and failure is punished. That is what investors and bondholders understand and expect. Ireland will still be able to borrow much-needed funds to operate as a modern economy and loans taken out in the name of Ireland will be honoured. That is the clear message our Minister for Finance should be communicating abroad, instead of doffing the cap to international lenders and making the rest of us wear the hair-shirt for the sins of irresponsible bank executives supported by their equally irresponsible boards of directors. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – We are still living in cloud cuckoo land – our Government, on our behalf, is piling money into Anglo Irish. Why are we all prepared to support such an arrangement? Just how much are we prepared to throw away before we cry enough?
As we all suspected developers are not even paying the interest on their loans to Anglo so why does the Government now expect them to pay interest to Nama?
I would love to default on my mortgage, but have no doubt that my bank would not even tolerate a small overreaching on my current account, much less a decision to stop paying my mortgage. I’m lucky I still have a job, there are many Irish people with no jobs and under dire pressure to continue paying mortgages on houses that may never be worth what they paid for them – that is if they are lucky enough to keep them.
What is wrong with using our money to buy outright all the landbanks and part built estates (rather than the loans), directly from the developers/banks, at hugely reduced prices and to use these, more realistically valued, assets as collateral against borrowing. These could then be developed to the betterment of all the citizens of Ireland and not just for the select few who have landed us in this mess. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Could it be that Bram Stoker, who I am told had lots of Anglo Irish connections, unwittingly foresaw the current banking crisis when he penned the novel Dracula, whose sole purpose in life and death was to bleed the population dry? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why doesn’t Brian Cowen show us he’s not an economic traitor and not put more money the country doesn’t have into Anglo Irish? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The people of (Ire)land should take the ire out of this country by calling it Namaland. We could also replace the two towers at the mouth of Dublin Bay with an illuminated sign saying: “Beware Namaland”. – Yours, etc,