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Minister for Finance warns default would cost Irish lives

Noonan recalls Argentinean experience in debate with Ross

By
CATHAL DERVAN,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 8:26 AM
Updated Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 10:19 AM

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Minister for Finance Michael Noonan
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan


Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan has warned that people could end up starving to death or scavenging for food in bins in the event of a default.

Noonan has again dismissed the suggestion that Ireland Inc should default as he debated the issue with Independent deputy Shane Ross in the final sitting of the Irish parliament before the summer recess.

The Minister again warned Ross that suggesting a default is a ‘soft’ option was only misleading the Irish public.

“I remember when Argentina defaulted and it wiped out the savings of every middle-class family in Argentina,” warned Noonan.

“And they were searching the rubbish bins to try and feed their kids. People who never had a poor day in their lives were in penury and they got totally wiped out.

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“People died of hunger in Russia when Russia defaulted. Elderly people died by the hundreds when they defaulted.

“I mean default isn’t some kind of soft option. Default is a frightful thing.

“It’s grand to say that ten years later the markets decided they could afford to lend again but the price paid by ordinary people in both Argentina and Russia at the time of default, and for a couple of years after was a very, very high price indeed.”

Deputy Ross insisted he wants Ireland to consider a structured default - like the Greeks - and not a sudden one.

“The reality is this - default is on the agenda,” claimed Ross.  “I understand the minister’s reluctance to talk about it because he regards it as a humiliation for the nation but it will be more humiliating if we don’t regard it as a reality when it actually happens, if we could keep making these extremely obstinate criticisms as a no-go area.”

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11 Comments

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sirpeter | Jul 29, 2011, 01:36 PM EDT
@DyslexicCitizen.Name one person where advisory opinions has kept a person away from the courts and denied them protection by law.Come on fu*kface lets have some proof.Also I said the Fianna Fail party was nearly destroyed.I said nothing about individual Fianna Fail members.You have a school boys naive way of thinking.Grow the fu*k up.People with money and power laugh at people like you for thinking they should be in jail or homeless.Is posting on IC about all the baddies in the Irish government the best you can do? ha ha.

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Brolaur | Jul 28, 2011, 04:44 PM EDT
Stop picking on Michael Noonan! He was my Prefect, not Perfect, In St. Pat's Teacher's College 1962/63.

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LoyalCitizen | Jul 28, 2011, 01:45 PM EDT
@dimwitpeter: The use of opinions is to keep people away from the courts and deny them protection by law, dimwit............ If you read IC article yesterday on Bertie Ahern you can hardly call him a destroyed man. How many destroyed Fianna Fail politicians are there in jail or homeless on the streets??? You are too retarded to understand what I type.

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sirpeter | Jul 28, 2011, 12:24 PM EDT
@DyslexicCitizen.So you can't answer my question?Name one case where opinions in law have had a negative impact on Irish society?Forget your everybody is a traitor crap.Show me evidence where these so called lies have had a negative impact on Irish society? Kinvara7 has already made an idiot out of you when you said the bailout was to save Irish politicians asses.When in fact FF were almost destroyed as a party.Reality been the exact opposite of what you were saying.I won't be reading any of your dyslexic rule books.You get everything the opposite way around.

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LoyalCitizen | Jul 28, 2011, 05:06 AM EDT
@dimwitpeter: An advisory opinion being a lie is far more useful than evidence. Yet people can question evidence in law. Again you take every opportunity to ignore the rule books and display your traitorous fraudulent ways.

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CaptainCon | Jul 28, 2011, 02:03 AM EDT
They could also end up coming through the windows of Minister's houses and attacking the rich. It would mean that Oireachtas pensions could be halted as well which is what the 2% of Ireland's population who control the country's wealth really fear. Default, leave the Euro, revert to punts linked to sterling until it can float by itself, devalue so that exports receive a boost and throw every politician who voted for Lisbon II to the wolves. Nationalise the oil and gas in the Corrib basin and we have the basis of a new economy based on the black gold standard. We need most of all to jettison the political class who serve only themselves. We have a lot of good farming land and a huge resource to the west called the Atlantic which can be farmed sustainably if treated right. To hell with plastic Kings Inn barristers and lets see Michael Woods and Bishops various swing for their crimes. Never a better time to declare the real Republic than 2016- the one that was declared and corrupted in 1916.

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greensod | Jul 27, 2011, 09:51 PM EDT
Government by Fear.Has the idiot been on a trip around Ireland lately. They are already fighting over the scraps.Get your head out of your arse Mr Noonan.Your tacticts of fear are old and stupid.

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sirpeter | Jul 27, 2011, 08:09 PM EDT
@DyslexicCitizen.You are some idiot.Advisory opinions are issued in the absence of a case or controversy. They are not binding and carry no precedential value, they are sometimes offered as persuasive evidence in cases where no precedent exists.Advisory opinions in law are used a hell of a lot all over the world.BUT it's the way you apply advisory opinions in law specifically to law in IRELAND when advisory opinions are used through out the world.Name one case where opinions in law have had a negative impact on Irish society? You already told me all the Human Rights Groups are criminals along with the Irish government.People starving since 1996.The newspapers must have missed that Great Irish Famine.

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LoyalCitizen | Jul 27, 2011, 03:35 PM EDT
I suppose stealing from social welfare recipients by using opinions and leaving them to starve since 1996 was a good investment policy.

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Portia777 | Jul 27, 2011, 11:50 AM EDT
the minister should stop tuning into the collective consciousness of our past with its genocide and misery inflicted from invaders- Vatican and Britain-Instead, can he not think of something new and different. We do not need anyone from the old patriarchal school mentality. The times they are a changing.

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Portia777 | Jul 27, 2011, 11:47 AM EDT
What kind of mentality is this? Fear mongering from a man in such a position. He is paid to come up with a solution, not threaten misery. We know the truth Mr Noonan. The so called Gov allowed the banksters off and even paid them handsomely and you expect the sovereign citizens of Eire to pay for their stupidity? Do we look like Gombeen men and women? The answer is there- we have our own resources to back up our own new currency. The labour of our people can be used to create as much money as we need to create a Paradise island. Why is this man being paid at all.?

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