Why has Ireland sunk so low repaying those we don’t owe?

I can't get my head around what's happening to us

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

21 Comments

Ireland's' Central Bank in Dublin

Photo by Google Images

Tweet

On Wednesday I left Shannon for New York for a few weeks. I left with mixed emotions and even now, a full day to think about it, I can't get my head around what's happening to us.

After the introduction of the euro at the turn of the last century, countries such as Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, which heretofore had had their own vulnerable currencies and thus had paid a premium to borrow in the international money markets, suddenly found themselves with access to hundreds of billions of cheap money. They could borrow at the same rate as Germany and France, and they went to town.

In all those countries named above it was their governments went wild, borrowed and spent with reckless abandon; in Ireland it was our banks. Over €100bn they borrowed, billions which then went to fuel the property bubble which, when it burst, engulfed the entire economy, a massive inferno.

Faced with loans they now couldn't pay, one by one the major Irish banks foundered. In the normal course of commerce those who had given those loans to those Irish banks, those we have now come to know as the bank bondholders, would have taken a hit - in fact they expected to take a hit.

---------------------

Read more:

Bank given permission to serve Irish bankruptcy notice on Sean Quinn via his letterbox

Ireland voted as top 'luxury tourism' destination

How the Pogues ‘Fairytale of New York’ almost wasn't made - SEE VIDEO

----------------------

But here is where my confusion begins. For over three years now, and counting, those of us who live and work in Ireland have been bailing out those bank bondholders. Over €70bn is the bank bonds debt total, money we don't have so will have to borrow at high interest, so that when the final bill is settled we won't be seeing any change from €100bn.

This is not our debt, was never our debt, but we're told that if we don't pay it the ECB - the European Central Bank - will pull the 100bn loan it's providing to our Central Banks to enable it to keep our banks solvent. Solvent for what - to pay off those bonds? Because even as they gouge their existing mortgage-holders for every cent they can, they certainly aren't loaning to business or to house-buyers. Take on a debt that isn't yours of €100bn, to enable you to borrow €100bn to pay off that same debt - this makes sense?

I'm not a jingoistic nationalist, I accept fully that I am who and what I am only by circumstance of birth. But it was a happy circumstance; I've always been proud of Ireland, always been proud of Irishness and what it means worldwide - humour, wit, intelligence, honour, strength, courage.

Print

E-mail

Tweet