Ireland is being sold off to pay the financial empire
Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010 at 06:25 PM
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Is tú díolta leis na Gallaibh. The famous refrain curses those that have sold Ireland like a cheap prostitute. The warning has never been so apt as now, in an era of existential crisis for Ireland. And a curse on the gombeen politicians that follow non-sense pop-economic thinking and have undertaken to leave the Irish people asset-less.
In the last 20 years, Ireland has sold off half of its commercial enterprises for a measly €8.3 billion, and is now entering into negotiations to sell off a big chunk of the other half of what's left.
Ireland's public financial institutions were among the first to be sold: ICC Bank, TSB Bank, Irish National, ACC Bank and Irish Life. They're gone to non-Irish interests.
Ireland's sugar company, Greencore, was sold off completely--along with its various retail food operations. The Petroleum Company was sold in keeping with a global trend that sees the further consolidation of an international energy cartel. Irish Steel was sold. Aer Lingus was sold, with the government retaining only 25 per cent in the airline. Éircom was sold as well.
Now a whole new round of fire sales is being planned. Ireland now stands to lose its Coillte (forests), Mona (native energy), Bord Gáis (gas reserves), the ESB (electricity), the Dublin Airport Authority, and the VHI (national health insurance) to outside profiteers.
What is Ireland if its natural resources are owned by non-Irish citizens?
díolta leis na Gallaibh
In the last 20 years, Ireland has sold off half of its commercial enterprises for a measly €8.3 billion, and is now entering into negotiations to sell off a big chunk of the other half of what's left.
Ireland's public financial institutions were among the first to be sold: ICC Bank, TSB Bank, Irish National, ACC Bank and Irish Life. They're gone to non-Irish interests.
Ireland's sugar company, Greencore, was sold off completely--along with its various retail food operations. The Petroleum Company was sold in keeping with a global trend that sees the further consolidation of an international energy cartel. Irish Steel was sold. Aer Lingus was sold, with the government retaining only 25 per cent in the airline. Éircom was sold as well.
Now a whole new round of fire sales is being planned. Ireland now stands to lose its Coillte (forests), Mona (native energy), Bord Gáis (gas reserves), the ESB (electricity), the Dublin Airport Authority, and the VHI (national health insurance) to outside profiteers.
What is Ireland if its natural resources are owned by non-Irish citizens?
díolta leis na Gallaibh
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Conjoly | Jul 16, 2010, 01:12 AM EDT
Very interesting headline. Completely stupid article. So, your solution is that the state nationalises all these enterprises just so we can say they're Irish? Have I entered a parallel universe?
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Downunderyan | Jul 15, 2010, 06:36 AM EDT
Treise leat/Well said BP Keane. About time the ugly truth of the nefarious deeds of Ireland's inept politicians was called out. Yet, in today's Irish Central (7/15/2010) the headline screams "Ireland needs dose of American 'can do' optimism". I'd say Ireland has suffered enough at the hands of politicians applying the American free enterprise model. The last thing Ireland needs is more of the same. The infrastructure built up over the decades since the Free State was instituted by people of vision with a 'can do' attitude, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles placed in front of them by the brutish empire and its allies, has been privatised in the so-called good times for peanuts. Ireland needs decent leadership by honest politicians.
Ireland needs to take a leaf from the US, where dogged optimism remains a defining trait
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HobNail | Jul 12, 2010, 09:10 PM EDT
Ireland needs to control its currency and interest rates and can only do so by pulling out of the EU Central Banking structures. Iceland was able to steer its own ship, and with a worse crash, rise past Ireland. The EU (Central Bank) is a front for the financial empire that is wrecking the world's national economies in order to loot their resources.
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WoundedKnee | Jul 12, 2010, 08:47 PM EDT
You don't appear to understand, Keane, that the sell-off of irish companies is an inevitable result of Irish membership of the EU. Do you have the courage to call for Ireland to renegotiate its membership of the EU? Lots of people in ireland are now saying that's the only way to keep our country sovereign and make it prosperous.
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kateomprint | Jul 12, 2010, 06:23 PM EDT
WE have a government that is not living in the real world and tell we are coming out of the recession. They do not deal with the ordinary people in the street who are struggling to pay their mortgages and pay bills. We have the highest cost for light/fuel than any other European Country. The government seem to think that they can stick on another tax on us when it takes their fancy. WE have a government leader who is completely divorced from reality.
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