Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

From the just released IMF annual surveillance report on Ireland – The authorities agreed that property taxation would also help broaden the tax base while at the same time making it more stable than the current system of stamp duties. In the transition to a valuation-based tax, a flat tax rate is under consideration. If [...]

It’s worth looking at this Bloomberg News interview with Brian Cowen.  Although Bloomberg was in some ways going along with the hype surrounding Cowen’s visit — “Ireland primes the pump” — the charts flashed during the interview told their own story.  More importantly, the interviewer extracted an acknowledgement from Cowen that AIB will almost certainly [...]

March 2008.  It’s an important period in the Irish banking crisis.  How much space does it get in the Honohan report? 1 paragraph (8.5).  Joan Burton deserves credit on this one.  She’s been pushing for some time now for the government to explain its thinking and actions in March and April.  It comes up again [...]

This is odd.  The Irish Times and the Wall Street Journal seem to have gotten the same background briefing on the new framework for financial regulation to be announced  next week, but it was the WSJ that identified the more obvious scoop – [The Central Bank/Regulator] also will present plans for a new national system [...]

The government used its advance access to the Honohan and Regling/Watson reports to get its retaliation in first.  But the reports reward in-depth reading.  Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan in particular has written something approaching a dissertation on Ireland’s financial crisis.  Since Messrs Cowen and Lenihan clearly intend to emphasize his supposed sanguine view of [...]

Minister for Environment and Local Government John Gormley has today published the two consultants reports’ into the planning and finance functions at the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (which were previously published in draft form by Fine Gael) and has also accepted — 5 months later — Fine Gael’s proposal that the DDDA should be subject [...]

According to Wall Street Journal ($) the B of I fund raising plan to be revealed tomorrow: €3.4 billion in total funds. Half will come from the government (=National Pension Reserve Fund) converting half of the €3.5 billion preference shares into ordinary stock. €500 million will come from an unnamed (and probably domestic) group of [...]

From the ESRI Spring Bulletin – For 2010 and 2011, we have assumed that the Government will borrow €2 billion in each year to fund the recapitalisation of Anglo Irish Bank and INBS. This increases the exchequer deficit in both years by €2 billion, but it does not appear in the estimate of the General [...]

Compared to the billions going to the banks (and perhaps soon needed for Quinn), the mere €450m that we will lend to Greece “centrally pooled by the European Commission” may not seem like much.  But according to Brian Lenihan – “The costs of all countries participating, including Ireland, in this facility would be fully covered. [...]

“We used to provide Irish developers with loan terms, but insist of due diligence. They would then go off to Anglo Irish and be given the cash with no need for any paperwork” As told to UK property expert Peter Bill. Incidentally, he thinks that it’s former Central Bank governor John Hurley who has big [...]

People in Iceland are not happy about being stuck with the bill for bank liabilities and in particular for Internet bank Icesave whose depositors were reimbursed by the UK and Netherlands governments, who now want Iceland to reimburse them.  It’s an ongoing saga, though one without the heroics of sagas past – The bill, covering [...]

In case you missed it – Brian Lenihan’s speech earlier today introducing the Motion on the Stability of the Banking System.

Average discount on the first tranche of transferred loans: 47 percent.  Anglo: 50 percent. Irish nationwide: 58 percent.  And although these are just the first, biggest, and arguably most troubled transfers, it’s still 10 billion of Anglo’s loan book.  10 billion here and 10 billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.  AIB’s discount [...]

In the week when we’re likely to get a good indication of the size of the state shareholding in Bank of Ireland and AIB associated with the NAMA buyouts, it’s worth looking at this New Yorker article on the American experience one year after the US Treasury rolled out its approach to troubled banks.

The Dept of Finance has published new NAMA valuation regulations which supersede previous ones and in so doing, provide some insights into what specific changes the European Commission demanded under state aid rules.  A couple of things to note from what is a confusing document.

The carefully phrased European Commission approval of NAMA under state aid guidelines is only the beginning of the process.  Bank of Ireland and AIB will still need clearance for the specific balance sheet clearance (NAMA sales plus capital injection) that are still to come.   In that regard, it’s important to look at the seemingly separate [...]