FG TD's Wife Goes Indy?

Anne Breen, the wife of Clare TD Pat Breen, is reportedly running in the local elections as an independent. Check out the front page of the Clare Champion (hint: it's in the middle of the puff piece headlined 'hospital campaigner joins election race). 

Strange stuff: a domestic squabble, a selection convention dispute, or something slightly stranger? You'll know when I do.

Update: it seems a simple case of over-represenation: the would-be Cllr. Anne Breen seemingly found little room on a ticket with sitting cllr. Oliver Garry and former party big beast Madeleine Taylor-Quinn. Embarking on a political solo run, however, may not be the best thing for Pat Breen - unless, of course she wins. In that case, all will be forgiven.

Update 2: A poster on politics.ie claims that Anne and Pat Breen are in fact estranged - which makes the situation even more delicate...

RTE.ie Joins the Cheerleaders?

Anyone check out the homepage of news on the economy from RTE today? Aside from the fact that there's not much news since Thursday, they've made Apache Pizza's expansion plans their top story. I can see why they'd want to report something positive, but some stories just aren't top-of-the-page news. A pizza chain creating 100 jobs is one of them. Other stories bear a remarkable similarity to the press releases over at the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment.

Another item, which shows how consumer sentiment is continuing to tank, is headlined 'survey shows consumers still cautious' - as if that's a strange thing! Has RTE.ie suspended its critical judgement to become a cheerleader?

No Neat Trick

The Indo today has the unsurprising news that plenty of developers are simply not paying up on development levies and other charges to local authorities. Add to that people who can't afford to pay waste charges, plus businesses struggling to pay water charges and you have a €271m black hole. One builder in Monaghan owes the local authority€813,000 in unpaid development levies.

Development levies were one of the neatest tricks during the boomtime: rather than setting aside a fifth of a development as social and affordable housing (nominally a legal requirement) a builder could instead make a cash payment to the local authority. Hey presto - the developer can market their complex to snobs who don't like 'social and affordable' types and keep the price up, the local authority gets a fat wad of cash to spend on anything infrastructure-related, and the people who need social and affordable housing may get a hand. By 2006, it emerged that the one-off development levies accounted for 13.6 per cent of local authority budgets. 

In other words, local authorities across the country were spending money that just isn't there anymore. Now, it's revealed, not all of the money was actually stumped up. The Indo reports that debt collection agencies have been engaged to chase up the builders but, chances are, a good chunk of those fellahs are not insolvent. This mess is the next public sector finance time bomb.

Open Season on Biffo

The Irish Times has gone all web2.0 and allowed site visitors to comment on Brian Cowen's hectoring op-ed in this morning's edition. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fire back your bile against the man who led us into this mess.

I suspect it won't be pretty.....

A Bad Bank is a Bad Idea

I've shied away from bitching about the budget - at least here. That was before Brian Lenihan's appearance on Prime Time last night to discuss the 'bad bank' proposal. Never mind the fact that the Government have committed to buying assets without making any effort to ascertain their value - their 'bad bank' plan as proposed is doomed to failure if history and common sense are any guides.

Charles Wallace and Swedish Economist Stefan Karlsson go in-depth elsewhere,but the reasons are simple. In the two recent examples of successful 'bad bank' proposals - the American response to the 1989 Savings-and-Loan scandal and the (oft-cited) Swedish response to the 1990s banking crisis - the institutions being rescued were nationalised. Government officials objectively set the value of bad assets that the banks couldn't offload, and the state purchased them. When the banks had traded for a bit and found their feet, off they went again into the Private Sector, and normality was restored. 

In Japan, they took a different approach between 1999 and 2005, with the Resolution and Collection Group: the barely-solvent or insolvent banks continued as independent entities, and tried to negotiate the sale price of the  with the RCC. Predictably, they thought their assets - many of them ludicrously overvalued Zombie companies - were worth more than the State was prepared to pay. The result? The RCC only purchased 858 loans, with a nominal value of $38 billion, and Japan's economic stagnation continued right up to the present crisis.

The Government's plan (and, whisper it, Obama's) is doomed to failure for the very reasons that hobbled the Japanese approach. With bankers trying to extract maximum value for their worthless assets and Government officials trying not to get shafted, the result will be a "stalemate" - that's the analysis of William Seidman, who headed up the American response and advised the Japanese on theirs. 

Moral outrage over the proposal is a blind alley - there are no good choices in the current crisis. However, if we're going to bail out bankers, the bailout strategy should at least work. This plan, quite simply, won't.

UPDATE: Lenihan on RTE Radio has said that the Government may 'part nationalise' banks if the bad debts are big enough. Are they making it up as they go along?

How Did He Do It?

An interesting piece in the Indo today reveals that Michael Martin's brother, Cllr Sean Martin, sent out a few press releases on local issues from a Department of Foreign Affairs email address. Cllr Martin has no connection to the Department, but somehow had access to its email system.

Opposition politicians have kicked up demanding a full investigation, and rightly so. If the Minister for Foreign Affairs is in the business of letting relatives and friends use his Department's email system, then the security of this (highly sensitive) area of the Government is compromised. It's not the breathtaking arrogance of this that ticks me off - it's the fact that they've played fast and loose with the integrity of our foreign policy.

Set George Free!

I've just stumbled across a very interesting interview with George Lee on RTE. Here's the clip:

From my reading of it, he appears to be either insinuating pressure not to criticise the government, or that he can't really tell the full story about what's happened (ie: FF F**ked up) while still remaining politically neutral.

The former would be sinister - though not surprising given the Cowen picture debacle - and the latter makes a joke of public service broadcasting's primary goal: telling the truth about what's happening. Lee is an economist of the highest integrity and ability, and should be able to give his professional opinion on the current financial crisis. If he objectively decides that the government messed up, but the opposition's plans to resolve the crisis are errant nonsense, that's his analysis - not him banging a particular political drum.

RTE bosses should do the right thing - set George Lee free on our airwaves to tell us just what happened to get the country in this state, and what will happen now.

Change the Rules: We Don't Like 'Em Anymore...

There's one area, it seems, that McDonalds, Burger King, Supermacs and Subway can cooperate on: shafting its workers. This is the first we've heard of the 'Quick Service Food Alliance', but they're making a splash by challenging a pay system that has been in place since the mid-1970s. 

Essentially, they're making a constitutional challenge to the right of the Joint Labour Committee(JLC) to set wages for the sector. They have a specific problem with paying people double time on Sundays and, presumably, want to use the courts rather than the Labour relations structures already in place. Neither the Irish Times nor the Indo speculate on why that is: perhaps it's because the typical fast food worker has less chance of hiring a hotshot lawyer than, say, McDonalds. Just as employers across Ireland simply ignored the National Wage Agreement when it stopped suiting them (rather than seeking to renegotiate), this body are trying to abandon the Corporatist structure they clung to for years - one that guaranteed them little or no industrial actionand reliable profits. 

Interestingly, the Alliance have a 'contact' page on their shiny new website. Do feel free to make your views known to the good folk at the QSFA and Chairman John Grace. Just a thought: on a recent visit to KFC's, my future brother-in-law looked at the staff scurrying about. "They work so hard," he said. "They must get lots of money." If only...

Someone Stands Up to Celia

And it's Eddie Hobbs! The wee Corkman has become the first person to point out the slight issue with Celia Larkin simultaneously getting sweetheart deals from a major lender and serving on the board of the National Consumer Agency (NCA). True, the NCA spends most of its time on grocery price surveys and and shuffling its Chief Executive out in front of the media to lecture us on 'shopping around', but having one of its board members in hoc to a lender with a rep for reposessions is still a little grotesque.

Dissapointingly, Eddie has only called for her to work for free or quit, rather than stating the obvious: her position is simply untenable. It was blatant cronyism when she was appointed, and the fact that Fingleton

forced through a conveniently-timed loan for her (the loan paid off a tidy sum she'd received from the local FF organisation, a matter that was due to come up in Dublin Castle) is just another slap in the face. 

We'll give him the benefit of the doubt, however, and presume he fully expects her to resign before putting in a few hours of work for free. Hobbs himself has put his money where his mouth is, much to his credit. He may be annoying, but he's straight - most people will take that over a slick PR guru who receives quick loans from dubious sources any day.

Daft stuff

Daft's new report has put paid to self-serving spinning by the Sindo and Parlon that the housing market has bottomed out, or is starting to recover. Daft.ie's housing price index shows clearly that average asking prices are continuing to fall dramatically. They now stand, on average, at 80.9 per cent of the average published asking price in 2007.


Good to see a site that depends on property advertising for revenue continue to doggedly tell the truth. I know I'll read Daft's analysis of the market before I even bother with the in-hoc broadsheets.

Rumble Brewing at Village

It's heartwarming to see that Michael Smith, owner/publisher/editor of the new Village hasn't let his recent Four Courts tussle with Declan Ganley hold him back from starting another one.


A brief recap: two months ago, Ganley took offence to the coverage he got in Village's second issue - in his defence, most people would get uppity if they saw themselves called a 'snake oil salesman' on a magazine cover - so he took them to court, looking to get all copies of the issue pulped. In the event, Ganley seemed to have backed down (perhaps a lengthy show-trial on the issue didn't appeal) and agreed to do a 'wide-ranging interview' in the next issue. All was well in the Village.


Well, not quite. After much to-ing and fro-ing about who would interview Libertas' esteemed leader, they finally agreed on Bruce Arnold, a commentator sympathetic to the party. His article isn't worth the cover price of 3.95, being mainly a recycled version of this Indo rant. What follows, however, is worth buying for posterity.


Editor Smith runs down through the whole sorry saga - I particularly enjoy him noting that Arnold was Village's ninth choice interviewer - with quite a barb for the writer:


Michael Smith:
He informed me that he had conducted a telephone interview with Mr Ganley but there is no evidence in his filed copy that he did in fact conduct the interview [which is true - there isn't]. For this and other obvious reasons, Village will not be paying him the €500 free he sought. Mr Arnold also delayed publication of Village by a day by spuriously and counter-factually claiming he had not been sent a copy of the February-march article.


Don't be surprised if the slapdown leads a furious Arnold into the court, or if Ganley looks to resume his action. Credit to Smith: the barrister has already demonstrated more flair at stoking up controversy than the magazine's previous owner. Village's website, sadly, is appalling, but a new one is launching soon - presumably whenever Smith finds a minute to do it.

After Picturegate...

Came the ridicule. Some enterprising photoshoppers on Creative Ireland have gone to work here. One suspects that the combination of bitterness and spare time amid the recently-redundant had some part to play. My personal fave:

We're Worse than Sub-Prime...

Standard & Poors, the Credit Rating Agency that awarded 'AAA' ratings to bundles of sub-prime loans, don't think Ireland is a safe bet, downgrading its opinion of government bonds to AA+. The news has made the front of today's Indo, but the downgrade was probably inevitable once the Government announced its intention to borrow more than 9.5 per cent of GDP.


Here is the damning report, and some depressing highlights are below:

Credit analyst David Beers:
The deterioration of Ireland's public finances will likely require a number of years of sustained effort to repair, on a scale greater than factored into the government's current plans.

S&P Press man:
The Irish economy will materially underperform the Eurozone economy as a whole over the next five years, recording minimal growth in real and nominal GDP, on average, during the period. As a result, we believe that Ireland's net general government debt burden could peak at over 70% of GDP by 2013, a level we view as inconsistent with the prospective debt burdens of other small Eurozone sovereigns in the 'AAA' category.


Ugh...

Jimmy Harte Censors Politics.ie

Poor Cllr Harte - some people just don't get the internet. Following some (presumably unkind) comments from two frequent posters on politics.ie, Harte got in touch with site's owner, David Cochrane. Cochrane stuck up the following notice:

David Cochrane:
As a result, effective immediately, all visitors and users of Politics.ie are asked not to discuss or mention Cllr Jimmy Harte, nor is any coverage anywhere of his election campaign allowed to be discussed or promoted.As of tomorrow his name will be a banned word on Politics.ie and all references furthermore to him will be removed.


Of course, this means that many people, who didn't know or care what 'Mccafferty cat' and 'polito123' had to say about the Donegal Pol, are now intensely interested. And Jimmy looks like a fool for trying to censor the internet. Cochrane is too smart not to know this so, rather than capitulation to an odious bully, I'd like to see his notice as a fine act of passive agsression.

Coughlan: We Paid off Our Debt

Have just encountered an interview with Mary Coughlan on Marian Finucane. Coughlan is the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (and the Tánaiste) which makes her claim that, during the boom, "we paid off our debt" pretty bizarre. For anyone who isn't au fait with the scale of the national debt, here's an illustrative graph:


Remember, if big Brian falls under a bus tomorrow, the hapless Coughlan is going to be in charge until FF elect a new leader. Scary stuff.

Would This Make the News Anywhere Else?

The Irish Times has devoted considerable space to covering a row over bin collection in Dun Laoghaire. A few councillors, apparently, want the current bin collection company (Greyhound) replaced.


Stuff like this is going on in almost every county council as the local elections jerk local pols into life, but it seems that Dublin - and, specifically, South Dublin - matters more to Madam Editor. Is the paper withdrawing in on itself to preach to its core Southside (or wanabee Southside) audience? That's one interesting article you won't find in the paper's opinion page...

The Monday Morning Cartoon

Credit to Slate.com and Ted Rall.

A Bit Sad... but Does it Happen Here?

Plenty of people will tell you that Irish political journalists are (mainly) a gaggle of narcissistic, truth-twisting, greasy-pole-climbing clowns. But talk about American journalism and, well, most scribblers (including myself) go all idealistic.


However, there's been a bit of a controversy over an exclusive and secretive Google group for American media types: Journolist. As Slate blogger Micky Kaus describes it, the group has about 300 members, almost all ;iberal. Predictably, a discussion from Journolist has gotten out and is reprinted in full on Kaus' blog. Some cringe-inducing highlights (typos and mispellings in original):


Jonathan Chait, a senior editor of The new Republic:
Is Michelle Cottle on this list? She's criticized less frequently
here, and I don't think this sort of thing interests her, but her
presence would definitely improve the list. There seems to be a junior
high quality to this list with regard to TNR, where if you're not on
it you get sniped at constantly, but if you are on it you're mostly
safe.

Jesse Singal, associate editor of CampusProgress.org:
Everyone I know who likes [Keith] Olbermann also acknowledge that he is egomaniacal
and has a penchant for hysterical drama. The main difference, which is
glaringly left out by anyone who conflates him with the Savages and
O'Reillys of the world, is that Olbermann doesn't tend to, you know, lie
about stuff regularly.

Eric Alterman, contributor to The Nation, Professor of English at Brooklyn College in City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism:
Quit lying about my record, Jonathan Chait.
Or at least check the archives before descinding into Kirchickism.
What I posted about Eve was an article I PUBLISHED. It could hardly
have been going behind her back to PUBLISH an article, could it?

And againt from the esteemed professor:
For the record boss man, I'm done. I merely responded to a series of
false accusations made about me by Mr. Chait. You'll note that I
manfully (and womanfully) resisted the urge to join in the Marty
bashing until lied about above...


It goes on. Nothing scandalous, but it's a bit sad to read supposedly intelligent journalists descend to the level of 12-year-olds b*tching away in their clubhouse. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a similarly childish internet group has been set up here in Ireland - a pint to the first person who'll send me a transcript of a conversation fromit.

New Face, Same Story, at DDDA

The Irish Times has the news that UCD Microbiologist and wife of Michael McDowell Niamh Brennan will be named as chair of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority later today. The usual suspects are alternately praising and vilifying the appointment over on politics.ie.


On the face of it, the Green Party's effort to present the appointment as a conscious break from cronyism takes some neck but, to be fair to Brennan, she is a qualified accountant and a veteran company director. However, a quick look at Brennan's directorships gives some cause for concern. Given that the DDAI has taken considerable (justified) flack for its close links to Anglo Irish Bank, is appointing a director of First Active and Ulster Bank to nominally oversee the body really such a great idea?


Brennan also has a few State appointments under her belt too. She's a former non-executive director of Coillte (the State forestry company) and a former member of the audit committee for the Department of Agriculture and Food. Her previous non-executive directorship of Co-Operation Ireland (a worth cause) can't whitewash her involvement as a director of the HSE. And get this: Brennan chaired the Commission on Financial Management and Control Systems in the Health Services, which reported back in January 2003. To judge by what's happened since in the HSE, the ideas were either binned or failed spectacularly.

*UPDATE: It's official - RTE has the story.

Department of Justice Caught Breaking the Rules?

An unwelcome light has been shone on the Department of Justice after they've admitted that various contracts worth €100m were awarded without fully going out to tender - as civil service procurement rules dictate - since 2003.


The contracts, including a €21m deal to construct a 64-cell block at Castlerea Prison in Roscommon, were doled out by the Department and the Irish Prison Service. It took an audience with the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) before Seán Aylward and Brian Purcell spilled the beans on the deals - I'll stick up what's sure to be an entertaining transcript of the meeting when it becomes available.


John Buckley at the the Comptroller and Auditor General has launched into full investigation mode, while various Department of Finance officials are quoted tut-tutting in today's Irish Times. All that diligence might have been a bit more useful when these shenanigans were going on over the last six years.

Czeching out the Indo's Agenda

Remember property developer Owen O'Callaghan, last seen (allegedly) hiding in a broom closet and, more seriously, applying to the high court to prevent the Mahon Tribunal from reporting? Well, the Indo has a gentle piece this morning lauding the great man's "prescience" for starting up a development in the Czech Republic.


There's even an interview with O'Callaghan himself, who remarks that "During the Communist era, everyone rented their homes, but now around 45 per cent of Czechs prefer to purchase rather than rent. So, for the foreseeable future, prices can be expected to stabilise and hold current levels there."


Encouraging words that may have set off a goldrush in times gone by. There's one problem, though: they're not exactly accurate. The Czech statistical office announced just last month that the price of apartments in Prague (where O'Callaghan's new development is based) actually fell at the end of last year, marking the first quarter-on-quarter decline since 2005. The drop-off is small (1.7 per cent) but the esteemed gurus of bricks'n'mortar at Independent House would surely have known this. So why didn't they mention it?

Would-be FG Councillor Backs Down

So a squalid little saga - which featured local election hopeful Naja Regan taking her own party (FG) to the High Court - has been resolved. In a brief recap, Naja Regan (daughter of high profile Senator Eugene Regan) was miffed when the powers that be stymied her efforts to get on the local election ticket in the Dun Laoghaire Ward, instead decreeing that the party's three sitting councillors should go forward. (Fine Gael's HQ may have been particularly heavy-handed because Regan's Monkstown Branch contains almost 200 members, who seem to turn out for selection conventions - and little else - with remarkable enthusiasm.)


So, Naja did the natural thing for a young law graduate: sued their asses off. Well, not quite. The case was due to be heard today but, this afternoon, the following statement went out from the Party's press office:

The matter regarding Naja Regan and Fine Gael Executive Council has been resolved. The Fine Gael Executive Council will now ratify the three candidates as selected by Convention to contest the upcoming local election forthwith in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown.


Suffice to say I'll be toddling along to the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown's AGM tonight to see what gives.

*UPDATE: Very little by way of fireworks on this issue tonight (is it just me or are all local party get-togethers really tedious?) but a few oblique references from the politicians. One nutter on the floor laid into the Dun Laoghaire councillors and said he won't vote for the party this year, but was slapped down (in an oratorical sense) by veteran councillor Dónal Marren. Then Naja stood up, said she supported the councillors in their bid for re-election, and sat down to huge applause. Altogether much too dignified for my tastes - a bit of digging is in order to see what made Team Regan back down.