canisgallicus

by Michelle Clarke – Social Justice and Ethics: Dignity

Ireland may be bankrupt, the IMF may be called in but the Island of Ireland needs to embrace some hope and re-construct the Balance Sheet that has us gripped in panic and fear of another depression.

You meet people and ask their view about the economy and they say, I have given up on the newspapers, I don’t listen to the news, I hone in on sports, I don’t listen to moaners. Yes, this is denial but what value has this in our times of crisis?

Never before have so many people so much access to information. The world wide web has provided this. Yet, we moan, we are losing computer jobs in Dell etc. because, as strategically planned, these jobs would follow and target cheaper labour markets, as people in Ireland accessed the Knowledge era. This resulted in Ireland when people like Chuck Feeney founder of Atlantic Philantropies https://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/    committed themselves to Education in Ireland.  Through Atlantic Philantropies and a veil of secrecy, people, met, talked, planned and brought the necessary Credo and funds to Ireland to educate the people so that we benefited from an additional tier of educated people. Remember the 1980’s recession caused massive emigration but unlike the 1950’s, Ireland was credited in the UK, US, Europe for the calibre of educated people who traveled at that time. Movement, migration, can involve another kind of education and that is experience; this must be acknowledged and hence Ireland moved into the Global Financial markets. Ireland too had a dream that resulted in the Celtic Tiger which too easily conjures up the concept of speed but few people realise the speed is about distance in a short space of time. Ireland, embraced the Peace Process and we have achieved a dream in the Unity of the Island during this period and this too is completed in a very short space of time. Let us not lose out on this.

I lived in Zimbabwe in the 1980’s/ early 1990’s. President Mugabe and joint President Nkomo (Ndebele and Mashona tribes – Civil war) had considerable access to Irish history and our Independence process.  I would say, they were led more astray than we were and dictatorship evolved in Rhodesia in transition to Zimbabwe.  The Island of Ireland, we have moved on.

What did we do with our Celtic Tiger opportunities? There is an article well worth reading in the Financial Times supplement titled ‘How Greed turned into Panic’, an extract from a book written by Gillian Tett.

Neatly, it gets to grips with what bankers do, when they want ‘more, better, best’ in their Parent Bank. They are driven by the need to succeed. For what – motivation can be questioned, but invariably they seek power, position, upper echelon society locations to live in, the holidays targeted towards the privileged, the numbers (we all know people who fall into this elitist group and what makes them and creates their mindsets,) is highly questionable?

Gillian Tett’s book is advertised in the Financial Times Bookshop (at a 20%) discount. The title reduces to ordinary English just what orients the moral compass of a certain ‘BREED’ of people.

Fool’s Gold

‘This is about how Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe’

First point, this means, it is not only Banking in Ireland that is in disgrace. It means that we folllowed a trend so let’s stop the witch hunt, become decisive and utlilize the information and data we have access to for free to start us thinking (well said by the Panel on Pat Kenny last night-we need the Nobel aspirants, we need to start thinking) we have the tools to do so.

The articles in publications like the Financial Times provide us with parameters, comprehension, knowledge and understanding to form thoughts, views, and perspectives. Witch hunts are so easy and we know the outcomes.  Colm Tobin (author) spoke about these witch hunts in terms to sexual abuse in Wexford and he also went on to say that he desists from being part of them. I found this to be a most enlightening view.

The extract articles is on page 20 of the FT weekend.

Outline……

‘A young team at investment bank J P Morgan pioneered credit derivatives in the 1990s’. What this basically saying is that a Team at a bank produced a product for the market. ‘Some of these were classified as ”Super Senior” safer than the triple AAA Rating’ ……. which in effect is about Regulation.  Standard and Poors, Moody’s and others which we hear quoted daily in the media, are supposed to keep us informed by ratings.

The Product sold……the team earned money…..competitive advantage applied…..banks followed banks……dealers followed dealers…..and clients made serious money……ie until one year….11th October, 2007, Moody’s cut its credit ratings on some $32 bn of mortgage backed bonds….then panic started……credit ratings were reduced……panic set in….

$20 bn mortgage backed bonds……no longer promised yields…. it changed to losses. You see the security is the property.

I ask the question who is in the driving seat.  A house in Wellington Road with a mews site (Dublin 4) in 1963 sold for £2,500 yet before the property crash a house sold for over £5 million without a mews.  What an increase in value?

Does this make sense? Can it be redressed? Well 1980’s England saw negative equity but time changed this with assets being switched to say other funds like gold, oil just to name two alternatives.

I think we need to read ……. and think and not panic……there must be a way out……..

Michelle Clarke

 by Michelle Clarke – Social Justice and Ethics: Dignity 

Do we nationalise the Banks? Do we establish NAMA? When you consider the millions paid for the Tribunals of Enquiries, to the legal staff – it is time to reflect and consider the options.

What costs can we envisage for NAMA and what predictable outcomes? We know from the Tribunals that placing inadequate terms of reference and boundaries, accelerates time scale and costs. This surely is a luxury we cannot afford.

We must acknowledge those who took on board the financial services system……those people like the investigative journalists, and in particular Simon Carswell, senators, and former executives of AIB like Mr. Soden, those people who identified the maladministration that is necessary for a system of checks and balances not to work.

The Irish Stock Exchange appears toothless in its handling of the financial crisis. It fined AIB on two occasions for a breach of the Stock Exchange rules but apart from this, they appear to be unaware or are just negligent of the duties imposed on the Stock Exchange. Whatever happened to the Stockbroker “gentleman” …… whom, one dealt with in a most professional way in days of yore….the motto ‘My Word is my Bond’ has disappeared with the onset of a globalisation culture and a loss of ethical practices. Then we have the Competition Authority, again toothless, sleepy, docile or just consumed by fear to address a Blue Chip monolith of power. The Central Bank, I recall them as efficient when I used to purchase US$ to pay for oil while I worked in the oil industry. This was back in the 1980’s but then interest rates and exchange rates were the mechanism the Central Bank used to control the Punt as it was.

Prime Time was excellent tonight. The ordinary person is left under no illusions about what happened. The over-investment by the Banks in commercial and other property. Mr. Soden, former Chief Executive made a sensible point. We as yet do not know whether the banks will be nationalised or NAMA/NTMA will be the vehicles used, but he suggested, it is important to establish values on properties. We need to price the one square foot at a VALUE.  Once this is done, you cost it. This will vary from City to City but it is an important benchmark.

It has also been suggested that a member from the European Central Bank ought to be assigned to NAMA……this is common sense, particularly when you consider the over reliance on property in the Republic of Ireland; a person from say the IMF, World Bank, ECB would bring considerable experience and knowledge to say NAMA/NTMA, if established.

The irony is as the Irish Revenue received funds from the fraudulent activities of tax evaders into the 1980’s/90’s into the coffers that in turn propped up the Balance Sheets to a positive position, while realistically the coffers were being stripped going forward, and now the irony is complete with the present financial scandals. Tax havens again have facilitated illegal transactions. Ireland needs to partner with Germany, France, the UK, who seek to restrict practices of investment in offshore accounts. They are also asking tax haven countries to release data on people who hold accounts.

Michelle Clarke

Gandhi
‘The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within’

I believe that if this is so, bankers and others who have forsaken a generation of people, ought to return bonuses, pensions in excess of what is acceptable to a fund……..’

Chronological Order: can we learn from experiences of the past.  These are a selection of articles written on an Open Publishing site; sent by email to people in the media and politicians at the time.

Twitter:  @ReusingDublin worth following; 

Recommend two articles:- 2012 and 2014

It’ll take us 43 years to fill all empty houses – Irish Independent

Published 10/06/2012 | 05:00 … As the Deutsche Bank map shows, the empty properties are highly concentrated around the Atlantic coast …. Promoted articles …

AND……..

Rory Hearne’s article in the Irish Examiner today analysing the housing vacancy rates across Ireland

Tuesday, October 28, 2014 – 00:00

A sustainable and fair housing policy is needed to address society’s needs, writes Dr Rory Hearne

The residential vacancy rates from the 2011 census highlight the necessity of a radical change in housing and regional economic development policy.

They make it clear our housing system is fundamentally dysfunctional. We now have the scandalous and untenable situation whereby 90,000 households are defined as ‘in housing need’, and up to 5,000 homeless, and yet over twice that amount (230,056) of housing and apartments units lie vacant.

Full article: http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/radical-change-of-policies-is-required-294236.html

Editorial: http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/ourview/far-more-at-stake-than-just-houses-294207.html

April 30th, 2009 12:41

The Good and the Wasteland in Dublin

by Michelle Clarke – Social Justice and Ethics: Dignity 

Reply:

Yes, Baggot Street Bridge was constructed over a century ago, and the walk over the lock, is such a pleasant walk. There is such a history around the area and quite a few books written. Adjacent to Baggot Street Bridge, was the bookshop Parsons (no gone) all details to be found on Google. All kinds of people, writers, artists were to be found gathering in this book shop.

Did you know that Thomas Davis (1814-1845) lived at 67, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2 (I am sure as you have walked by, you saw the nameplate on the left hand side of the door just above the doorway.

Thomas Osborne Davis died at the age of 31 but in his short life. he achieved a considerable amount. Thomas Davis lived with his mother and invalid sister.

His obituary in the Dublin University Magazine noted:

‘his own family in whose bosom he lived and died in all peace and affection, entertained political opinions quite opposite to his’

The strong word tolerance applied to different opinions between Davis and his beliefs and those of his family – there was diversity in views.

Davis was the son of a Welsh father, a surgeon in the Royal Artillery and an Irish Mother. The young Davis attended Mr. Mangan’s mixed seminary’ in Lower Mount Street.

Davis was a poor mixer but read voraciously. He was called to the Bar 1836 and called to the Irish Bar in 1837.

It is this Thomas Davis while walking in the Phoenix Park with two other men (John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy, barrister and journalist respectively, who agreed to establish and collaborate on the publication of a newspaper – THE NATION – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation_(Irish_newspaper)

Davis laid it down for the Nation. He said ‘it must embrace Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter – Milesian and Cromwellian – the Irishman of a hundred generations and the stranger who is within our gates’ and this sentiment was published October 1882.

History is all around is Dublin 2, Dublin 4, Dublin 6, Dublin 8 and beyond.  Ireland is about history both oral and written and this ought to provide hope to move forward from the latest financial crisis.

I would love to see the young students to live out their history in the days of being at the colleges here and explore it to gain creativity and innovation to invoke the Knowledge Economy that we are well capable of putting in place. The Challenge is here before our eyes..  To quote once again Jonathan Swift  ‘Giving vision to the visionless’

May 11th, 2009 18:18

by Michelle Clarke – Social Justice and Disabilities

To the people who produced the photos for this site – have you noticed the decline in our Urban space? The ‘For Sale’ signs, the ‘To let’, the shopping centres like Rathmines with many vacant shops. It will only get worse. It will be like England in the early 90’s with vacant premises dotted all over the place and then a myriad of charity shops will opt to take the locations, at no doubt reduced rents, if any.

What can we do? We know the potential, we have seen it in Ireland. Ireland, the new State, post the 1916 Revolution saw many of its mansions, tower houses, castles, burned to the ground and if not, become un-inhabited. For those who remained in the houses, often they lived spartan lives, occupying only the room space necessary.

This we need to avoid. We the people can intervene, we can volunteer information, views, and experience. An Bord Snip has made its recommendations and we the people have a right to agree or disagree. The internet is here. We can use it. In fact, we can make our statement that the proposed cut to Broadband funds put forward by the report, be discarded and promote high speed broadband throughout Ireland. This allows our aspiration of moving forward as the Knowledge Economy.

NAMA/NTMA, I believe have taken space in the Treasury Holdings building in Dublin 2. Let us ask NAMA/NTMA to be participants in the sustainable development and refurbishment of property in the Dublin 4, Dublin 6, areas. We have ribbon development throughout Ireland and we should note the cost of same is highly expensive. Urban living, well promoted provides the cheaper altnernative. The time is now ideal with the necessity of the BER certification to upgrade our stock of houses to maximum standards in line with a ‘Greener’ environment.

Most people of a certain age group will be aware of the Gallagher family and their involvement in housing and development. I worked for Seamus Gallagher, son of Mr. James Gallagher, in the 1980’s – yes at a time of great unemployment, companies going into liquidation, yes it was the beginning of times getting tough. Governments changed. Landbanks that ought to have received planning permissions were left in futility. Mr. James, as he was known to staff, was a TD. In fact, he had established BASTA locks in Tubercurry, Co. Sligo. This was another time but fear not developers then, as now, were involved in Politics. The name that will remain on the lips through the decades is former Taoiseach, Mr. Charles J. Haughey.

I note, that Abbey, one of the publicly quoted companies associated with the Gallaghers, has been forced to write down the value of its land bank by Euros 58 m. Abbey is in fact the largest house builder on the Irish Stock Exchange. This is where experience may count. Ahead of NAMA/NTMA, Abbey have taken account of the market forces that have forced them to reduce house values by 50% in some areas, and they have moved ahead to value the land at the appropriate discount value. This leaves them free to engage in a root and branch exercise of their current workload and to look to the future. Being a publicly quoted company, it means they have also engaged in an upfront way with their Shareholders. We must always remember that in public companies, the shareholders can play an important part in the ethos of the company. They speak now of corporate, ethical and social responsibility and of course a form of corporate governance attaches to this. Vision is so important especially in this time of severe Recession. (The IFSC was born out of the 1980’s recession).

Mr. Soden, speaking about NAMA some time ago stressed the importance at arriving at a value per square meter of property per each city. It looks as if Abbey have paved the way and it is worth noting that they have a broad spectrum over time, here in Ireland and in England, to build up a plan of action for Recessionary periods.

Again I return to our Georgian Squares. I note an article by Ray Managh in the Irish Independent. It is about an artist who is in a battle about a ‘Georgian’ 4 floor over basement home in Middle Abbey Street. It has a Georgian doorway and albeit not as ornate as those found in Fitzwillian Square, Merrion Square, Henrietta Street, it is rather splendid. The premises has become an artists studio. A man has lived in the house for 20 years and is in battle with Dublin City Council regarding the ownership of the building. Dublin City Council claim to be the owners. Whoever owns it, it is representative of the unacceptable degree of dereliction so many of these houses are permitted to descend to. We need to stop this carnage. To hve dereliction scattered throughout our urban spaces only gives false history. (I refer to the Germans while travelling along the Quays of the Liffey in the 1970’s who said they had not realised that Dublin was so badly bombed during the 2nd World War.

No matter what corruption has occurred, there was also Vision. Let us not lose sight of far we have come. Let us take care of our people and let us be inclusive. Regarding the house in Middle Abbey Street – July 23rd is the date of the Court hearing. Dublin City Council will seek a court injunction restraining the named person from trespassing in the building where, he is supposed to have tenancy in the basement. Watch and Wait. Ireland has the potential to witness many evictions or ejectments. We have access to knowledge, we must use it wisely.

Michelle

Quotation randomly chosen from The Little Book of Rebels

Heroism
Spike Milligan (born 1918) British humorist, animal rights activist
‘I am a hero with coward’s legs’

February 26th, 2010 17:32

September 13th, 2012 14:28

Negative Equity dictates family size, space allocation yet again:

Apartment Living – TV programme

by Michelle Clarke

They say 100,000 people are on the list for social housing. Yet they say negative equity has consumed our housing stock yet a fairer distribution of people to suitable housing accommodation for their needs could be orchastrated by Government policy. We are now 5 long years into this recession. To see families living in apartments without space for a dining table and raising 4 small children in an apartment fit to hold 1 person maximum two people is an absolute disgrace.

Allsop auctioneers http://www.allsopireland.ie/search are back in town October 3rd to sell off properties at fire sale prices. I sincerely hope there are housing agencies/NGO’s/Co. Councils, Dublin City Council housing groups, prepared to buy stock at favourable prices to re-home people adequately. They have RAS in place, so let there be no excuses.

Supply and demand still dictates our market prices. If we manage to reduce the supply side, eventually we will create a market to move again. It is interesting to hear (H. Schumann on Vincent Browne, TV3) that inflation in house prices is actually occurring in Germany already. If money is released into the market, the fear is that inflation will re-appear but it would seem to be that inflation is already hovering in the German market, so they will be watchful in this regard.

Today the High Court has made its stand against impropriety, cronyism and conflict of interest. Nama has initiated an action against a former employee and his wife over the purchase of a NAMA controlled property. Enda Farrell was a former portfolio manager who is accused of using insider knowledge to buy a property without notifying NAMA. This man is now living in the UK and working in a similar portfolio based position.

The people of Ireland need to take on board what is happening in their communities. For example, if you live in a community, why not be aware of vacant properties, know who owns them or for that matter if they are owned by NAMA? Get to know the price and raise your personal level of expectation to see the properties marketed and even be a little ambitious and see if you can find interested parties.

Agree with other writers on this citizen journalism site. It is a pity photos of derelict houses/offices/businesses no longer on this site. With 450,000 people unemployed, someone surely can put up links showing what dereliction can do to morale. Dolphin’s Barn and boarded up windows as shown on TV programme the other night, does not have to be so, we can make the change, if we put our minds to it and address the problems.

Further point: Apartment living is expensive when it comes to management charges. Some people pay £3000+ pa. If property tax comes in, people will not be able to pay both and then we will face worse problems because people will not be able to sell apartments as management companies become insolvent. Just look at the McFeely scenario. These are young families who probably bought apartments in the hope of buying housings in which to rear their families. How do we help them now?

16th September , 2012 14:46

Get to grips with the burdens of all people exposed to debt now

Property in Dublin 4:

Who will take the hit?

Imagine houses in the area of Wellington Road and Waterloo Road as recent as 2006 were bought for £6 million and £3.5 million respectively. The question we ask is, like the Thornton Hall site http://www.iprt.ie/contents/2501, who received the money and did they anticipate what lay ahead in financial markets and invest abroad or even in the Isle of Man? The next question is who bought? Did they have the jobs, the capital, the deposit, the property portfolio or did they get swept in the tide of those bankers, lawyers, business people who saw only an upward moving trend? What we do know now is that some of these people were badly hit and the banks are hounding them to try and retrieve some paltry amount of money and leave them life bound and their families with negative equity strapped to their backs. This is the reason both with the ECB and our own banks we ought to be pushing ahead for write-downs on debt to make it possible for people to achieve a new balance sheet position. Do not destroy lives, make it possible for people with families to start again using their professions, their experience, their entrepreneurship abilities. James Joyce rightly said that mistakes are but portals of discovery.

Take this house on Waterloo Road. One with a storey less sold for £3.5 m in 2006. Now there is one for sale fully refurbished with a skylight to such a degree that it would make a handsome property for someone in an embassy. The basement has a library, a large playroom, a hall that is an office and its own wine cellar. Then you move up through the floors, each more luxurious and tastefully designed than the last.

To make an assumption so that we can really assess where the banks/lawyers faltered and lent money indiscriminately that the house was bought by say a legal person for £3.5, add expenses for solicitors/inspections and stamp duty tax. Then assume it was a pre-63 and in say 10 flats so the new owners decided to revert it to a family residence. These people saw potential in a Georgian House on Waterloo Road, they applied for planning permission. They got the loans and the employed the design team and builders. Let us assume a cost of £1.5 m (estimate), now we are at £5 m.

This house is up for sale now. £5 million and the question is who is looking for their money? Is it right that if say the original owner got the £3.5 million and transferred same to Switzerland or the Isle of Man tax free and this purchaser was bamboozled by the financiers to take the risk, (alongside their own passion for a house of this renown) and they are now faced with a value of say £1.5 (if sale or fire sale yields this) while the capital foregone and the amount of the loans relate to a hot air sum £3.5 m.

It can’t work. We must write down debt. We need to take living examples in to our remit and think it through.

Just had a chat with a man who has been in the property game for years. His common sense is that Peter Mathews http://www.petermathews.ie/is the only man in Fine Gael who knows about markets and he should be representing us as part of the Finance Team. I totally agree. He has the grasp and intuition as well as the experience of markets and we need him, and people like Constantin Gurdgiev, Brian Lucey and others to represent us the people of Ireland. Too many in government are from cosy backgrounds with pensions, homes for decades at low cost, and many other investments too.

Earlier recessions tell the tale. Look to the Gallagher Group and Stephen’s Green. Write down is the only way forward.

15th October, 2012 15:01

Any volunteer to take photos of Ghosted estates, properties, offices, shops November 2015:  Twitter: photos of vacant properties throughout cities, towns and country are being uploaded.  Voids refer to the local authority homes that are boarded up.

by Chestnut (Michelle Clarke)

Irish Architecture Foundation: Going by twitter this appears to have been a great success. Lots of photos will have been taken and it would be great if someone could upload say 20-30 to promote an interest in our urban environment especially in Dublin.

The song goes…’the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where the circle ends….’ but we can say Stop.

Apartment living has become the latest nightmare of that so called Celtic Tiger. Apartments have become a noose around the necks of owners.

Priory Hall: the headline in the Sunday Business Post goes ‘Priory Hall residents owe £15,000 more each to banks’.
These people are not alone in a negative equity trap but are re-located away from the homes they are indebted for while lawyers, banks, courts, insurance companies, developers squabble. Who pays? Yes, ordinary people, they pay literally and emotionally. Problems have arisen in another block South-side of the city so can we expect more hardship for people and unprecedented costs?

One year ago people were evacuated from their homes yet even though the lenders/mortgage providers gave a moratorium on the loans, these borrowers in effect owe £15,000 more than they did one year ago. We need to say Stop. Time is money when it comes to a loan with interest on capital and a compounding effect and then add in the good old negative equity and the added non value relating to Priory Hall of the reputational cost of the fiasco.

A £220,000 mortgage for an apartment in Priory Hall will have accumulated at least £8,705 in interest and £5,675 in principal – this is for the year that the problems arose and alternative accommodation provided so this has to be costed also.

Dispute is what Priory Hall is all about these days. People are secondary to a bureaucratic system that leaves them in abeyance yet meeting the debt for properties they are not able to live in, properties which they purchased. This is becoming another blot on the landscape of our city which did a lot to challenge the deprivation of earlier decades. How long will the lenders facilitate these purchasers. Certushttp://www.certus.ie/has already taken over Bank of Scotland mortgages. Permanent TSB are supposed to be currently reviewing the deal with Priory Hall customers. It would indicate that the moratoriums granted may not apply in the future.

Ghost estate living can easily be witnessed first hand. Take a trip towards Leeson Street, Baggot Street and you will see many properties with to let signs or just vacant. A searing example today is the once famous pub Hartigans on Leeson Street, the shop front is fine but look up the four stories and you realise that dereliction of the upper stories is already visible. Then look around you.

We do not want to add to our Georgian and Victorian stock of houses a post Celtic Tiger contingent of ghost apartment blocks and partially finished housing estates. There is no need for homelessness in Ireland now surely.

 November 20th, 2012

27th November 2012

December 11th, 2012

December 14th, 2012

by Michelle Clarke (Chestnut) 

Urban abandonments 

Vacant Boarded up To let

Fast our city is in the process of architectural decay. Builders and developers, the 5th Christmas into Austerity are accustomed to media coverage and are either buckling under debt living in their houses compliments of the Banks or Nama or else they are like McNamara, Ivan Yates and many others who have taken the quick route out of bankruptcy by moving over to the UK where the system facilitates them to be declared bankrupt in one year, leaving them ready to start again. Is this good or bad? Really I don’t know but bleeding people like a stone that has nothing to give is surely destructive to the soul of the people, their families and to the country. This brings to mind the negative equity period that befell the UK in the 1980’s/90’s, the advertisement for a large house then read as follows: Bought for in excess of Stg£1m but will sell for £500,000 now (the period of time 6 months when rates moved from 7% to 14%+). I often wonder what was the final outcome for so many people including many Irish from the negative equity scenario in the 1980’s/90’s in the UK. Many people just put their keys through the letter box and virtually disappeared. Feedback would be interesting if anyone was interested enough to do the research back then.

All we know from the economists these days is that markets have no memories so this recession in Ireland most likely is the replay of the Canary Wharf London boom/bust of the 1990’s, the desire for apartment living in the City and the buy-to-let source of investment return way. The irony now is that the UK has housing shortage. What can we learn now that we have plenty of time on our hands to come up with solutions. Let us not forget that during the Celtic Tiger affordable housing plans replaced social housing and public private partnerships were put on the long finger and never came into play to meet the needs of people in need of social housing. The reality is we need departments to communicate and take surplus un-occupied property and make it available at newly achieved market prices.

Christmas this year and there is sadness in the air for so many. These overpaid bankers with the quick dash of pen or a thought can wipe away the plans of a person, their family, their business, their workers to oblivion and we need to ask why? We need to ask is there a better way? Would these people be better advised to say goodbye to the idea of owning their own house? After all we are only following the English man’s ambition ‘My home is my Castle’. Is it? The French and Germans think differently. They lean on the side of renting and saving. Could there be a culture change in Ireland. This property tax will not apply to people who rent a house, it will be up to the landlord to pay. Will we shift the divide? Landlords banding together like REITS in the US versus tenants who are protected by the law to certain standards of maintenance for where they live. Is there a better way? A change of attitude perhaps.

Tax incentives to buy property seems to be going out of fashion if Bank of Ireland are kicking into play that if you haven’t met your arrears for three months well then they will deduct £4,000 that would have equated to the tax relief and are effectively evicting the people from their homes. Why Christmas? If this is the case why as stated before that it is both moral and ethical that the Government ought to repay the stamp duty charged to those people who bought at the high end of negative equity ie around 2007. The repayment to the capital amount would be sufficient to restructure the loan, the repayments, add to this extending the life of the loan to over 30 years based naturally on the potential of people to repay when the economic climate improves. Debt forgiveness is a bitter pill for people to accept but I would think nobody would object to the Government paying back stamp duty as a gesture. For other people who are beyond such a remedy, then take them out of the agony, that dream of home ownership, and create the rental market that gives them an opportunity to find their level.

Today the headline goes that as many as 20,000 are in arrears for 2 years, the size of the City of Kilkenny.

Europe through bad planning and the Euro creation created its own Economic War. Economic is about money in a world that is harbouring countries like Syria, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan to say just a few. Their war is real war death and suffering. Ireland needs to ask the Europeans to put the foot of the accelerator for progress. They have NATO doing their ‘dirty’ work of war. January 2013 Ireland heads into the EU presidency, rumblings say there is a decorum when President of the EU that you don’t give priority to your ‘dirty washing’. All I can say is this is an opportunity and we should not let it pause.