Happy Christmas!
Interesting piece again from Colm McCarthy in the Independent from earlier in the month. At this stage it may seem like flogging a dead horse in questioning the use of the bailout to the parties involved but coverage seems to continually suggest that it has missed the mark in a big way in terms of assuaging the fears of the markets and has put the Irish taxpayer under and unnecessary burden which we will struggle to be able to pay.
The most interesting suggestion of the article is one that has been raised before of the differences between the IMF team and the EU officials in their approach to the bailout. The suggestion being that the IMF(and evidently the markets) would have preferred the deal to include some "burn" of the bank bondholders whereas the EU preferred the deal which has now been ratified in the Dail. The EU appears to have won out in this as the major partner in the discussions but again it must be asked who is this servicing? The markets? the Irish state? or the banking systems of our European partners?
It seems to me that at this stage we as the Irish taxpayer are at least in part paying for not only our own banks reckless lending and our own states asleep at the wheel banking policy but also the same problems of our European neighbours from whose banks we borrowed. As John Bruton has suggested recently surely the EU and ECB themselves should be taking some responsibility in financial terms for this problem which is no doubt EU wide instead of enforcing overly harsh repayment obligations on the Irish state. The apparent weakness of our governments negotiation skills and the standoffish presence of the IMF in deference to the ECB's primacy on the matter may be something we will be ruing for some time as our sovereign debt holders begin to frighten at the prospect of our state going the way of our banks under this excessive burden.
No comments:
Post a Comment