Nama is 10 years old. Brian Lenihan’s brainchild to fix our collapsed banking

As Nama looks to the end of its original projected lifespan and its legacy will be examined, it must start being honest with itself and the public about the basic facts of its existence, writes Daniel McConnell

Workers in the public service shouldn’t overestimate what the State can afford, or underestimate how much those in the private sector have suffered, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

Alarm has been raised here after chancellor George Osborne told the Financial Times, in his first interview following the shock Brexit vote, that the UK now aimed to offset any slowdown in Britain by cutting its corporation tax rate all the way down to 15%.

The troika shot down any prospect of Ireland burning the bondholders in late-2010 and warned such a move would cancel any possibility of a future bailout, a senior Government adviser during the crisis has confirmed.

The shutting of bank doors in a eurozone country yesterday may not have riled markets, but there is no doubt that Europe’s big powers and Greece’s official creditors — the IMF and the European Central Bank — are still taking serious risks.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan could have €2.5bn to spend in pre-election budget giveaways because the economy is growing so rapidly, analysts say.

The mystery over why Anglo and Irish Nationwide were included in the blanket bank guarantee deepened after another senior banker said yesterday that he advised the Government not to include the stricken firms in the deal.

It was Ireland’s “best kept secret” that the economic bubble burst in summer 2006 not 2008, but the situation was effectively masked by politicians focussed on the 2007 general election and vested interests who did not want to break the silence.

A former advisor to Brian Lenihan has claimed the property market had crashed nearly a year before anyone realised.

The man credited with inventing NAMA has told the banking inquiry it is not doing the job it was designed to do.

Almost a quarter of the 145 hotels put into receivership at the end of last year are yet to come to market creating a pipeline of properties that will help transactions reach record highs again this year.

So the ECB has finally made its move. Mario Draghi has “done what it takes”, writes By Kyran FitzGerald. 

The Government and foreign bodies must invest significant funds into the education and housing sectors if Ireland’s stabilising economy is to turn into a full-blown financial recovery.

The Finance Minister said he wants the banks to do more lending to property developers to provide equity for new developments.

NAMA is expected to pick up the pace of Irish hotel sales in the coming 18 months — so far, it has sold just 19 of the 136 in its control, and so has 117 left to sell, a conference organised by the Irish Hotel Federation heard this week.

The Irish hotel industry still needs a further €1.4bn in restructuring to bring hotel debt to a sustainable level according to a new report by economist Professor Alan Ahearne.

Recovery in the Irish hotel and hospitality sector is to be analysed, parsed and predicted by Nine Wise Men, overseen by a male Fulbright scholar — with not a single woman speaker on the bill — at an Irish Hotels Federation seminar next week.

The forthcoming ECB stress tests are unlikely to cause any major problems for Irish banks, according to NUIG economics lecturer and former government adviser Alan Ahearne.

Europe’s efforts to form a united front behind eurozone banks are reaching a climax, but many fear they will fail to restore confidence and prove flimsy should another crisis strike.

The former special economic adviser to Brian Lenihan, Alan Ahearne, believes that the much vaunted successes of Finance Minster Micheal Noonan in renegotiating the Anglo promissory notes were simply part of the bailout programme.

The job of sorting through mortgages in arrears and SME debts could be completed by 2016 so as to ensure the country does not “limp on” with the hangover of the banking collapse, the MacGill Summer School heard yesterday.

The Government should ease up on the budgetary adjustment by €500m this year and rule out any further tax increases, according to Ibec in its pre-budget submission.

The 0.6% contraction in GDP over the first quarter of 2013, following on from the revised 0.2% shrinkage in the final quarter of last year, puts Ireland officially back in recession.

The call for a tax on tracker mortgages by UCG economist Dr Alan Ahearne will be treated by those lucky enough to have them with the contempt it deserves.

Tracker mortgages should be taxed, according to a leading economist and one-time adviser to the Government.

The Government must not ease up in any fiscal consolidation this year, despite growing political pressure for a softer budget, a conference heard yesterday.

Stress tests of the Irish banking system should happen as soon as possible and if the banks then need capital it has to come from an EU fund, former government adviser Alan Ahearne has said.

The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association hosted its Annual Conference 2012 in Dublin last week.

The benefits for the Irish economy and banking system from a European banking union will far outweigh any potential downsides, the former government adviser Alan Ahearne has argued.

A new report has called for decisive action to restore financial stability to the Irish hotel sector.

Irish hotels are nearly €7bn in debt and need to write off €2.5bn of this burden if the sector is to stay viable, warns a report by a former government adviser.

Irish economists have advised Spanish authorities awaiting the results of stress tests on their banking system to “imagine the worst and double it”.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has hit out at opposition claims that Spain’s bank bailout is far more generous than the one Ireland is saddled with.

AIB will today announce it is to cut 2,500 jobs as part of an ongoing programme by the State-owned bank to reduce overall costs.

Government warnings that a vote on the EU fiscal treaty is a vote on staying in the euro could trigger a run on the banks, a leading economist warned.

IRELAND, which saw its financial system come closer to collapse than that of any euro nation, may now entice investors back to its bank bonds.

EUROPE requires and is going to get its own minister for finance, economist Alan Ahearne predicts.

DEPARTMENT of Finance officials are engineering a manoeuvre that may make the difference between default and financial survival.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese and her husband, Senator Martin McAleese, led the mourners at Brian Lenihan’s removal last night.

PERCHED on a chair overlooking a wood panel-lined room in Dublin’s High Court, a bespectacled Judge Elizabeth Dunne has become all-too-used to hearing from the victims of Ireland’s economic meltdown.

THE poster boys for our financial crisis have been well established: Seánie Fitz, ‘Fingers’ Fingleton, Eugene Sheehy, Patrick Neary, Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevy, Brian Cowen.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has imposed a four-week deadline on each of his Cabinet colleagues to come up with cutbacks in their departments.