A meeting of oil producers takes place next week and the outcome will have a profound impact on the global economy, writes Kyran FitzGerald

AIB, the people’s bank, regulated on behalf of the Minister of Finance is once again biting the hand that feeds it.

Deputies at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) accused Nama of becoming a political tool as it was revealed the latest appointee to the Nama board was a Fine Gael trustee.

There is outrage among opposition TDs that the Central Bank has chosen to go ahead with the outsourcing of its IT systems, despite high profile failures of crucial banking systems in Ulster Bank last year.

The Government earned over €2 billion last year in excise duty on fuel alone, accounting for nearly 30% of all of the money spent on fuel in Ireland last year.

IN communist countries after World War II, the state was paying to owners 10%–20% of their capital value.

Dublin: The Government should stimulate job growth through small changes to VAT, PRSI rebate scheme and stamp duty, Dublin Chamber of Commerce has suggested in its submission to the Minister of Finance on the upcoming jobs initiative.

THE visit of Queen Elizabeth will be the “conclusion of centuries of divisions” according to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who has urged the British prime minister to release intelligence files relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974.

NED O’KEEFFE states that in recent years there were too many intellectuals in the Cabinet and that none of them ever bought a bale of hay.

I WRITE concerning this week’s programme about TK Whitaker on TG4.

Today the Irish Auctioneers & Valuers Institute has welcomed the announcement by the Minister of Finance Brian Lenihan to reduce the level of stamp duty on residential property.

THE then German ambassador to Ireland, Christian Pauls, made the mistake of laughing at our folly when addressing a group of German businessmen in Clontarf Castle more than three years ago, almost exactly a year before the banking crisis in the US became world news.

I ENJOYED Brian Cowen’s recent economics lesson to the Dáil.

AFTER your report headlined ‘Lenihan dismisses PAC request for pension review’ (November 16) and your editorial which thundered ‘Bring them to heel, Mr Lenihan, November 18), one is forced to eat one’s last hat in disgust.

WE, the undersigned national childcare organisations, formed as the National Voluntary Childcare Collaborative (NVCC,) are calling on Minister Brian Lenihan to highlight the outcry we are aware of from our close contact with a very large number of families and children in a wide variety of settings, including pre-schools, community and private childcare services and hospitals.

THE potential ramifications of harsh budget decisions were brought home to Minister of Finance Brian Lenihan at a lobbying event by the Family Resource Centre yesterday.

EVERYWHERE I go, every dinner party, every pub, every chance meeting, the topic of conversation is always the same — recessionary chit-chat and endless whinging about the hopeless ineffectual politicians.

Fine Gael TD George Lee has today accused Minister of Finance Brian Lenihan of not being forthcoming in relation to details about Nama.

THE leader of the country’s largest trade union has demanded the Taoiseach “call it a day” and name a date for a general election if he cannot “rein in” the Department of Finance from its “slash and burn” policies.

Stormont Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness today insisted threats to the North’s economy by the Republic’s toxic assets agency were being taken seriously.

AN ELECTRIC buzz pulsed through Leinster House as an ecstatic looking Enda Kenny announced he had captured a member of the Government.

OPPOSITION leaders have demanded Taoiseach Brian Cowen comes clean on what the Government knew about the extraordinary steps taken to stabilise Anglo Irish Bank throughout last year.

IT would overestimate the challenges faced by the members of the first Dáil, who held their inaugural meeting 90 years ago yesterday, to suggest that they were greater than those faced by President Barack Obama on this, his first morning in the Oval Office.

MEMBERS of the Irish Bookmakers’ Association (IBA) are planning to aggressively lobby the Government to dramatically change the terms of its betting €40 million duty hike, in a bid to avoid widespread business closures and job losses in the industry.

The national financial services industry body has welcomed the Minister of Finance's measure to promote electronic payments in Ireland announced in today's Budget.

IN his letter headlined ‘Why IRA killers of the Pearson boys were guilty of a war crime (December 17), Brendan Cafferty gives what appears to be very damning evidence of republicans’ attitude towards Protestants during the War of Independence.

DISAPPOINTMENT was expressed in Cork last night at the failure to provide any financial incentives in the budget for the development of the Cork docklands.

The European Commission today threatened to take legal action against the Government for continuing to give State health insurer VHI special status.

The Tánaiste and Minister of Finance, Brian Cowen has defended the decision to call for Garda discretion in implementing new laws for provisional license holders.

SMALL Earthquake in Dublin Castle: No one killed: Taoiseach’s credibility badly injured.

I WOULD like to thank the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, for his grubby and incredibly cynical attitude to the electorate who recently reluctantly returned him to power in appointing Ivor Callely, John Ellis and Eoghan Harris to the Seanad.

One of the most famous names in European politics is to address Dublin’s Trinity college today.

THE 5,000 Fianna Fáil disciples who gathered at Dublin’s Citywest for the adoration of the Bertie were not fed with loaves and fishes, instead they feasted on jibes and disses directed against the opposition heretics who had dared try and take down their Taoiseach.

Ireland could be brought to the European Court of Justice in relation to its treatment of public bodies as non-taxable, it emerged today.

SAUDI ARABIA and other Arab states are expected to speed money within days to the Palestinian Authority to help keep it afloat after Israel halted its tax payments.

Christian Aid tonight hit out at the Budget unveiled by the Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.

WITH many Office of Public Works staff due to up sticks to Kanturk, Co Cork, in the near future if the Minister of Finance’s plans are carried through, demand for property in the region should increase exponentially.

Reuben Thorne will take on the role of New Zealand’s Minister of Finance for 80 minutes tomorrow when the All Blacks clash with Australia in the first World Cup semi-final.

A delegation from IBEC has told the Minister of Finance, Charlie McCreevy, that the sum of €500m could be saved if numbers employed in the public sector were reduced by 5,000.

ACT 2003 (All Children Together) is a new lobby group consisting of parents of children and adults with disabilities. We have come together following the publication of the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill, launched by Education Minister Noel Dempsey in July.

By Ryle Dwyer