Selling the state forest industry would only generate enough cash to pay three weeks’ interest on the nation’s debts but could threaten 12,000 jobs, forestry workers have warned.

“When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp . . . There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. In short, all good things are wild and free.”

One of the country’s largest trade unions has called on the Government to abandon its plans to sell off the harvesting rights of trees owned by Coillte.

One of the original minds behind Nama has said the body should be partially sold as it is not achieving its potential and faces “a major challenge” in recovering its outlay on loan assets.

The economist who devised the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has today called for the institution to be part-privatised.

The economist who thought up Nama has expressed alarm that the organisation has descended into an unfocused debt collection agency.

THE state should cover the cost of any future drop in the value of new properties being purchased, a leading economist has said.

THE Dáil returned after the summer recess yesterday and it is hard to remember a parliamentary session that faced such terrible challenges and had so very few options available to respond to them.

DURING the bubble, the Irish economic system came to resemble a snake, swallowing indigestible loan-financed assets.

THE economist who invented the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has questioned why the agency has become preoccupied with recouping cash abroad rather than cleaning up the mess left by developers at home.

The economist who oversaw the establishment of NAMA says he advised the Government last year that the amount of distressed loans to be taken onto the bad bank's books could be as high as €158bn.

THE Moriarty Tribunal’s legal team have been accused of bias by a Danish telecommunications expert who was centrally involved in designing the competition for the state’s second mobile phone licence.

THE architect of NAMA has warned that scandal-ridden Anglo Irish Bank is set to become Ireland’s “Celtic Chernobyl” because of vast amounts of toxic property loans that cannot be transferred to the agency.

Anglo Irish Bank has been branded a 'Celtic Chernobyl' this morning.

THE average price of a hotel room in Ireland has fallen below the €100 mark for the first time since the start of the recession.

The average price of a hotel room in Ireland slipped below the €100 mark in December, according to new data.

THE IRISH might have drawn in their horns on home turf, but it is full steam ahead in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava.

THE Killarney Towers Hotel has posted a €1.43 million pre-tax loss for the year to the end of last January.

THE Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) has called for a cull of insolvent hotels and a closure of 15,000 available rooms, before next year’s peak season, as part of a wide-ranging series of recommendations aimed at saving the industry.

An economic report on Ireland's hotel industry is warning that the entire sector faces complete insolvency if urgent action is not taken.

TURNOVER at Johnson & Perrott fell by 20% to €115.3 in 2008 from €144.7m in 2008, according to figures filed with the Companies Registration Office.

NAMA needs developers if it is to work, writes Political Correspondent Conor Ryan.

NAMA has indicated it will take a “practical approach” to recovering payment from builders and developers. This is code for “we will do a deal with them and write off large portions of their debts rather than chase them”.

OF the €2.8bn in debts accrued by developer Liam Carroll through his 175 companies, more than €1.1bn is owed to Allied Irish Banks.

IF Dr Peter Bacon and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan felt no sense of shame in seeking to undermine minimum wage protection, they might at least have had a sense of occasion at the bitter irony of making such statements at a summer school dedicated to the memory of Patrick MacGill, that “graduate” of Ulster’s hiring fairs and Scotland’s navvy camps.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has said that there are no proposals before Government to reduce the minimum wage.

ONE of the Government’s most trusted economic advisors has said the minimum wage must fall by 10%.

The Minister for Health has refused to rule out a reduction in the minimum wage.

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin has said the government should not simply focus on remedies for the budgetary deficit but instead needs to completely change the economy’s guiding philosophy.

A SMALL number of developers have property loans in excess of €1 billion each to which the taxpayer will be exposed as they are passed from the banks to the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA), an Oireachtas Finance Committee has heard.

Several major developers could have property loans worth a total of €1bn each on the books of the six main banks, it was claimed today.

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has signalled there will be no further income tax increases this year.

The controversial National Assets Management Agency (Nama) is hiring a team of international tax advisors to help it buy bad loans off the books of banks.

The bail-out of the banks’ bad assets could lead to legal battles in the courts, it was claimed today.

THE Government’s army of spin have been busy over the past week. They have been trying to convince us that the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) plan is: the only way to restore bank credit to the wider economy; there is no alternative and they know what they are doing.

THE Government did not do as much as it should have in providing proper leadership. It cut pensions to sitting ministers and deputies, but it did nothing about the untouched expenses. Yet they did more than I expected. That was not a compliment; if that is a compliment, it was simply that they are not as obtuse as I feared. They have learned something from their recent mistakes.

IT was the day we finally became a Ba-NAMA Republic.

MAVERICK Fianna Fáil TD Ned O’Keeffe shocked fellow TDs last night by expressing strong opposition to the new toxic assets agency.

One third of the bad loans being rescued by Irish taxpayers are linked to risky property deals located outside the state, it was claimed today.

A toxic bank needs to be set up before the Budget next month, a leading economist said today.

AS the storm rages over the golden circle and the €300 million share purchase in Anglo the real economy still continues to go down the tubes.

THIS group of undergraduates has just finished four years of speech and language therapy studies — but not one of them has a job to go to next week. Many are considering emigrating.

DENIS O’BRIEN launched a blistering attack on the tribunal and its chairman Mr Justice Michael Moriarty yesterday at what was possibly the last public sitting of the long-running inquiry.