Over the past decade there has been a drop to 81.5 per cent from 88.1
per cent in those who describe themselves as white Scottish in ethnic
or cultural background, responses to the Scottish Household Survey
show.
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Nama and bankers take their place as new cuckoos in the nest
By Ivan Yates
Thursday, December 22, 2011
During the Noughties Government buildings entertained interlopers.
Anglo and Minister Varadkar’s pre-election comments regarding money to Anglo:
From time to RTÉ play a clip of Minister Varadkar at a press
conference saying that we would not give Anglo another cent of
taxpayers money. Thee facts are as follows:
Read more
The Australian
From correspondents in London
From: AFP
December 19, 2011 1:25PM
EUROPEAN Union ministers will reportedly ask Britain to contribute
30.9 billion euros ($40.5 billion) towards an International Monetary
Fund (IMF) package aimed at rescuing the single currency.
Migrants hold candle-lit march
Updated: 18:26, Saturday, 17 December 2011
Undocumented migrants and their families and supporters held a
candle-lit march in Dublin this afternoon.
Shift in focus on Anglo promissory notes
HARRY McGEE Political Correspondent
THE GOVERNMENT has quietly downgraded its campaign to persuade the
European Central Bank to change the terms of the €30 billion of
promissory notes it issued to bail out Anglo Irish Bank, according to
an authoritative Government source.
By Ivan Yates
Thursday, December 15, 2011
WHICH part of this deal did they think might appeal to us?
The outcome of the 15th consecutive EU summit to resolve the eurozone
crisis fails to meet any Irish requirement. The government is
sleepwalking towards a referendum defeat, unsustainable national debts
and ever diminishing economic sovereignty. The only discernible
strategy is the usual “make it up as we go along — hoping something
will turn up”. It’s increasingly apparent that our dependence on the
kindness of strangers is being met by Franco German self-interest that
disregards concerns of smaller European states. Yet, we give them a
blank cheque of compliance.
THE DECLINE in the number of people at work in the Irish economy in
the third quarter of the year was the biggest in two years, according
to the Central Statistics Office.
The promissory notes for Anglo and Irish Nationwide total €31 billion.
The interest on these notes, as set out by Michael Noonan in
September, is €17 billion. We are to make annual payments of €3.1
billion up to 2024. The payments continue at smaller, but still
significant, levels until 2031. A child born in 2008, when the bank
guarantee was given, will (unless she emigrates) still be paying a
chunk of her taxes towards Anglo and INBS when she is 23. Actually,
even these mind-boggling figures don’t tell the whole story. The truth
is that the Department of Finance doesn’t actually know how much the
total cost of the promissory notes will be. Michael Noonan’s written
reply to Pearse Doherty on the subject in September contains the
phrase “It is difficult . . . to isolate precisely the exact cost of
the interest payments on the borrowing undertaken to fund the
promissory note payments.” We’re borrowing money to pay the interest
on the money we’ve borrowed to bail out Anglo and Irish Nationwide –
and we don’t know how much it is. But the official estimate is that in
2013, when the interest payments kick in, the annual cost will be €1.8
billion. To put this in perspective, the interest alone on the
promissory notes is nearly three times the annual yield from the new
23 per cent rate of VAT.
It’s not our fault, but we’re paying a heavy price for their economic mess
By Colette Browne
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
YOU’RE not responsible for the crisis — but you’re sure as hell going
to pay for it, is probably the most succinct way to summarise the
Taoiseach’s hotly anticipated state of the nation address.