FG pledges to 'put the frighteners' on electorate

This will certainly anger the Irish people.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fg-pledges-to-put-the-frighteners-on-electorate-3095196.html

The shambolic Government referendum campaign has been pushed into further chaos in the wake of claims that a key Fine Gael campaign strategy will be to "put the frighteners on the electorate'' if it fears that there is a real danger that the referendum may be lost.

In the wake of a top secret FG party meeting, astonished TDs and senators told the Sunday Independent they had been informed by the party's referendum director, Simon Coveney, that "the Government would prefer to win the referendum by being nice but if necessary we will change tack''.

One party grandee told the Sunday Independent: "We couldn't believe it when Simon said if the campaign is not going well after the first week we [Fine Gael] are going to have to put the frighteners on the public and really spell it out,'' and added, "They have really lost contact with the voters if they think Simon's 'we'll be nice but if necessary we will be nasty' line will work."

In spite of the bullish stance of Mr Coveney, concern is growing within a large section of the Fine Gael party that the "doomed'' referendum on the fiscal compact will be "decisively beaten''.

The Fine Gael 'strategy' will also come as a surprise to its Labour party partners who are already deeply unimpressed by a series of FG blunders in recent weeks over water meters and household charges.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, one Labour source close to the heart of Government claimed: "Any conversations we have had with our Coalition partners have centred on our intention to run a clear and positive campaign."

In an implicit rebuke of any plan to put the "frighteners" on the electorate, top level sources said: "People want to hear the truth; gross exaggerations by either side will not be believed by the voters."

However, senior party figures also noted that Labour has a "definite strategy to go aggressively after the 'No' campaign if they indulge in misrepresentations and scare tactics" and vowed to "hammer any attempts by Sinn Fein to twist the truth".

One senior figure slammed the "Sinn Fein version of Section 31 which, if Sinn Fein had its way, would silence Patrick Honohan and selectively quote and censor top economists" and warned, "just like Fianna Fail in the past, when it comes to this campaign, Sinn Fein is putting the interests of the party above those of the country".

Labour's plans for a "clear campaign and a positive message" are, however, in real danger of being scuppered by its partners.

In a sign of real concern, last week the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Mr Coveney attempted to energise their TDs and senators via a series of pre-breakfast meetings with Mr Kenny and an unprecedented two-hour presentation by the Agriculture Minister at the parliamentary party meeting.

Mr Coveney's "put the frighteners on the public" stance was slammed by TDs as being "an utterly dumb thing to say" and "stupid politics".

One politician noted: "It really is stupid politics, this 'we're going to be nice but if nobody is on the train at the end of week one we'll get nasty for week two' will only alienate the voters."

In an astonishing confessional moment revealing the extent of terror sweeping through the top ranks of the Government, several Fine Gael TDs told the Sunday Independent that Mr Coveney had also claimed that if the referendum was defeated, the Government would be "damaged and demoralised coming into the summer and facing very little political certainty".

Meanwhile, at the series of pre-breakfast meetings, Mr Kenny told his TDs that if the referendum was not passed the Government "would lose its moral legitimacy and its massive mandate".

Analysis Pages 25,26,28,38

The Sunday Independent has also learnt that at the Fine Gael party meeting the rattled Taoiseach told his party that for the next month, "the only project of this Government is to pass the treaty".

The Government's objective of avoiding the errors of Lisbon I, where Brian Cowen's row with Fine Gael hampered the 'Yes' campaign, is also unlikely to be facilitated by the revelation that while Mr Coveney is anxious to work with Fianna Fail, he does not hold its current frontbench in high regard.

The party will be targeting the support of those public- sector unions "looking at Croke Parkout of the corner of their eyes" and, unlike others, believes the likely election of Mr Hollande in France may suit their objectives.

One source said: "We're going to replace Frankfurt's way with the Parisian way, if we stay within Europe."

- JOHN DRENNAN

“Enlightenment” Darkness

The weekly “Eleison Comments” of Bishop Richard Williamson. This blog editorial is strongly opposed to any “sell out” by the SSPX.

Number CCL (250)

28 April 2012

Whether or not the Society of St Pius X finally decides to by-pass the doctrinal disagreement and to enter into a purely practical agreement with the authorities of the Conciliar Church in Rome, souls concerned for their eternal welfare must understand as fully as possible what is at stake. In this connection a friend of mine just sent me an admirable synthesis of the heart of the matter:

“From 2009 to 2011 so-called “Doctrinal Discussions” took place between Vatican experts and four theologians of the SSPX. These discussions made clear just how firmly the Roman authorities are attached to the teachings of Vatican II. That Council attempted to reconcile Catholic doctrine with the concept of man as developed by the “Enlightenment” of the 18th century.

“Thus the Council declares that by reason of the dignity of his nature, the human person has the right to practise the religion of his choice. Accordingly society must protect religious liberty and organize the peaceful co-existence of the various religions. These are invited to take part in ecumenical dialogue, since they all possess their own part of truth.

“In effect, such principles deny that Christ is truly God, and they deny that his Revelation, the deposit of which is guarded by the Church, must be accepted by all men and all societies. Thus the doctrine of religious liberty, as expressed in the Conciliar document Dignitatis Humanae #2, contradicts the teachings of Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, of Pius IX in Quanta Cura, of Leo XIII in Immortale Dei and of Pius XI in Quas Primas. The doctrine expressed in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium #8, according to which divine Providence uses non-Catholic sects as means of salvation, contradicts the teachings of Pius IX in the Syllabus, of Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum and of Pius XI in Mortalium Animos.

“These novel doctrines which along with many others contradict the formal and unanimous teachings of Popes before the Council, can only be qualified in the light of Catholic dogma as heretical.

“Therefore since the unity of the Church rests on the integrity of the Faith, it is clear that the SSPX cannot come to any agreement, be it only “practical” with those who hold such doctrines.”

When my friend accuses the 18th century movement of intellectual emancipation known as the “Enlightenment” of being at the root of the churchmen’s 20th century collapse, he is making essentially the same point as Archbishop Lefebvre when he said to priests of his, half a year before he died in 1991: “The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II... the more one realizes that what is at stake is... a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism... It is a wholly different version of Revelation, of Faith, of philosophy... It is truly frightening.”

So how does one get one’s mind back in subjection to God’s reality ? One way might be to get hold of the papal Encyclicals mentioned by my friend above, and study them. They were written for bishops, but Conciliar bishops are not reliable. Today’s laity must take in hand their own formation, and their own Rosary.

Kyrie eleison.

 

Four Unions Say No!

Four Unions have said ‘No’ to the Fiscal Treaty. Unions defending Irish people for a change. Any comment from Cody or O’ Connor?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/civil-service-staff-to-campaign-for-referendum-no-vote-192110.html#ixzz1tNKsf5pI

Civil service staff to campaign for referendum no vote

By Conall O Fatharta and Dan Buckley

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Lower paid civil service workers have decided to campaign for a no vote in next month’s referendum on the EU fiscal treaty.

At the CPSU annual conference in Cork yesterday, delegates voted almost unanimously to oppose the treaty, joining Unite, Mandate and the TEEU in urging its members to reject it. General secretary Eoin Ronayne said the outcome of the vote reflected the level of pay cuts members have had to endure.

Earlier, he warned that the CPSU will resist any move by the Government to reduce allowances or to freeze or withhold pay increments.
In his address at the opening day of the conference, Mr Ronayne said the pay of lower paid civil servants had been cut by 14% and they could not cope with any further reductions in wages.

"Any move to reduce allowances for existing staff will inevitably lead to confrontation," he said.
"Our members have already endured a 14% attack on pay. They cannot cope with any further cuts in wages they take home and any move to impose further cuts will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back."

Mr Ronayne also said any plans to freeze or withhold pay increments for staff would be resisted, pointing out that increments were not bonuses or productivity payments but "legitimate service based increases that recognise the skill and experience of staff as they move from a lower starting salary to the full value rate for the job".

The CPSU general secretary also hit out at plans by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to change the pay arrangements of CPSU members so that they are paid monthly. Most members are currently paid on a weekly basis.
Mr Ronayne said there were no significant cost savings to be had by the move and that the plan had struck "fear and panic" into many of its members. "It’s time for a reality check. Try living for four weeks without pay and then go for four weeks without pay," he said.

The union also vowed to resist any unnecessary redeployment of staff. The CPSU general secretary cited the example of Department of Agriculture staff in Donegal being moved 45km to Buncrana. Mr Ronayne said the additional fuel costs to make this journey could amount to €450 to €500 a week was an unfair burden on lower paid civil servants.
The members also voted in favour of a proposal to negotiate for the provision of a facility for all staff to finish once a week at 3.30pm in view of bank time having been abolished.

Latest on Household Tax

The Household Charge – read this: “In total across the country, 685,442 have paid the charge out of the estimated 1.6m liable.” So what is the nonsense from Fat Guts Hogan about more than 900,000 having paid? And this is on the 1.6 million figures which is way too low to be accurate if the last Census is the real guide? More lies from a government of crooks, liars and traitors! Stand firm! We will win this one – and more down the line!

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/73-in-donegal-fail-to-pay-100-levy-192111.html#ixzz1tNIJCRK9

73% in Donegal fail to pay €100 levy

By Claire O’Sullivan

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Latest figures on the household charge show that Co Donegal is the biggest rebel county with 73% of homeowners not having registered for the controversial household charge.

Government efforts to track down homeowners refusing to pay the household levy moved a step further this week with new rules agreed on the sharing of personal data details with collectors.
The Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) — the body collecting the charge for the department — will now prepare to cross-check details of those who paid and did not pay with the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social Protection, and electricity suppliers as well as the Private Residential Tenancies Board.

Latest figures show that in Co Donegal, just 17,408 registered to pay the charge out of an estimated 65,331 estimated as liable to pay.
It also shows that as of Tuesday, 63% of householders in Galway had not paid the charge, while in Co Cork this figure stood at 61%.
In Cork City, 58% have not paid up. In Roscommon, the non-compliance figure was particularly high at 66%.

The most obedient local authorities appear to be in the Dublin area, with 66% of homeowners in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown paying up and a further 52% in Dublin City.
In Fingal, 50% of householders have paid the charge. In Co Kerry, 61% of people have decided not to fork out the required €100 while in Limerick county the figure is roughly similar.

In Limerick City, 58% of people haven’t paid up.
In total across the country, 685,442 have paid the charge out of the estimated 1.6m liable.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan has warned that local authorities will lose out on funds if there is a shortfall in the collection.
Anyone who doesn’t pay the €100 charge before the end of September will have to fork out an additional €10.

Those who don’t pay until between October and the end of March next year will have to pay an extra €20 charge.
Householders who don’t pay until after Apr 1 will have to pay €130.

Military Aircraft used against Turf Cutters

This is a direct attack on rural Ireland and on law abiding people cutting turf on their own private land. The EU won’t tell the Irish what to do. Turf Cutters are NOT Criminals

Photographs are from the

Barroughter & Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/military-aircraft-get-bogged-down-in-turfcutting-spy-games-3095262.html#disqus_thread

By Jerome Reilly

Sunday April 29 2012

78 Comments

Defence Forces aircraft have been deployed to spy on turf cutters illegally working on protected bogs.

But the military mobilisation in the 'bog war' has failed to stop individuals defying the Government's ban on cutting turf.

In recent weeks turf has been cut on as many as 12 of the 53 protected areas, the Sunday Independent understands, although the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht disputes this, saying "enforcement activities" have taken place in just five locations.

Military fixed-wing aircraft have been carrying out reconnaissance on bogs, leading to alarm and anger among landowners.

Cessna FR172H aircraft, which boast excellent slow-flight characteristics, have been seen flying low over bogs -- an alteration of regular military operations, which involve aerial surveillance and monitoring of escorts carrying cash, prisoners or explosives.

The Air Corps squadron is also carrying rangers from the Parks and Wildlife Service, who are inspecting raised bogs and the activities of turf cutters.

Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan has also sanctioned the use of private contractors to fly rangers around the country at an undisclosed cost.

The Turf Cutters and Contractors' Association (TCCA) has broken off talks with the department. At the same time the issues of water charges and septic tanks has increased resentment over the Government's 'get-tough' stance in pushing through EU- and troika-enforced regulation.

But farmers caught cutting turf risk heavy fines and the loss of their Single Farm Payment -- the vital EU cash which keeps many smallholders' heads above water.

Anger over the turf is a possible game-changer which may provoke a protest 'No' vote in the fiscal treaty referendum.

The Irish Defence Forces confirmed that 45 separate 'missions' over bogs have been flown by them since the beginning of the year.

A spokesman told the Sunday Independent: "The Defence Forces have an agreement with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and carry out flights over requested areas with a member of the NPWS on board the aircraft. The role of the NPWS staff member on board is a matter for the NPWS.

"The Air Corps has completed 45 missions for the NPWS in 2012."

Some relocation bogs will be ready this year, but where they are not available turf-cutters can choose between financial compensation of ¿1,500 or 15 tonnes of turf as well as a one-off payment of ¿500 for this year.

Those who give up cutting turf completely can apply for compensation for the next 15 years -- a tax-free, index-linked package worth ¿23,000. More than 1,500 applications for compensation have been received.

Minister Deenihan said: "Coming from rural Ireland, I understand the depth of feeling on the issue. The bog on which my own family cut turf for more than 100 years is one of the bogs which is now being preserved.

"However, if we lose these raised bogs -- which are already vastly diminished -- they will be gone forever and we will face very significant fines. The taxpayer simply cannot afford this."

- Jerome Reilly

Labour politician Dominic Hannigan getting “owned”

Labour politicians will probably soon no longer bother going on television programmes as Vincent Browne took him to task. All Hannigan could do was waffle. Politicians like Hannigan must believe the Irish people are stupid. The Labour party ship is sinking.

“The Question "Why did our government pay a 1.5 BILLION UNSECURED debt to Bond Holders for one of our Banks (AIB)?" Vincent Browne asks him ten times.

Series on “Childrens Rights” Part 1 – By Kathy Sinnott

The One World Scam website has posted Part 1 of a series that is currently featuring in the monthly Alive newspaper. You are certainly encouraged to follow the series and share with family and friends.

http://www.oneworldscam.com/?p=1583

By Kathy Sinnott

Aine (name changed) was waiting in the ante-natal clinic. With two months to go, she was reflecting on the changes in her life since her last pregnancy.

At that time she was struggling with domestic violence. And she was obsessed with minimising her baby bump because she knew the rage it stirred up in her boyfriend.

Today, like the other mothers, she rubbed her sizable bump and patted the baby within.

When she had finally taken her children and left her boyfriend, she faced considerable difficulties, and turned to a local HSE agency.

The “help” she got was not the support advertised on the poster, it was a social worker with a garda who took her children.

What followed were heartbreaking visits that ended with her clinging children being torn from her arms. Now, she thought sadly, they walk away without even a backward look.

For four years, she worked hard to prove to the HSE that she was a good person and a capable mother.

She became a teetotaler, quit smoking, did parenting courses, re-established contact with her own family. Nothing was ever good enough.

But now she had new hope. She was married to a kind man with a good job. They had a comfortable home. She believed that by the time this baby arrived home so would his brother and sister.

Aine was relieved to finally hear her name called. But in the corridor she was diverted to the social workers’ office. She felt suddenly anxious.

She had learned to be wary of social workers. The woman’s message was brief: “You know Aine, we are taking the baby as soon as it’s born, in the best interest of the child.”

The social worker’s words and the story of Aine’s escape, her two months of mothering on the run, and the loss of her baby when the HSE caught up with her, haunt me.

Her request to me for help introduced me to the secret world of the Irish family courts. Since then, I have discovered that Aine’s experience is not unique.

There are bad, abusive, and negligent parents but none of the parents I have met since Aine are remotely in this category.

Instead they are people who because of a misunderstanding or a need for temporary or on-going support have run foul of “children’s rights”.

Many people in Ireland have only heard the term “children’s rights” in the last year.

After the horrors of child abuse, the term plays gently on the ear. We might think that “rights” are a way of making up for the past and protecting children in the future.

But we would be wrong. Before accepting this package we must see what is inside. In coming issues of Alive! we will do just that.

We will examine the history, legal status and legacy of “childrens rights”, and the implications for children (including teenagers).

We will also look at the rights of children under our Constitution, and the role of parents, family and marriage in promoting their welfare.

Banks dig in as flood of mortgage demands is forecast

Charlie Weston is certainly correct when he states the banks are now fighting a rearguard action. The vast majority of the Irish people are now aware of the swindle that is modern banking. This menace is strangling communities and enslaving people and nations with un payable debt. Ireland should now follow the example of Iceland. Mortgages were written off following demands from the people. 

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/banks-dig-in-as-flood-of-mortgage-demands-is-forecast-3094692.html

BANKS are now fighting a rearguard action to prevent thousands of indebted customers from demanding write-offs on their mortgages.

Lenders were digging in after details emerged of a case in which a nurse had €152,000 written off. Banks said every attempt for a debt write-off would be assessed strictly on a case-by-case basis.

They issued their warning as the legal group New Beginning -- which secured the debt deal for Laura White -- said it had hundreds of similar cases on its books.

And it now expects thousands more homeowners to try to get debt deals.

That is because distressed mortgage holders are expected to flood banks in the coming weeks holding up the example of Ms White, effectively saying: "If she can do it, we can do it."

But the banks insist there will be no mass write-off. They were reacting to revelations about a deal done by Bank of Ireland's subsidiary ICS.

The lender “forgave” €152,000 of mortgage debt from the nurse who handed back the keys to her apartment. Bank of Ireland refused to comment on Ms White but insisted that every case where people seek a deal would be dealt with on its merits.

A spokesman for the Irish Banking Federation (IBF) insisted: “There is no change of policy and no change in practice. The Bank of Ireland case involved particular circumstances and was agreed in court.” The IBF claimed a “select number” of debt settlement deals were being agreed by lenders.

And Bank of Ireland said tiny numbers of homeowners were having debts wiped out. A spokeswoman said: “Mortgage debt forgiveness is not a resolution policy employed by Bank of Ireland. The outcome of this case is not forbearance applied by the bank but instead reflects the conclusion of an exhaustive debt recovery, repossession and court process.”

But New Beginning, the group of lawyers who secured the deal for Ms White, said this was the first of hundreds of deals they expect to do with banks. Overall, thousands of people could benefit from debt settlement deals, David Hall of New Beginning said.

More than 10,000 are expected to have to hand back the keys of their homes. This is because they are a year or more in arrears and regarded as unlikely to get on top of them. Most of them will end up owing money when the banks sell their homes.

Others may be able to stay in their homes and have some of the mortgage written down under new personal insolvency laws due to be published in the summer. The Personal Insolvency Bill was to be published this month, but it has now been put back to the end of June. The new laws will provide a legal framework for debt writedown deals. Taoiseach Enda Kenny yesterday said he hopes the issue will have progressed by the summer.

But senior counsel Ross Maguire of New Beginning claimed lobbying by banks was delaying the introduction of personal insolvency laws that would put a formal structure in place for debt settlement deals. He claimed issues around the Constitution, and banks' claims that their property rights would be infringed if mortgage debt was included in out-of-court debt settlement deals, was a “smoke screen”.

- Charlie Weston Personal Finance Editor

Turf Cutters and Contractors Association

See their website.

http://www.turfcuttersandcontractors.com

 

Barroughter and Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group

Turf cutters are certainly not criminals. Rangers are breaking the law if entering private property. 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Barroughter-Clonmoylan-Bogs-Action-Group/195445003875984

“The Irish National Flag flies proudly at the entrance to Barroughter Bog during the 2012 turf cutting season.
Irish Government Ministers Hogan and Deenihan failed to hold the flag high at their recent meeting in Brussells where they sold out the Irish turf cutters.
Minister Deenihan, those who cut turf on their legally owned turf plots are NOT CRIMINALS and do not treat us as criminals.”

 

Is the Croagh Patrick Climb a photo op for Kenny?

The more cynical among us rightly have asked is the climb of Croagh Patrick a photo opportunity for Enda Kenny. Ireland football manager Giovanni Trapattoni and assistant manager Marco Tardelli are to visit Croagh Patrick on 28th April (tomorrow). Giovanni Trapattoni is a devout Catholic.The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican comes to mind.

Lets Start with Start‏

Very important information here regarding Start Mortgages. This was sent to us us via email. Proof exists that they did indeed securitise mortgages/loans

Some time ago,

we started researching

Mortgage Securities and Mortgage Pools.

As luck would have it, just two years on, we have proof that

START MORTGAGES did in fact securitise loans/mortgages.

We now have unadulterated proof to see an end to Start Mortgages.

The information and evidence we have gathered is spectacular.

 

Start Mortgages DID Securitise Loans/Mortgages.

With the help and assistance of some very dedicated and diligent researches,

within and without the banking fraternity, we now have a comprehensive list of

which Loans/Mortgages that Start specifically securitised.

If you were or are with Start Mortgages, not that we would wish that upon anyone,

the mortgage that Start are chasing you for might be on this list we have acquired.

 

If so, it WILL be in your interest to contact us,

as Soon as Possible on: 086 2411 888

Our aim, with your help, would be to ...

SUE the h013 off START MORTGAGES.

We are in the process of gaining access to ALL of the

"other" Banks documents, pertaining to securitisation

(not just the prospectus), in the "Republic of Ireland",

"Northern Ireland" and in the "UK".

In the coming weeks and months ahead we will

facilitate group specific meetings on this matter.

If you are interested in attending one of these meetings, please email us with

"Sue the .......... Bank", in the subject box. Letting us know which specific bank.

You can see below, a small sample of some of the documents, that WE

& our dedicated research team have been lovingly (sic) tralling through.

 

Today the 25th. April 2012 AD

in and of itself is a Watershed.

Today the 25th. April marks the day when Start Mortgages become

consciously aware, as will most banks on OUR ISLAND, that their time

here is limited. It marks the beginning of the end of Banking as they know it ...

WE have a spectacular body of work ahead of us, and it will take all the energy and

courage that we can individually and collectively muster to route these pillagers

and financial rapists off of our island.

 

Therefore ...

Contact "The Common Law Society" today via phone or email:

086 2411 888 | info@TheCommonLawSociety.com

Please do get this email out to ALL your friends and family.

Ask them to download the FREE eBook: www.BlankOfIreland.com

WATCH THIS SPACE

================

Des: of the family Carty

The Common Law Society

BoI has 'no debt forgiveness policy'

Let’s keep in mind what happened in Iceland regarding mortgages.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0427/breaking16.html

Bank of Ireland has repeated its stance that the lender does not offer debt forgiveness to customers.

The bank was responding to news that a customer has secured a settlement on mortgage debt allowing her to repay  €18,000 – at a rate of €250 a month for six years – to settle an outstanding debt of €170,000.

Laura White, a 35-year-old nurse from Dublin, agreed a deal with the bank on Monday, settling a case taken over a shortfall arising from the sale of a house she voluntarily surrendered in 2009.

The settlement means she will not have to repay the remaining €152,000 but she will be prohibited from borrowing for six years and faces a €120,000 judgment if she fails to make the repayments.

A spokeswoman for the bank said: “Mortgage debt forgiveness is not a solution policy employed by Bank of Ireland. “The outcome of this case is not as a result of forbearance applied by the bank but instead reflects the conclusion of an exhaustive debt recovery, repossession and court process.”

This is one of the first settlements of mortgage debt to come to light in which one of the country’s main banks has written down mortgage debt to a level the borrower can afford to repay.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore welcomed the agreement. “I welcome any measure that is taken by banks to help people who are in mortgage distress,” he said at an event in Kilmainham this morning.

Bank of Ireland has said it doesn’t have a policy of debt forgiveness and deals with distressed borrowers on a case-by-case basis.

The bank’s subsidiary ICS Building Society, which lent Ms White €245,000 to buy the house in Coolock in 2005, took a legal action against her in late 2010. She handed the house back to the bank as she was struggling to meet repayments and wanted to leave Dublin and take a job in the west.

She thought the sale of the house would cover the debt. Her lawyers argued the property should have been sold more quickly, before the market fell further, though there was a dispute over when it was surrendered.

Ms White said she made mistakes like many others a few years ago by wanting to buy property but now she wanted to repay the bank what she could afford.

“I am just grateful I can pay something back and they have shown leniency. You can’t get blood out of a stone but it’s important to pay something reasonable and what you can,” she said.

Barrister Marie Mullarkey, who represented Ms White, said both sides wanted to agree a repayment amount she could afford to pay and was motivated to pay. “It is in everyone’s interest to take a realistic view of what can be repaid,” she said.

The settlement is similar to the new out-of-court personal insolvency arrangements proposed by Government whereby banks agree to write down debts to a level that a debtor can repay over six years.

Prayers for Fr. Norman Weslin

Do pray for him and any updates are appreciated.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-life-veteran-priest-arrested-protesting-obama-at-notre-dame-now-ailing

April 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Friends of longtime pro-life activist Fr. Norman Weslin are asking for prayers for the elderly priest as his health declines.

Weslin, 81, is the founder of the Lambs of Christ and estimates on his group’s website that he has been arrested 70 to 80 times in peaceful civil disobedience against abortion.

Jean and Kathy Plourde of Gabriel’s Corner on Tuesday asked for intercession for Fr. Weslin, who is expected to enter hospice care as soon as this week. The pro-lifers say that the priest currently is staying at an Alzheimer’s care facility in Michgan, where he has been for about the past two years.

Although a longtime veteran of the pro-life movement, Weslin became an icon during the Notre Dame scandal as the priest caught on amatuer video being roughly hauled off the school grounds by security personnel when he refused to end his peaceful pro-life witness.

Prior to his ordination in 1986, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. army and married to another pro-life activist, who died in a car accident in 1980. In honor of his wife, Weslin converted his Council Bluffs, Iowa home to “The Mary Weslin Homes for Pregnant, Unwed Mothers,” which has housed over 300 mothers in crisis pregnancies.

In 2007 Weslin was cleared of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act after entering the abortion facility of late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart and counseling women not to abort their children.  He was convicted of the same charge in 2001 and sentenced to five months in prison after kneeling in prayer within a 60-foot buffer zone outside a Buffalo abortuary.

Sirte: Women for Gaddafi - Students stormed NTC-HQ

Gaddafi is alive in the hearts of Millions. A recent video from the city of Sirte. Our prayers are with these women and other people of Libya. They have great courage.

Mayor of Tuam Resigns from Labour Party

News from Tuam, Co. Galway. The Labour party are in trouble.

http://www.thejournal.ie/mayor-of-tuam-quits-labour-over-county-council-shafting-430753-Apr2012/

http://www.galwaynews.ie/25523-mayor-tuam-resigns-labour-party

April 26, 2012 - 3:15pm

MAYOR OF TUAM RESIGNS FROM LABOUR PARTY

The Mayor of Tuam Mary Loftus is resigning from the Labour party

The Town Town Council member says she has been unhappy with the party for a year

Mayor Loftus, who was elected in 2009, says she will continue to serve as a town councillor but as an independent

She says she will contest the next local elections as an independent candidate

Mayor Loftus says her reasons for leaving the Labour party are many but the primary one is the ineffectiveness of the Labour/Fine Gael coalition

Truth for Germany

This booklet has been mentioned on the blog previously and is recommended reading.

Government forced to remove ‘yes’ vote speeches from website

With the Treaty expected to be rejected by the Irish people, the government have been forced to remove these speeches  in accordance with the McKenna judgement.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/government-forced-to-remove-yes-vote-speeches-from-website-3093021.html

SPEECHES advocating a "yes" vote in the fiscal compact treaty have been removed from Government website – www.stabilitytreaty.ie.

The move was made in a bid to adhere to the McKenna judgement –in 1995 the Supreme Court ruled in a case taken by Patricia McKennaMEP that the State could not use public funds to promote a particular side in a referendum.

The Government has spent up to €2m on its campaign for a yes vote on the compact which is designed to bring Government budget deficits under control and has come under fire in other European countries.

The speeches in question were those made by the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste and Minister of State Lucinda Creighton.

According to the Government, the judgment comes into force on Monday when the Referendum Order is signed and it has made no apology for advocating a position in advance of that.

"The Government is determined to ensure that this referendum will see the most comprehensive information campaign being held on any European referendum to date," a Government spokesperson said.

"It was always the intention to remove speeches in advance of the Referendum Order being signed.

"The order will be signed on Monday, from which point the McKenna judgement takes effect."

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has accused Sinn Fein of insulting the public's intelligence in its campaign for a No vote in the forthcoming referendum on the European fiscal treaty.

Sinn Fein has come under fire over the launch of its No campaign yesterday, in which it quoted experts saying the treaty made no economic sense.

It has since emerged that the experts in question, including economists Colm McCarthy and Karl Whelan, are actually in favour of the treaty and that the quotations cited by Sinn Fein were taken out of context.

During a grilling by the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on the Referendum on the Fiscal Stability Treaty, Mr Kenny described it as "a deliberate subversion of the truth".

"Taking selective quotations from economists does not respect people's intelligence," he added.

The Taoiseach also pointed out that the Referendum Commission would act independently of the Government in delivering informative and impartial information on the stability treaty.

The first wave of leaflets will be distributed nationwide from today, including 20 pages in English and 20 pages in Irish, outlining details of the treaty as well as the text itself.

Mr Kenny said individual political party campaigns will then begin on Monday, when the order for the referendum is signed off.

Fine Gael, Labour and opposition party Fianna Fail will lobby for a Yes vote for the treaty, which if passed will see stronger budgetary rules imposed from Europe and penalties for member states in breach.

Troika endorses plan to secure independent future for PTSB

The future of PTSB has been discussed.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/troika-endorses-plan-to-secure-independent-future-for-ptsb-3092487.html

By Laura Noonan

Thursday April 26 2012

PERMANENT TSB's future as a stand-alone institution has been secured after officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund threw their weight behind a plan to preserve the bank's independence.

Sources last night confirmed that the troika had endorsed management's plans to carve Permanent TSB into a 'good bank', that will include its healthier loans, and a 'bad bank', that will include some tracker mortgages and UK assets.

The bad bank will then be wound down over a number of years and some assets may be sold more swiftly.

The good bank will be a mainstream retail lender, focusing on residential mortgages and other consumer loans. Between them, they will have a total balance sheet of about €14bn.

The scale of the good bank may be boosted with a contract to service tens of billion of troubled tracker mortgages that are being moved from AIB and Permanent TSB into IBRC (formerly Anglo).

Address

Sources last night stressed that some of the finer details of Permanent TSB's plan had yet to be worked out. However, an agreement is expected to be announced today as part of the troika's review of the Irish bailout programme.

The announcement is likely to be made by Finance MinisterMichael Noonan when he addresses the media at midday for his regular press conference after the troika's quarterly review mission.

At his press conference in January, Mr Noonan made the surprise announcement that Permanent TSB's strategic future was to be examined by the troika -- something that could result in the bank being either developed independently, merged or shut.

The Government had initially favoured putting Permanent TSB into AIB, but this met with a cool response from the latter's management.

Some elements of the troika argued in favour of keeping Permanent TSB as a stand-alone institution in the interests of fostering competition in the banking market but stressed that this would only be possible if Permanent TSB could demonstrate its viability.

Permanent TSB chief executive Jeremy Masding, who joined the bank in January, was charged with drawing up a plan to make it viable after it shed €23bn of loss-making trackers and was separated from its life-insurance arm, Irish Life.

Mr Masding's plan provided for Permanent TSB to keep some of its loss-making trackers so that it would have sufficient scale to cover its cost base.

Proactive approach

He also wants the bank to take a more proactive approach in dealing with troubled mortgages and to pitch for business servicing the tracker loans that will be transferred to IBRC as part of a broader bank restructuring plan.

Permanent TSB made its pitch to the troika last Wednesday and impressed officials with its proposals, the Irish Independent understands.

It is understood that management has been informed that its pitch was successful.

A spokesman for the bank last night declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance confirmed that the Government had committed to "agree a way forward for PTSB by the end of April 2012".

"The sixth review of the programme will conclude tomorrow and, as per previous reviews, a press conference will be held and the changes agreed to the Memorandum of Understanding will be outlined," the spokesman added.

- Laura Noonan

Vincent Browne speaking to Economist Steve Keen

Rebuilding Christendom I Conference

Do visit the url below for more details on this upcoming conference. Those who can’t make it are encouraged to sponsor it or send a donation. Such conferences are vital in a society that has gone mad. Their well designed website will guide you to the relevant sections such as conference aims, registration details, sponsoring etc etc. Do bookmark the website and share it with your contacts.

http://www.rebuildingchristendom.com/#

The IHS Press Group cordially invites you to the first conference in the Rebuilding Christendom™ series. This packed, three-day event is an inaugural gathering of Catholics and others of good will in the United States consecrated exclusively to genuine Catholic Social Doctrine. Intended to be a fearless proclamation of “the politics of Jesus Christ,”

Rebuilding Christendom I will feature some of today’s leading independent scholars, veteran writers, and students of social Catholicism, addressing the history, theory, and practical application to contemporary society of Catholic political, economic, financial, and social principles

For those in trouble with banks!

The swindle of modern banking is strangling communities. Usury has been condemned and people across Ireland are informing themselves and others of how to take on the banks.

The following is a notice sent to us by email.

What WE are doing ...

We are working with People to:

• Delay Court Proceedings.
• Prevent Court Proceedings.
• Prepare for Court Proceedings,
• and also, Take Banks into Court.
• Educate People on and about Law.
• Keep their homes and businesses.

This is simple ...

As most of ye know by now, we don’t pull our punches and we have little respect for FinancialInstitutes, or members the legal professions. If you would like to have a quick chat with us,from a Lay man/woman (lay Litigants) perspective … Then just give us a quick call on 086 2411 888

Line Now Open

This line is open from 10am to 6pm on

Mon, Wed, Thurs, & Friday until 2pm.

Don’t call on Tuesdays please, that is the

1 day that we meet People face 2 face.

(Please be patient. If you don’t get through immediately,

feel free to try and try again. We try to answer all calls)

The very best for now,

Rob: of the clan McCall

p.s. Please feel free to pss this message on to all your friends and family.

The Common Law Society

Download: www.BlankOfIreland.com

Phil Hogan denies rift on water charges

Tensions are growing within Fine Gael and Labour. See also this video of a protest against Hogan in Waterford.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/hogan-denies-rift-on-water-charges-548934.html

Environment Minister Phil Hogan has denied any rift between the coalition partners over the introduction of water charges.
It follows reports of anger among Labour TDs over the way in which the scheme was announced, which has led to confusion among householders.

Some of the party's backbenchers believe the charge was deliberately announced by the Fine Gael Minister to coincide with the Labour Party conference.
Minister Hogan said there was a lot of misinformation "out there" about the meters, but he insisted the coalition was in agreement on the issue.

"I haven't noticed any divisions," he said. "There was a unanimous agreement by the Government...to sanction the role of Bord Gais as the semi-state company that's going to roll out our water provision in the future."
He also said Bord Gais would submit an implementation plan on water provision in the next few weeks.

Labour stances do party no favours

The Labour party in Ireland has certainly lost support. A party claiming to be for the ordinary working people of Ireland but are a pro-abortion party. The man who wrote this letter is correct in saying there is a political vacuum in Ireland. The Labour party also has the perception of being anti-Church and in particular anti-Catholic. A Labour TD (MP) recently stated she found it ‘barbaric’ that a woman from Ireland has to travel to Britain for an abortion. She doesn’t find this child killing ‘barbaric’. Abortion is murder and always sinful.

The Irish Labour party are on the way out.Gilmore doesn’t care. He will retire on a good pension when he gets off the political gravy train.

 

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/labour-stances-do-party-no-favours-191631.html

Labour stances do party no favours

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

At its recent conference Labour announced it would not be re-opening the Vatican embassy until such time as ‘the Vatican fully co-operated with this State in investigating cases of child abuse’.

Out the other side of its confused mouth it announced it would support legislation for abortions on grounds wider than ‘the health or danger to life of the mother’.

Their stance underlines a major weakness of the ‘Left’ which does not seem to appreciate the extent to which it alienates a huge number of Irish voters who might agree with many of its social justice policies, but find they have to draw the line at the killing of unborn children for any reason beyond a threat to the life or health of the mother.

For much the same reason I eventually became disillusioned with the anti-war campaign here, many of whose members seem to see no apparent irony in working so hard and nobly to spare the lives of Iraqis from American bombs, while at the same time having a very liberal stance on abortion.

There is a real political vacuum here for voters like myself who hold all human life as sacred from conception to grave, but do not want to vote for the usual main parties as they trample on the ordinary working people of Ireland on behalf of the Troika.

Nick Folley
Carrigaline
Co Cork

‘Every time I watch my son, I’m just dying inside’

The diabolical American aggression in Iraq will never be forgotten.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/robert-fisk-every-time-i-watch-my-son-im-just-dying-inside-3090699.html

By Robert Fisk

Wednesday April 25 2012

For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed -- his full name -- has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room.

But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the freedoms of a new Middle East. He can move only his hands and take only bottled milk because he cannot swallow. He is already almost too heavy for his father to carry. He lives in a prison whose doors will remain forever closed.

It's as difficult to write this kind of report as it is to understand the courage of his family. Many of the Fallujah families whose children have been born with what doctors call "congenital birth anomalies" prefer to keep their doors closed to strangers, regarding their children as a mark of personal shame rather than possible proof that something terrible took place here after the two great American battles against insurgents in the city in 2004, and another conflict in 2007.

After at first denying the use of phosphorous shells during the second battle of Fallujah, US forces later admitted that they had fired the munitions against buildings in the city. Independent reports have spoken of a birth-defect rate in Fallujah far higher than other areas of Iraq, let alone other Arab countries. No one, of course, can produce cast-iron evidence that American munitions have caused the tragedy of Fallujah's children.

Sayef lives -- the word is used advisedly, perhaps -- in the al-Shahada district of Fallujah, in one of the more dangerous streets in the city. The cops -- like the citizens of Fallujah, they are all Sunni Muslims -- stand with their automatic weapons at the door of Sayef's home when we visit, but two of these armed, blue-unformed men come inside with us and are moved by the helpless baby on the floor, shaking their heads in disbelief and with a hopelessness which his father, Mohamed, refuses to betray.

"I think all this is because of the use by the Americans of phosphorous in the two big battles," he says. "I have heard of so many cases of congenital birth defects in children. There has to be a reason. When my child first went to the hospital, I saw families there with exactly the same problems."

Studies since the 2004 Fallujah battles have recorded profound increases in infant mortality and cancer in Fallujah; the latest report, whose authors include a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, says that congenital malformations account for 15pc of all births in Fallujah.

"My son cannot support himself," Mohamed says, fondling his son's enlarged head. "He can move only his hands. We have to bottle-feed him. He can't swallow. Sometimes he can't take even the milk, so we have to take him to hospital to be given fluids. He was blind when he was born. In addition, my poor little man's kidney has shut down. He got paralysed. His legs don't move."

Mohamed holds Sayef's useless legs and moves them gently up and down. "After he was born, I got Sayef to Baghdad and I had the most important neurosurgeons check him. They said they could do nothing. He had a hole in his back that was closed and then a hole in his head. The first operation did not succeed. He had meningitis."

Both Mohamed and his wife are in their mid-30s. Unlike many tribal families in the area, neither are related and their two daughters, born before the battles of Fallujah, are in perfect health. Sayef was born on January 27, 2011. "My two daughters like their brother very much," Mohamed adds, "and even the doctors like him. They all take part in the care of the child. Dr Abdul-Wahab Saleh has done some amazing work on him -- Sayef would not be alive without him."

Mohamed works for an irrigation mechanics company but admits that, with a salary of only $100 (€75) a month, he receives financial help from relatives. He was outside Fallujah during the conflict but returned two months after the second battle only to find his house mined; he received funding to rebuild his home in 2006.

He watches Sayef for a long time during our conversation and then lifts him in his arms.

"Every time I watch my son, I'm dying inside," he says, tears running down his face. "I think about his destiny. He is getting heavier all the time. It's more difficult to carry him." So I ask whom he blames for Sayef's little calvary. I expect a tirade of abuse against the Americans, the Iraqi government, the health ministry. The people of Fallujah have long been portrayed as "pro-terrorist" and "anti-Western" in the world's press, ever since the murder and cremation of the four American mercenaries in the city in 2004 -- the event which started the battles for Fallujah in which up to 2,000 Iraqis, civilians and insurgents, died, along with almost 100 US troops.

But Mohamed is silent for a few moments. He is not the only father to show his deformed child to us. "I am only asking for help from God," he says. "I don't expect help from any other human being." Which proves, I guess, that Fallujah -- far from being a city of terror -- includes some very brave men.

- Robert Fisk

Anti-social behaviour in the Mervue area must be tackled urgently.

A clear message must be sent out to the drug dealers. If Irish, they must be hanged or if immigrant dealers like the Nigerian crack dealers in Dublin, they must be repatriated and serve their  prison sentence or face hanging in their country of origin. Local people, and in particular our elderly must and shall feel safe in their homes.

http://www.galwaynews.ie/25465-call-tackle-antisocial-behaviour-mervue

CALL TO TACKLE ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR IN MERVUE

Anti-social behaviour in the Mervue area must be tackled urgently.

The call follows a number of break-ins and tyre slashing in the Walter Macken area in the last six month period.

City Councillor Declan McDonnell says security doors are being kicked in and perpetrators are using hallways and stairwells as shelters for drug use.

He says he will be addressing the issue with city officials today so that the elderly residential community can feel safe in their homes.

Chairperson of the local residents Association Liam Horan says problems began in the last two years.

Interest-only homeowners take Permanent TSB to High Court

These cases should be followed.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/interestonly-homeowners-take-permanent-tsb-to-high-court-3089210.html

By Tim Healy

Tuesday April 24 2012

A GROUP of homeowners who don't want their bank to switch their mortgages from interest-only have taken their case to the High Court.

Seventy-four sets of proceedings have been launched against Irish Life and Permanent TSB after the bank announced last year it was going to make the homeowners pay back the capital on the loan as well as the interest.

Yesterday Mr Justice Roderick Murphy gave permission for four test cases to be mounted.

The proceedings relate to mortgages taken out over the period from the end of 2004 to 2007 and range from €300,000 to €400,000 each.

All agreed to pay interest for the full term of the mortgage, and to pay off the capital at the end of the agreed term or when the property was sold, whichever happened first.

The High Court yesterday heard that some of those who had taken the proceedings were in financial difficulties, and some had taken out the mortgages to buy property as a pension.

Judge Murphy ruled that two cases already at an advanced stage of preparation would go ahead and two more cases could act as 'pathfinder cases'.

He said this would be enough for a representative decision to be made.

- Tim Healy

Irish Independent

Shell to Sea protest: Disciplinary action against one garda over ‘rape tape’ comments

There is ongoing protests against Shell at Erris, Co. Mayo.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/shell-to-sea-protest-disciplinary-action-against-one-garda-over-rape-tape-comments-3089301.html

THE Garda watchdog has urged the force's chief to take disciplinary action against one officer over an investigation into the "rape tape" controversy.

But James Gill, the sergeant found to have made remarks about two female protesters arrested at a controversial Shell gas project at Erris, Co Mayo will escape any action because he recently retired.

The Garda Ombudsman said there were no grounds for any criminal case, based on the available evidence, against any of the five officers involved in the incident on March 31 last year.

They were investigated for potential criminal offences, under misconduct in public office laws, after a pocket video camera seized from one of two arrested female demonstrators inadvertently recorded the sergeant afterwards in a patrol car joking about raping them.

The remarks were made public by one of the protesters, Jerrie Ann Sullivan, who was handed back the digital camera after her release. The second woman, believed to be a US citizen, did not wish to be named.

The ombudsman investigation found four rank-and-file gardai involved gave "full and frank" accounts when interviewed under caution, and all four confirmed the "rape" remarks were made by Sgt Gill.

However, the sergeant exercised his right to silence throughout his questioning and "largely gave a 'no-comment' interview," it was found.

But when claims by a garda detective present during the arrests that one of the women might first have used the word "rape" were put to him, he said he had heard the word used at the scene but could not say by whom or whether it was by a man or a woman.

That allegation could not be corroborated because sound quality on Garda footage of the arrests was too poor.

While two officers were found to have no case to answer, a third had the case against him dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Another, referred to as Garda B, had a "more active" role in the taped conversation, the watchdog found.

During the remarks about raping one of the women, Garda B was identified as having said: "I wouldn't go that far yet, she was living down at that crusty camp. F***'s sake, you never know what you might get."

The comments related to the Rossport Solidarity Camp and inferred the women may be carrying a disease of some sort, the watchdog report said.

Garda B was also heard to remark "we'll get immigration f***ing on her", joking about the Garda National Immigration Bureau deporting her after another officer said she sounded like a "Yank or Canadian".

The watchdog has sent a report to Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, recommending disciplinary proceedings against Garda B.

Both he and Sgt Gill were invited to make submissions or give evidence to the ombudsman on possible disciplinary action but they declined.

Because the sergeant retired on November 1 last year, he is no longer subject to disciplinary procedures and the case against him was dropped.

Investigators could not establish whether or not another garda officer involved had used the word "rape" during the conversation and inquires around him were also dropped.

"He offered another explanation during interview which was considered plausible and which was accepted in the absence of any additional information to the contrary," the report found.

The Garda Ombudsman said it was satisfied that two of the garda officers had no involvement in the conversation whatsoever and were simply present when it took place.

- Brian Hutton

Irish Independent

Saint George's Day

Happy St. George’s Day to our English friends and readers.

The Skye Boat Song

Kilkelly

Coalition cruising towards the farcical

Parliamentary democracy is a total sham and doesn’t exist. Despite everything, the Irish people get a good laugh out of the gombeens in the parliament. An alternative is being built at grassroots and at local level. People taking back the power and having a direct say in the running of the country.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-coalition-cruising-towards-the-farcical-3088186.html

Our EU masters no longer care what goes on in our elected parliament, writes Gene Kerrigan

Sunday April 22 2012

THIS week, at no extra charge, we bring you right to the heart of the tiresome debate about the notorious Austerity Treaty -- and how it relates to the ups and downs of Tom Cruise's movie career. Beyond that, we'll consider what the punishing years of economic crisis have done to democracy.

Let's hand you over now to Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe, who will put the Government's case for the Austerity Treaty. Paschal was speaking in a Dail debate last Wednesday.

"Tom Cruise is an actor," said Paschal, fearlessly refuting any malcontents who might argue that Tom is a software developer, "who has divided opinion."

Paschal wasn't just offering biography, he had a view on the varied critical responses to Cruise's cinematic work.

"Some like his films", Paschal said, adding: "Others do not." Paschal likes to give both points of view. "One film", he suggested, "that quite a few thought was his finest moment was Jerry Maguire."

Ah, here. Come on, Paschal. Do we really need to go into . . .

"Probably", said Paschal, "the most famous moment in that film is the scene in which. . ."

Paschal then explained the "show me the money" scene in Jerry Maguire, a movie that was popular in 1996. Why did Paschal feel the need to laboriously explain to parliament the plot of a 16-year-old movie? Because he wanted to tell opponents of the Austerity Treaty that they should "show me the money".

As a speech, it wouldn't pass muster in senior infants. And it was all downhill from there. Much ado about "the idea of conditionality in regard to Article 136", but otherwise woefully bereft of passion, context or relevance.

This is not to suggest that Mr Donohoe is any worse than the many others -- including the Taoiseach -- who regularly make vacuous speeches. He just happens to have done so in the past few days and thus serves as a convenient example.

In a related development, the troika's enforcers came to town for one of their regular check-ups, to see that we're following orders.

They pinned Michael Noonan against a wall in the Department of Finance and slapped him around a bit. Or, as Paschal might put it, they snarled: "Show me the money."

What about meeting some representatives of the Opposition, Mr Noonan asked. You know, like you customarily do? No, they replied. Bugger off.

Mr Noonan, knowing this was wrong, tried to steer them towards an Oireachtas committee.

No chance, baldy, they growled, or words to that effect. Because unelected bureaucrats don't even bother to pretend any more to respect the structures of democracy.

All was not lost. When Mr Noonan was asked about this in the Dail, he said that any concerned TD was welcome to "write out his views and send them" to the ECB enforcers. He added, comfortingly: "I am sure they will consider those."

Indeed. No doubt they'll read such letters aloud to one another, in funny accents on long, tedious flights.

Across Europe these days, concerns are commonplace about how parliamentary democracy has been compromised. Over decades, the finance business established strongholds that now trump any form of democratic control.

Not just too big to fail, but too well connected to be brought to account. Now, everything is subordinate to restoring the finance business and it's plaything, the euro.

Threats of economic chaos ("we'll freeze the ATMs") are more powerful than any law. Unelected bureaucrats from the ECB now represent the finance business and politicians defer to them.

It has become ever more easy to sideline busy-body representatives of the irrelevant citizens.

Professor Joseph Vogl, from Humboldt University in Berlin, put it this way in a recent speech: "Political decision-making is becoming informal. . . improvised meetings, committees of experts, government panels, 'troikas' or 'Merkozys' have taken over government business."

And this privatisation of governance applies not just where a 'bailout' has been arranged. An anti-democratic trend observable over decades has been accelerated by the banking crisis.

Where these things are discussed in adult terms, it's understood that a huge financial burden has been forced on to Irish citizens, in an attempt to repair the euro, which was endangered by careless drafting and reckless gambling.

Here at home, discussions about what is being done to us are conducted at an infantile level, such as: "They're very pleased. We're meeting our targets."

The content of treaties doesn't matter -- we do as we're told. We had to vote Yes to Lisbon, we were told, to "stay at the heart of Europe".

Last week, Eamon Gilmore told us to vote for the Austerity Treaty to make our "comeback at the heart of the eurozone". Lucinda Creighton wants us to put "Ireland at the heart of the eurozone and Europe".

In an infantilised democracy, that's how we debate. The heart of Europe; the five-point plan; we've turned the corner; we all partied; Frankfurt's way; not another cent; there is no alternative; only game in town.

In a degenerate parliament, TDs release the pent-up contempt they have for one another -- with perhaps a degree of self loathing. Last week, United Left Alliance TD Richard Boyd Barrett got to ask questions on behalf of his Dail faction.

It was the occasion for a blooding, so the lads tirelessly taunted Boyd Barrett. When the TD persisted, Pat Rabbitte -- one of the most intelligent people in the Oireachtas -- jeered: "Just because you've a double-barrelled name doesn't mean you can ask two questions."

This was reported as a "quip". In what universe would this qualify as a "quip"? Such lazy insults would have been at home in the Dail of the Forties, on the lips of Oliver J Flanagan.

This is what happens when great powers dominate politics and a parliament is impotent.

Last week, Fine Gael TD Michelle Mulherin drew sneers when she made a Dail speech condemning "fornication" -- sex outside marriage. I read her speech and disagree with its argument.

But there's no doubt it's a coherent, sincere expression of an undiluted Catholic view. (You should read the Seventies debates on contraception, in which future supposed paragons of liberalism condemned "fornication" in much more offensive terms.)

Why did Mulherin's speech attract such attention? Because it was unusual. It was a bare, frank and serious expression of a political position still held by many -- whatever you or I might think of it. As such, it seemed grossly out of place in our national parliament.

I've been observing, and at times mocking, the Oireachtas since shortly after Paschal Donohoe was born -- and it has often been a shabby place. But without meaningful structures of democratic accountability, a society is just one last crisis away from secret police and night-time disappearances -- all the things that lurk in the darkness outside of the light of democracy.

It would be untrue to say that democracy is being dismantled. The structures remain and there is within most of us an instinctive preference for a system of representation and accountability.

But we are now in the world of Prof Vogl's "improvised meetings, committees of experts, government panels and the informal groupings that substitute for democracy".

Recent steps taken by our parliament and the EU are without doubt steps towards that darkness, rather than away from it.

Listen up, Europe, your austerity is killing us

An opinion piece here from Brendan O’ Connor. The Irish people need to take back the power. The Nation and people are enslaved by these International Financiers. The politicians are the puppets of the money men. A Hidden hand controls Ireland.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/brendan-oconnor-listen-up-europe-your-austerity-is-killing-us-3088185.html

Sunday April 22 2012

THE Irish Times put it nice and delicately on its front page: "The drop in the Government's satisfaction rating to 23 per cent, after just a year in office, is an ominous development given the difficult decisions it will have to implement over the next three years."

In other words, people have had enough austerity already, but there is loads more to come. Look at it: Labour, which had to make many of the tough announcements in the last Budget, which carries the can for cutbacks in social welfare and education, is in freefall. Fewer than one in four people are now satisfied with a Government that got voted in with a massive majority. Fianna Fail is stuck in limbo because it basically can't contest any of the Government's austerity measures, given that they were recently Fianna Fail policies. And Sinn Fein is streaking ahead because it is expressing what everyone feels, however simplistic you think it is: we are being forced to make enormous sacrifices to bail out European banks, enduring huge hardship while paying out billions, much of it to unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders.

Now we are told constantly that the two are not connected, and made to feel stupid for trying to draw links between income and outgoings and our debt mountain. But the reality is people are not stupid. Most of us understand fairly well the difference between the country's profit and loss, where the deficit shows up, and the balance sheet, where our debt mountain shows up. But of course the two are connected. The bottom line is that if you have more debts to pay you have to save more money. Most people understand, too, that we have to bring our deficit down to a manageable level. But we also understand that loony articles of faith like zero deficits all the time are not realistic. In bad times, you're going to need to run deficits, and in good times you're going to get surpluses, which Ireland, don't forget, used to do before the crash. Our crash is not really a result of overspending by the State. And eliminating deficits is not the answer to everything.

It is not just the victims of austerity who don't like it. Increasingly, people in high places are expressing concerns. The IMF has been continually sounding cautionary notes about it, as have several of the most noted economists in the world. What austerity seems to mean for Ireland is that the State takes an ever-increasing slice of an ever-decreasing pie. Meanwhile, the productive sector of the local economy is slowly going into shutdown. In the last three years, demand here has fallen by a quarter. And we are pursuing pro-cyclical policies that keep sucking more and more money, more and more demand, out of the place. And while we keep doing our duty for Europe, we get nothing in return.

Put simply, Sinn Fein is thriving because it is sending out a very simple message. Austerity is crippling our economy, stifling demand in what is already a demand-led recession and we are all suffering to pay off debts incurred by the private sector. And when you put aside all the economic guff, that is how a lot of people feel, and no one else is articulating it for them. Put even more simply: people have had enough. Property taxes and water charges aren't helping. Those two things, and the handling of them, pushed some button with people.

Europe would do well to take note of Friday's Irish Times poll. This Government is not managing to bring the people with it down the path Europe is forcing us to go, to destroy everything so that some day it will re-emerge. Europe would do well to look too at Thursday's poll findings about the referendum. A staggering 39 per cent of people either don't know how they will vote or have no opinion on the stability treaty referendum. There is a vast disillusioned floating vote out there that is waiting to be convinced. Sinn Fein and the left are telling these people very effectively that the stability treaty amounts to a charter for eternal austerity. And while the Government keeps telling people, on the other hand, that Sinn Fein and the left are just pursuing irresponsible rabble-rousing and simplistic, easy answers, you can't blame people for looking for some bit of ease these days.

If this administration, and Europe, wants to bring us along with them, they need to give some carrot. People are exhausted from the stick at this stage: punch drunk, emotional, feeling violated and worn out. Like it or not they are going to listen to easy answers.

So what has austerity done for Europe so far? Record unemployment of 11 per cent, growth stalled. As Paul Krugman put it quite simply the other day, austerity "pushes depressed economies deeper into depression". In the US, where they used the carrot of stimulus instead of the stick, unemployment is starting to fall and growth is at 3 per cent. While the Bundesbank, in its wisdom, may caution the rest of Europe, as it did last week, against placing too much store in what it says are "short-term" concerns such as growth, that's kind of easy for the Germans to say while we are paying back their reckless banks and while they have the low inflation they pathologically crave. When you're not growing you are dying, and we are tired of dying.

No wonder that the IMF and

Olivier Blanchard in Washington are talking about cutting interest rates, no wonder they are concerned about the fragile recovery. No wonder they feel there are limits to austerity. The IMF has a pragmatic, US-style outlook that is not bogged down in cultural and ideological preference for punishment and payback and austerity. In America, they look to the future. Sunk cost is sunk cost and they are into fixing things and moving on, without feeling the need to nobble everyone by focusing on punishment and teaching lessons.

While the contraction of the building industry in Ireland was obviously something that had to happen, the scale of it is truly astonishing. Building has gone, from being worth €39bn to €7.5bn. Since the peak of the property market in 2007 about a quarter of a million builders have lost their jobs in this country. From a peak of 380,000 people employed in building, there will be less than 150,000 people working in construction this year. That's an extreme example and it's an example of an industry powered by what we now know was an unsustainable bubble, but those figures are terrifying.

What we have here is a country that is drowning in debt on the macro and the micro level. We also have a country where demand is shrivelling at terrifying rates due to austerity. Together these factors are killing us. And people see no reward for what we are going through, no sign of us being cut a break in the foreseeable future. We keep getting fed this line of bull that we're going to get some ease on our debts, but then it never happens. We wait to hear about the promissory note deal and then some other ECB head pops up, tells us ve vill be expected to meet all our commitments, as if we committed to these debts in the first place. Neither does there seem to be any urgency regarding the restructuring of the personal debt that is strangling the economy. It won't be popular that we will all have to bear the brunt of some people's debts but at least it will allow us all to move on. Meantime we have paid a huge price allegedly for a functioning banking system that refuses to function and keeps hoarding its bailout.

And it's all well and good that Enda is running around playing footsie with the Chinese and the Yanks and they all love us. But even if he is not noticing, the voters are clearly noticing that nothing is being done on the ground to help the same old problems we still have. He can distract us so much but when you have a Government that people know is the only game in town and they are still rejecting it, then you know you're in trouble. Let's hope Europe is noticing the trouble too.

Ben Gilroy Interviewed by Newstalk

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