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Everybody’s talking about…
Debt.
Yesterday the European Central Bank (ECB) announced it will no longer allow Greek banks to use Government debt as collateral for loans, depriving them of a key source of much-needed cash.
The news came around the same time a Technical Group Motion calling for a European debt conference was defeated by 72 votes to 42 in the Dáil. Many Irish onlookers had hoped that if Greece was able to renegotiate the terms of its €240-billion EU-IMF bailout, Ireland might be able to do something similar.
The ECB’s move is seen as the institution taking a hardline stance on Syriza’s anti-austerity rhetoric. Greek stocks fell by 9% in early trading this morning.
Independent TD Catherine Murphy tabled the debt conference motion, which was debated in the Dáil on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Murphy said that Greece paid €8 billion to service debts of €315 billion in 2014, while Ireland paid €7.5 billion to service debts of €214 billion, noting: “It cost us almost as much to service €100 billion less.”
Who, in other words, gets the best deal from its international lenders: good Ireland or bad Greece?
Speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday night, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the Government “has made major inroads into making our debt more affordable and minimising its impact on the economy”.
Noonan rejected the suggestion there is a “lack of solidarity in the Union”, saying he wished Greece well as the country has “suffered much more than Ireland”. He said he had “not come across any proposal from the new Government on putting in place a debt conference”, noting that the country seems to agree with the stance that “a process of negotiation is always better than one of conflict”.
The motion was backed by several opposition TDs but was easily defeated in the end.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is set to meet with the presidents of the European Council and European Commission in Brussels today, but is not expected to raise the issue of further debt concessions for Ireland.
Whether or not Syriza will make any headway on renegotiating Greece’s debt – and if this will have any impact on Ireland – remains to be seen.
The agenda
Inside Leinster House
Government TDs are becoming increasingly annoyed about the confusion surrounding water charges.
Fine Gael backbencher Andrew Doyle has said the information given to TDs and Senators needs to be clearer. On Monday, the Wicklow TD appeared on Tonight with Vincent Browne. He was quickly corrected by his fellow panellists when he said that people who missed that night’s deadline for Irish Water registration would not receive their €100 water conservation grant.
Doyle later told TheJournal.ie: “I was definitely unhappy that I seemed to be given the wrong impression about the water conservation grant,” adding that the Department needs to be “clearer in the dissemination of information“.
What the others are saying
In case you missed it
On the Twitter machine
Jan O’Sullivan has launched the first-ever guide for primary school teachers on how to deal with homophobic and transphobic bullying.
GLEN / Twitter@JanOSullivanTD launching #respect First guide for primary teachers on #homophobic & transphobic #bullying @INTOnews pic.twitter.com/kx8UQ30Xci
— GLEN (@glenLGBT) February 4, 2015
“He has not offended since” maybe because he was caught and was probably being monitored??
One year he’ll be out. Judge Nolan strikes again.
And to this day Paul begley is still taking therapy for being locked up by judge nolan for Importing garlic instead of apples. Even though he paid the revenue what was owed. Journal change headline to mature student.
@Paul Gorry: Simplistic boIIox. He wasn’t jailed for importing garlic instead of apples. He was jailed for committing a multimillion euro fraud on the citizens/taxpayers of this State. If he couldn’t hack the punishment for his crime, that’s on him.
@Tommy Roche: still got more time than this lad… and he employed people… bottom line is, don’t f*ck with the state’s money… if you do there will be no suspended sentence, anything else is fair game
@Paul Gorry: yeah so true. Sgt. Martin Nolan old scores for someone.
@Stephen Boland: he didnt get more time than this lad. He appealed his sentence and it was drastically reduced.
if this had happened in his own country it would be off with his king ding a ling and probably his head. Here we give him a year tops, probably out in 6 months and no deportation. We have enough numptys of our own without letting this one stay. And can someone in government please for the love of Christ remove this excuse for a judge, Martin Nolan, from his post. The man is unfit for the role.
@Alan Clarke: so your suggestion is to murder people?
@Alan Clarke: he was given 16 months, he’ll get 25% remission which is 4 months off, so he’ll serve 12. Believe it or not that’s actually a decent sentence for this offence here. More often than not they get suspended sentences for first offences when distribution wasn’t involved.
Deport him as soon as he’s out
@Raymond Kelly: deport him first i’d say!
@paddy mulcahy:
“Deport him first”
In other words reward him for his crime with a free plane ticket home??
That is assuming that he is not Irish.
Why is he allowed stay here? I’m confused as to why he wouldn’t be kicked out to be honest?
No jail time deport back immediately and let the authories in his country know of antics. I bet he would rather do jail here.
@brendan o connell: ah shur all lives matter ya ya ya
@brendan o connell: we won’t do that because he could face the death penalty in Saudi ..we don’t like doing that… unless of course it’s the USA that asks us …
Oh Nolan was judge? No surprise there. That lad needs to be removed and investigated. The lad that did this, who’s name reads like a chemical? Chemical castration.
This shouldn’t be tolerated in any way and it’s justice served that he was convicted. However, I’d be very interested to know how he was caught. Do the Gardai conduct random searches of people’s search history from certain keywords. Surely GDPR rules prevent the monitoring of people’s search history?
@Dan the man: if you read carefully, the Germans told the Gardaí
@Kevin Feeney: yes I can read. How was Interpol aware of what some lad was searching for from an Irish IP address?
@Dan the man: Think it says it in the article mate. German police alerted Interpol who in turn alerted Gardai. I imagine (and hope) there are state organisations searching out these websites and servers and then monitoring people that access them.
@Ciaran Brady: it doesn’t mate. No mention of how the German’s were randomly looking at the search history of an Irish computer
@Dan the man: the IP address identifies the source computer as based in Ireland.
@Geraldine D’Arcy: well done
@Dan the man: I was referring to how he was caught. Germans informed Interpol who then informed Gardai. The second part of my post is my opinion.
I think we can be sure that German police weren’t looking at random search histories however.
I’m no IT expert but surely it was a site or sites being monitored in order to capture the IP addresses of people accessing. Again, thats just my guess/opinion.
@Dan the man: looking for a way to.covwr your tracks?
@Dan the man: They were probably monitoring German citizens’ activities on particular sites and came across lots of IP addresses in other EU member states and notified the other police forces…..that or they are actively tracking these perverted sites with a view to closing them down.
@Dan the man: Sounds like you could be in bother Danno, ya nonce !
@Dan the man: You’re very interested in finding out how to avoid getting caught, aren’t you?
@Dan the man: Data protection is irrelevant in investigations of this, terrorist and organised crime related natures.
@Dan the man: police monitor places where sex abuse images are posted both on the normal Web and dark Web. Don’t worry their not going to be getting access to your browsing history from virgin media.
what happened. judge nolan actually sent him to jail. not like him. even with a small sentence
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