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Column Why is the payment of €1.5bn to bondholders not news?
AIB was recapitalised by this country’s citizens after its reckless lending strategy – and one backed by bondholders. Now, writes independent TD Stephen Donnelly, those bondholders continue to make no losses at all.
TODAY, WHILE RURAL schools are threatened with the loss of teachers and new figures reveal that 200,000 children in Ireland are living in poverty, €1.5 billion has been paid over to anonymous, unsecured, unguaranteed senior bondholders at AIB.
That’s €1,100 per household in the country – or 11 times the Household Charge.
And the real tragedy is, this isn’t even ‘news’ (apart from on TheJournal).
Think of the acres of coverage given to the Household Charge. And yet there’s been hardly a murmur about this €1.5 billion bond payment. Why? Because many in the media have clearly accepted that this government is going to pay back debts that we don’t owe.
This government came in on a wave of promises to negotiate hard to get write downs on this debt. They had a mandate from the people to do so. Major capitalists, like George Soros, said the bond holders should take losses. The IMF has said unsecured bondholders could take losses. But the government’s negotiating strategy, instead, has been to do whatever the ECB and the bondholders wanted.
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Some believe that we are liable to pay these bonds because AIB is a State-owned bank. However, these are debts incurred by professional investors which have no sovereign guarantee and which occurred before the state took control of the bank. Therefore we have no moral obligation to pay them whatsoever.
It is galling that this bond is being paid
Not only has the government not sought to negotiate with the bondholders, it has not even tried to find out who they are. The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan confirmed to me that they have not sought to identify the bondholders, yet in opposition not only did he demand their identity but he provided the late Brian Lenihan with the website where the bondholder information could be found.
The Government said its negotiating strategy had moved on to the promissory notes. But a substantive deal on promissory notes hasn’t happened – all we got was a one-year deferral that’s going to cost us an additional €90 million.
AIB has been recapitalised by the citizens of this country to the tune of €20.7 billion. We own 98.8 per cent of it. Without our aid, AIB would be bust. AIB got to this point because it pursued a reckless lending strategy. Its bondholders facilitated that – they lent recklessly to AIB. And yet those bondholders have taken no losses on those bonds, and the Government – this one and the last – has consistently boasted that no bondholders would be burnt.
Whilst accepting that there are no easy decisions on this issue, and that the ECB is applying very significant pressure for Irish citizens to cover the losses of private investors, it is galling that this bond is being paid, and it is a tragedy that the media seems so reconciled to the fact that it is being paid.
It may not be feasible to renegotiate today’s bond payment, but a focus on it, and on the immorality of these anonymous, unguaranteed bondholders being paid billions at the expense of the Irish people, could at least lay the ground for some genuine, hard negotiations prior to the next bond payment due.
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The only way to get back at this bunch of bastards in charge is to vote no in the fiscal compact referendum! What have we got to lose? Default if we have to! Let’s get a few honest, intelligent people in power! I keep hearing about the fighting Irish! So c’mon let’s start the fight! The thought of going through another 10 or 20 years of this makes me feel sick! If not for ourselves, let’s do it for our kids! Vote no to austerity! Can you imagine French people putting up with this?
Correct and right M. Scott. I Actually think we got to shake these TD in a physical manner…. They not listening…. They don’t care but a couple of slaps might make them wake to f up from there I’m a politician and my family are sorted for life attitude….
And I’m not necessarily advocating a vote for it here, just saying that people need to take a sensible approach, if you vote yes or no, at least do it on the basis of reasonable consideration.
Default = no more access to loans, & inevitable reduction in budget deficit. As long as you’re ok with a brief reduction in public sector pay (i.r.o 40% pay cut for a few years,) Ireland inc. will be back in the black in no time!
Win Win!
The only way there will be a mass-protest of any kind in this Country is if the Social Welfare is cut, the Government know this…therefore, the “middle/coping” class will be screwed again, and again…in the next 3 to 4 yrs of tough budgets ahead.
@Ryan O’Neill
My opinion is based on a hypothesis that if the SW is cut, it will create such extra poverty that this (now unfortunately) large group of people will have nothing left to lose. Your comment re the middle classes is correct.
@ Ryan oneill
“Oh ok I see, it must be that SW recipients have more backbone than the subservient middle (borrow till the cows come home) class!!”
People on SW are for the most part unemployed or on an extremely limited income thanks to the state of the economy at the moment. They have nothing to lose except the the food on their tables if cuts are applied to them.
The middle class has debts and fiscal responsibilities which they gathered during the good years; mortgage, pension plans, etc. which they have put so much effort towards that are terrified of losing them. so they will submit to any number of hardships that austerity puts on them if it means not losing their multi-decade investments.
Went this morning to close my AIB current account and my 3 Saving accounts…5 people on the queue…5 of them closed their accounts…Taxes increased to pay the f* bondholders and from May they will be charging even for visiting the branch!!!!
What’s the bet that if you own a private pension plan YOU’RE on the list? When people say bondholders they have an image of the monopoly man but it’s more likely they are owned by investment funds.
@ciaran – I would say it extremely likely that members of the cabinet, via investment companies or businesses, are up to their necks in bank bonds as they were seen as rock solid. Thats why there is no appetite to burn them, they would be committing personal financial suicide, and why would you do that when there’s lots of Tax-Cattle to squeeze.
It’s a mad mad world with some very stupid leaders. Well done to yourself Stephen, could you not get like minded people and start a decent party. For the first time give people real choice, no more ex teachers PLEASE.
What you have just outlined about the payment by AIB to the Bondholders is scandoulous and makes people even more sceptical about how our Government is operating. It was easy for them to make promises to get elected, but when they got into power, they have renaged on their promises…..No wonder people are annoyed, as this Government of ‘change’ is just carrying on where Fianna Fáil left off!
@Ciaran, I voted FG in the last election. I am so, so, so, so deeply ashamed of that fact now. The reason I voted was for promises they insisted would happen within 100 days about cancer services in my area. I fell for it. I gave them my vote. Today, I found out that the TD I elected, I voted for has claimed €600 per week in petrol since last year. €600 per week. I’m lucky if I can afford 20 euro. And now these billions being paid out without a whisper. I despair for this country. When will people stand up and say no? Enough is enough?
I voted left last time round. Labour promised the world an promised to fight against austerity to protect those most vulnerable. Gilmore has proven they are no better than the Greens when it comes to fighting for the people.
I know 99% of you will disagree and lambast my logic. But I voted for SF as my 1st, As i agreed with their policies and I knew they would ask the tough question when the time came. Also I wanted to put the shits up the gov and it worked.
Looking at the current state of affairs we aren’t left with much choice. Labour had the chance to create a Left government with the independents. They wasted it and sided with the devil instead. FG have never professed to be anything less than Right Wing. I’m not surprised at their actions or lack there of since getting in.
If we really want to evoke change we need to shake it up. FG and FF need to be taught a lesson and need to be annihilated in the next election. Labour are they only real choice and need a majority. Mind you they need to be taught a lesson too. Leaving only SF, I can sense the keyboard warriors tapping violently away already lol. If people can put stigmas aside for once and vote them in as the 2nd biggest party with Labour. We would get everything we were promised. Leaving labour to reign in their more radical or farcical ideas. It would also give Their younger ministers a chance to shine.
Anyways i will expect a mass of thumbs down for suggesting people vote SF. But we do need to do something radical to teach the elite we won’t stand of it.
John mcgrath , your comments are so funny and we all know exactly who you meantoo which is even funnier ! :) I am so annoyed and I know this situation is not funny but your comment just lightened my mood :) Cheers.
tell u what, its in Germanys interest (to an extent) to keep us bent over. they are borrowing money on the markets at a significantly low rate, and lending it on to Ireland via the ECB,at a higher interest rate (making profit in the process) and what are we using that money for????? to pay senior unsecured bondholders, a lot of whom are German and French. they are doubly screwing us!!
Time to give up the euro. The Germans are only worried about their pensions. Which are banjaxed because they worked too hard and forgot to make babies. Old Germany is making young Ireland pay for our greedy sins.
You completely nailed it There Janine! You know who most of the Bondholders are (underlying).. German and French Banks and pension funds!!! That’s where all our money is going, to make sure the German and French Pension pots don’t fall to where they should be on foot of the losses that they incurred on their investments into Irish Banks
Do you think Stephen that AIB really care if you withdraw your hard earned cash , but if everyone did now that’s a different story , as we have seen from the household charge unfortunately we don’t stick together .
It’s not news because it makes 890,000
nodding donkeys who just paid the household charge look complete gormless egits. Wake up Ireland. The powers that be are laughing at you and have been for years. All the way to the bank
We can’t stop holding the magnifying glass to this situation when the social, economic and environmental cost far outweighs the billions being spilled at the feet of these faceless captors
We were duped by the ecb who fed us cheap credit. We were duped by our banks who said they were solvent. We were duped by the church who hid their immoral members to save their brand. We were duped by this government one year ago and their promises. We were duped rte who seek to promote their own bias. How hurt and damaged our society is. Well done Stephen for your persistant articulate focus on this immoral decision.
Pay the bondholders! Burn the poor! Protect the rich and make them richer! All good, sound, sensible policies to which this government is wedded. What’s not to like?
here are a few ideas to slowly start to change things. withdraw your money from big banks. if you have not paid the hhc do not pay it, its late anyway. vote no on the referendum. next election do not vote for cf or cf or for that matter greens or labour they all have been given a chance and stabbed the people in the back.
We the people are too busy stabbing each other in the back. We are allowing our so called ruling classes devide us into warring factions. Employed vs unemployed, private vs public sector, rural vs urban and rich against poor and visa versa we are so busy taking lumps out of each other that we are letting our government treat us with contempt. We need to reach out to each and stand with each other for the good of our country and each other.
The reason why this is not news, or rather why people don’t care, is because for the majority of people this economic jargon is impenetrable. And that’s just what FG/Labour want, to keep people in blissful ignorance.
It should be the responsibility of the media to explain to the public in layman’s terms what this payment means. But the biased government cheerleaders in Montrose aren’t going to do something that dumb, if they did, they might incite a revolution.
So between Anglo at the end of March and now this, that’s about 5 billion gone to unsecured bond holders. How is that helping Ireland’s recovery? Oh yes, if we play nice and keep gripping our ankles, our European ‘friends’ will keep loaning us money to pay back more unsecured bondholders.
And we can get the crumbs off that table to try and cover the actual structural sovereign debt that currently exists. All this payment, and others like it, does is to make it harder to address the actual structural economic and political issues in the country.
A no vote in the referendum might be the only way to get our politicians to listen to us.
Easy to say burn the bondholders but we havent a clue who we are burning. For all we know it could be the local credit union. You wouldnt be too happy then if your child’s savings or the money you put away went up in smoke. I agree with those who say we are in trouble either way. We have to bite the bullet sooner or later.
One thing we are seeing is how powerless we are as a small part of the large euro area.
@tiger it would be better for the factious kids if we did burn the bond holders (Noonan) other wise they have a life time of debt paying it all back!! Burn them I say and yes a no vote is our only hope of getting this government to realise that we won’t stand for any more BS!!!
I am so tired of hearing this. First Anglo and now AIB. When will it stop? The government will not step in to save any businesses going broke – let these banks go bust. They should have been wound up. If we own 98.8% of AIB, shouldn’t we get a say in what they do? The government does not speak for the ordinary people in this country. They should do, but they don’t. Enda Kenny was elected on a bed of lies. He is not fit to be the leader of this country and he should either resign or be shot for treason. I’m sure that the people of Roscommon would like to see his head on a pike outside the A&E department he promised to protect, then promptly closed.
I’d like a FG apologists take on this before I comment further…..
What do you mean their barrel of excuses and propaganda is scraped clean and they’re away hiding with their labour cronies from the hard facts of what their beloved blueshirts and their labour bedfellows are doing to the country and they only comment here when some EU mouthpiece pats Noonan and Kenny on the back as if pats on the back and servile prostration to the EU were the mandate they stood on pre-election?
No wonder we haven’t a bean! Keeping money in the country is like trying to keep water in a bucket with a hole in it. Govt parties will promise you the sun, moon and stars to get in / re elected and once the ballots are counted it all goes down the tube! Grrr
What can we do? Nothing. We can rally and protest but it won’t make any change. We had a chance to send a clear message to Government and boycott the household charge but we folded on that one. The majority paid and the message is the Irish are weak. I didn’t pay but because more than half did, this thing is here to stay. :-(
Lynyon Hartill ,
Not paying was only the START of the protest . I am going to Galway on Sat to meet up with like minded people . The Irish were weak , but we are finding our strength in each other . Don’t register Don’t pay and vote NO in the austerity treaty . Chin up Lynton , we all feel low and despondent ….except FG/Lab and their conies. They might think they can wear us down , but they wont . Not when we stick together . Did you join the campaign against the HHC. If not , join. :)
Check out politics.ie- discussion on there about this issue with several people saying the same thing stephen donnelly is saying here. Let’s face it, we are not in government, Donnelly is, and it is up to him to energize these issues, which in fairness he makes a fair stab at doing. But I’ve started to notice that he sits on the fence a lot. He should be kicking up more of a fuss to be honest and so he has more to prove if he wants to make an impression. Jury is out.
Burn the Government for not burning the Bonholders, the rot starts at the top. Don’t forget the idiots Cowen and Co who agreed to pay their mates in the Banks.
Stephen there is just no end to the incompetence and lack of leadership not only in this country but in the Western World at large. It is an astounding, mind boggling culture where big business dictates the entire agenda. I am just a simple capitalist that used to believe I lived in a democratic republic. Sadly, 34 years at the coalface of Irish business has thought me that we live in a bastardised democracy run by corporations. We need leadership and it’s not coming from FG. FG’s hypocrisy is second only to our people’s willingness to accept it. Seamus Maye [ Irish Small Business Alliance]
Banks changed over the past 10 years to stuffy conservatives into bonus chasing greed merchants. Happy to give out cheap money to fools who needed to be told they couldn’t afford inflated mortgages. The bonus was valued more than honest truth. Fools will always be fools. Mortgaging their lives away for a cheap bonus was unethical and the banks should take some of the hit for stupid investments.
Imagine going in to a bookie and betting on a horse to win. Not only does he not win but the bloody nag had only three legs. You didn’t know he only had three legs but the bookie did but still had him as a favourite. With the help of the owner, trainer, jockey and racing board the bookie managed to keep it quiet. After the race everyone knows that the horse had thrøee legs but the bookie refuses to give you your money back. Wouldn’t you be pissed off? Then why aren’t you now?
Mark, in your analogy the bondholders are the ones placing the bet on the three legged pony (Ireland) and the bookie and the jockey are the politicians and bankers who facilitated this…..I can now see why the bondholders want their money back. Good point!
I hope that the Household Tax boycott is just the start of a mass civil protest movement to force our government to begin to defend the Irish people instead of conspiring with the ECB to break us.
We have started well with a million people refusing to register for the Household in open defiance of the government.
The next step is to Vote No to the Fiscal treaty.
Following this we need to escalate the protest and take the fight to the Banks who are the real enemy here. The Irish people have to find their voice and revolt against the terrible injustice of the bank bailout.
My proposal for a peaceful revolt would be a National Mortgage strike with two demands:
1. No more funding of the Banks from the Peoples’ pockets for any reason.
2. Force the Banks to repay the money they have stolen from People.
Demand 1. Unfortunately a significant proportion of the bondholders have already been paid off at this stage thanks to the abject surrender of the last and present governments in the face of ECB demands and threats. There are however enormous sums still being being paid to bondholders on a daily basis and this haemorrhage needs to stop. Have a look at Bondwatch Blog from Diarmuid O Flynn (Irish Examiner journalist) so see the huge losses we are suffering every day. On top of this there is still the €31billion of promissory notes to be paid and the interest which amounts to €47 billion approximately. We can’t allow any of this money to be paid. Heaped on this again are the billions we have pumped into NAMA which is just another bank bailout under a different mask. All this looting of the nation needs to stop immediately.
Demand 2. The money we paid to date to honour the bank bonds had disappeared back into the global financial casino and is gone for good. But there are ways to recover our losses if the government was brave and radical enough. The figures are not entirely clear but since the banks extorted the blanket bank guarantee from Brian Lenihan in Sept 2008 there has been at least €70 billion stolen from the Irish people and pumped into the banks. This figure does not include NAMA which is just another bank bailout under a different mask.
One way to recover the money robbed from us would be to take ownership of the bank’s Mortgage Book in return for the state aid which the banks extorted from the country. I don’t have the exact numbers but let’s say we have pumped €20billion into AIB/EBS at this point. The government could immediately take ownership of that €20billion figure in performing mortgages and direct the monthly income stream to finance the country and help reduce our deficit. The bond money has disappeared but there is still real wealth in the banks in the form of bricks and mortar which can be leveraged to help the people.
If the loss of some or all of the mortgage book results in the collapse of AIB/EBS then so be it. We will step in and take control of the retail banking network to keep the branches and ATMs open etc. We own the bank almost entirely now so we can take as much of the retail banking system as we need to serve the country.
After the deposits have been moved to the new state retail bank he remainder of the bank can be liquidated and divided up among the creditors or sold to an interested party.
Essentially we would extract our national stake from the bank through the housing/property stock , take the banking infrastructure that we need to support the people and dump the rest.
We need to stop the charade that the Irish banks are functioning financial institutions providing the normal banking services such as credit to the economy. They are not and they may never be again. This is an unprecedented crisis and we need to take complete control of the banks and exploit them to ensure the survival of the nation. What the government have done so far is to nationalise/socialise the debts of the banking system while allowing the banks to retain control of their assets. We need to reverse this position and nationalise the assets of the banks to save our republic.
The beauty of a Mortgage Strike is that it would directly target the Banks who bear the bulk of the responsibility for breaking the country.
The recent property bubble amounted to a enormous theft from Irish people where hundreds of thousands of people have been saddled with huge debt just to put a modest roof over their heads (in most cases) An insider elite of landholders, developers and bankers became obscenely wealthy on the back of this bubble while the political class encouraged the stampede.
This debt is now a millstone around our necks but it could be used as our most effective weapon to drive real change for the better in how this country is governed.
A Mortgage Boycott would force this government to finally begin to meet their responsibility to the Irish people instead of pandering to the infinitely greedy banks. This would involve a large number of people withholding their mortgage repayments until the government meets the 2 demands outlined above. As the Irish state now owns most of the Irish banking system, the impact on the government would be immediate and substantial.
The protest should insist on a mortgage freeze for the duration of the Strike so that people are relieved of the burden of paying their mortgages without any penalty until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.
So for example if a person’s outstanding mortgage total is €200,000 to be paid over a 20 year period then this is the amount and timeframe which will apply when the boycott is over. The withheld monthly payments would not be transferred over to the banks at the end of the strike but would instead be paid at the back end of the mortgage term when people’s finances should hopefully have improved.
The freeze would have the advantage of easing the financial pressure on the people striking while increasing the impact on the financial institutions and the government by depriving them of income for the duration of the strike and with no prospect of receiving the outstanding money until people reach the end of their mortgage terms.
No penalties, additional interest or any financial sanction would be accepted from the Banks or the strike would continue.
Obviously, it would take a significant number of people to commit to the action for this to be effective but it might be possible to kick start the protest through the media, Facebook etc and sign up the necessary number of people for the movement. Momentum for the civil disobedience should be achievable with so many people already under serious financial pressure thanks to the greed and stupidity of our banking and political elite and other vested interests.
A reasonable target might be in the region of 100,000 mortgage holders who are prepared to sign up and commit. When the target figure has been reached the protest would begin the following month and continue until the government undertakes to stop rewarding the failed bondholder gamblers with our money and future.
Our past and present governments have signed up the Irish people to foot the bill for the banking collapse to the tune of €100 Billion and counting. FG and Labour will tear the heart out of this country with vicious cutbacks and tax increases to pay for this robbery while our young people look at an empty future and emigrate in their tens of thousands. This is wrong and has to stop.
It’s time the government realised that they rule the Irish people only through our consent and they do not have our permission to bleed the country dry to provide a transfusion to the parasite financial elite.
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Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 77 partners can use this special purpose
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Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 87 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 64 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 46 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 75 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 54 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
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