Going to be out of action for a few weeks (date with a knife
tomorrow, July 17th, old war-wounds that couldn't be ignored any longer!) so a
quick update on the Ballyhea campaign.
EUROPEAN
ELECTIONS
The recent European elections threw up a very positive
result for us, the election of three independents (Luke Ming Flanagan, Nessa
Childers and Marian Harkin), now joined by Brian Crowley, all of whom have
stated unequivocally that they will be working towards the alleviation of the
bank-debt burden on Ireland. Already, since the election, we've been in touch
with all those MEPs, have met with a few, and in the coming months we will be
working with them on the bank-debt campaign.
Sinn Féin also had a very successful European campaign,
returned four MEPs (Liadh Ní Riada, Matt Carthy, Lynn Boylan, Martina
Anderson), and Sinn Féin too have indicated that bank-debt writedown for
Ireland will be a priority. That's eight Irish MEPs now actively campaigning
with and for us (the people, not just this campaign group), a quantum
improvement on the previous Parliament.
PLANNED
MEETINGS
On Friday week (July 25th), Central Bank governor Patrick
Honahan has agreed to meet a delegation which, along with ourselves, will
include representatives from those MEPs, plus representatives of the Technical
Group in the Dáil.
At the moment we are also pursuing meetings with a) the ECB
(accompanied again by elected representatives from both the national the
European Parliaments), b) the new chair of ECON and c), representatives from
all the major groupings in the new Parliament.
IT’S
NOT TOO LATE – IN FACT NEVER MORE TIMELY OR URGENT
For those who believe that it's too late to address the
bank-debt, that everything is done and dusted, I can't stress enough - nothing
could be further from the truth. In fact it was never more immediate, never
more stark, than it is now. Why? The dreaded Promissory Notes, or more
accurately, the Promissory Note bonds, the instruments used by Finance Minister
Michael Noonan to transfer responsibility for payment of those Promissory Note
billions from this generation to the next, and to the generation after.
PROMISSORY
NOTES IN A NUTSHELL
In a nutshell the situation is this: in 2010 two Irish banks
- Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide - had entered zombie stage, had €31bn in
liabilities between them and only junk assets to cover those liabilities. If
they went under, however, the fear was that this would start a
domino effect across a number of other deeply troubled banks and would bring
down not just the major banks in the so-called core European countries (Germany
and France especially), but would bring down even the euro currency itself.
To avoid this very real possibility the ECB accepted from
the Irish government as collateral for the €31bn issued to those two bust banks the now infamous Promissory
Notes; theirs was the final say in this and in doing so, they bent (and possibly
broke) their own rules.
Critical to note here, this money did NOT go to the Irish people,
it went to bail out those two banks and by extension, to bail out their
creditors. Now, however, the ECB wants its pound of flesh. 'The Central Bank of Ireland printed that extra €31bn,' goes their logic; 'The Irish government acted as guarantor; now we want that €31bn taken
back out of circulation.'
No mention of their own role in accepting the Promissory Notes; no mention of the fact this possibly saved the European banking system, if not the euro itself; no mention of the fact that all those billions went to banks, not to the people. Just this insistence that the entire burden must be borne by us, the Irish
people.
Of course we don't have that €31bn (we're broke like - in
fact we're over €200bn in debt already!) so, we're forced to borrow it.
THE
PROMISSORY NOTE BONDS
We're doing this in the form of sovereign bonds and we're
doing it in stages. This year the Central Bank will sell a bond for
€500,000,000. That's almost exactly what the government expects to raise from
water charges for the year; it is also the projected shortfall in the HSE
budget for 2014, a shortfall that will necessitate further cuts in an already
critically-stretched health service.
What will the Central Bank do with this €500,000,000 -
invest in our water services, in our health service? Neither. It will destroy
it, every last cent, the ECB insisting on its pound of flesh.
WORSE
TO COME
As noted above however, that is merely the first step. Next
year, another €500,000,000 raised by the Central Bank, another €500,000,000
destroyed, then likewise for another three years. And it gets worse.
For each of the five years after 2018, €1,000,000,000 raised
by the Central Bank, then destroyed; for each of eight years after 2023, the
figure increases to €2,000,000,000, raised and destroyed; finally, in 2032,
€1,500,000,000, making a total of €25,000,000,000.
These are telephone numbers, I know - even beyond telephone
numbers. On their own they're difficult for people to take in but even more
difficult for people to absorb, the fact that all this money, all those
badly-needed billions, will be destroyed.
The story doesn't even end there: As each of the bonds are
sold, we start paying the interest to the new bondholder, and we pay it
annually for the lifetime of that bond. Then, when the bond 'matures' (and the
first chicken comes home to roost in 2038), we have to pay the principal, the
full original sum of each individual bond, again a total of €25,000,000,000 - again
a figure and a concept almost impossible for people to grasp.
CRISIS
POINT – A CALL TO ARMS
But that is the plan, that is the vaunted Noonan Promissory
Note 'deal', that's how 'gone' those Notes are. The debt remained, in its
entirety; the billions are still destroyed, in their entirety; all he has done
is this – rather than challenge the ECB on the legitimacy or even the morality
of the debt itself, he shifted the payment burden from this generation to the
next, and the generation after. Would you, as an individual, do that to your kids,
and to their kids?
It can be stopped. It can be stopped now. It can be stopped
without cost. It can be stopped without consequence (that money is already in
circulation; taking it out of circulation now will have no effect in Europe, it
WILL have an effect here).
That's why this campaign is now so critical, that's why
there has never been such urgency. The sale of those bonds must be stopped and
for this, we need a coming together – of the media, of our politicians local,
national and European, of our stars of stage, screen, music and sport, of our
people in every organisation at home and abroad. Because this affects us all.
Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.
