Question

This began as a facebook exchange which I throught I'd throw out a bit wider.  Someone highlighted Gerry's latest gaffes in a 20 minute RTE interview and I asked the question:

"How come it has taken the RoI media a few weeks to highlight this basic ignorance and ineptitude yet the NI media was incapable of it for decades?"

The Louth soil cannot be blamed for transforming Adams' feet into clay certainly not in the few weeks he's lived there.  News Letter journo, Sam McBride offered this answer:

"one of the reasons is that when SF get into trouble up here, their natural line of defence is to turn it into a sectarian row (eg. Murphy attempting to introduce Irish road signs while facing calls to resign over the water crisis). It's pretty hard to do that in a country where 98% of people are nationalist..."

What do you think?

Plan B

While the media will be predictably fixated on Finucane.  Buried in the US cables is confirmation that a unpalatable Plan B did exist if the attempts to restore devolution had failed.  In a released US diplomatic cable the then Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern explained that:

"..."Plan B" (indefinite suspension of the Assembly and joint UK/Irish stewardship of the Northern political process) would take effect..."

Cartoon

News in cartoon form is growing on me as a form.

55/45

Our government has decided to support the Irish government and economy through a direct loan of over £7 billion as well as billions more through European Union support mechanisms.  It must be recognised that this decision is not an easy one, to characterise it as a black and white issue would be a mistake.

There is national interest at play.  An Irish economic and banking collapse would have consequences for the British economy with the resulting pain particularly acute for Northern Ireland as well as the need for a further bailout of some of our banks. 

However, it would be a misjudgement to represent the bail-out as an panacea for Ireland.  It will not prevent the Republic experiencing acute economic pain in the next few years.  Its aim is to prevent a collapse not spare the Irish from pain (nor prevent the knock-on effects of that pain to Northern Ireland).  The second problem is it may not work.  There is the potential to be throwing good money after bad.  The lack of any positive signs from the Greek bailout makes such concerns rational as do the economists' predictions (scroll down) that a number of countries will end up quitting the Eurozone even with bailouts.  The bailout may simply be buying time rather than solving the problems.

This leads us to the complicated factor in the decision, the Euro.  How much the Euro contributed to the Irish crisis will no doubt be debated for years to come but what cannot be disputed is that Ireland finds itself without a number of economic tools that a country with its own currency would have.  The problems within the Eurozone have pretty much validated the Thatcherite critique of the entire project but validation does not mean protection from the consequences. 

There is an attempt to defend what was done as for Northern Ireland.  However, this leads to something of a contradiction.  Previously we had been informed the cupboard was bare both in terms of cash and borrowing.  Action on either would not be in our national interest.  Now the Coalition government has managed to find both, cash for the EU and now loans for the Republic.  So concern for the banking sector seems to have been the motivating factor.

However, it was the Euro that negated the need for our participation in the bail-out.  The IMF are sufficiently concerned about the world economy and the EU from an economic (and equally political perspective to keep propping up the Euro) that whatever borrowing Ireland needed would have been forthcoming.  The absence of a £7bn loan from us would not have left Ireland wanting it would have beens ecured elsewhere.  It would have also kept us out of the potential morass of further bail-outs for other countries. Any promises that we won't should be treated with the sceptcisim any statement on Europe from this government deserves.  For me the 55/45 comes down on the side of No.

The die is cast on our particpation but if the government's concern for Northern Ireland is genuine there is a further step it must take.  The Coalition government is to produce a paper on the future of British banks, the over-reliance of Northern Ireland on Irish banks must be addressed in that paper.

Dominoes

They had been referred to as the PIGS but events seem to be leading to GIPS with Ireland apparently in talks for a bailout and Portugal now talking about getting in on the act:

"Meanwhile, Portugal's finance minister has said his country is at a high risk of needing a bailout due to the danger of contagion from other debt-hit euro nations."

Exception

While official denials continue to emanate from Dublin about a bailout for the Irish economy, the working assumption of everyone else appears to be that it will happen.  Professor Morgan Kelly provides an insight into why while a former IMF economist, Simon Johnston, advices them to do it now rather than later.

However, Coffee House blog reveals some of the possible detail of the bail-out.  The bail-out may not be restricted to the credit facility available to Eurozone countries but also involve access to the emergency funding mechanism that all EU members potentially contribute through.  This would involve a potential £6bn loan bill for the UK with it appearing the Treasury consider Ireland an exception to the previous rule:

"It's thought that any bailout to Ireland will be made from the European Financial Stability Facility Fund – a eurozone mechanism from which we're exempt – but there's also talk (£) of deploying the EU's emergency fund, which could make us liable for a loan of up to £6 billion. Whereas Treasury officials were keen to keep a solution to the Greek crisis within the eurozone, they are now telling the papers that, "This is not like Greece. [Ireland] are close trading partners."

It also sums up the difficulty of such decisions:

"It rather sums up the peculiar situation facing Europe, including the UK. Failure to act means that the contagion from Ireland could spread. But action carries with it clear costs, both fiscal and presentational. It's true to say that few domestic voters will relish the idea of propping up ailing economies elsewhere, particularly at a time of gruel and restraint at home. And what kind of precedent is being set should other countries, such as Portugal and Spain, go the way of Ireland themselves? A few years ago, the Celtic Tiger was a proud, growling beast. Now we must grapple with the consequences of its death."

Ouch

The Anglo-Irish Bank bailout has increased to 34.3 billion euros.  Irish tax revenues in 2009 were only 33 billion euros.

Church and State

A Co Donegal judge ordered a man who had verbally abused a member of the irish police to:

"...to come back in a month's time with evidence that you did the four stations of Croagh Patrick, and say a few prayers.  You then might have a different impression of County Mayo and its people, and it will be in recognition to your fellow Irish people especially those in the line of duty."