Madam, – Surely the Government should consider buying up some of the surplus residential properties rather than tinkering around with recapitalising the banks? This should remove some of the banks’ so-called toxic debt.
Some commentators are unwisely recommending that this debt be written off. Buying these properties at current market prices and releasing them when the market improves has to make sense. In the meantime, some of the properties could be used to meet the need for social and affordable housing.
Pensions assets are an ideal source of long-term funds to support this proposal and bail out the property sector. The €1.6 billion annual contribution to the National Pensions Reserve Fund would buy about 6,400 houses. This alone should reduce the current over-supply, halt the fall in prices and encourage buyers back into the market. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – AIB’s bad debt write-offs of €1.8 billion – half the amount the taxpayer is paying for the bank’s recapitalisation – raises questions.
1. Have these defaulting builders/developers no other assets that can be seized by the bank in lieu of their debts?
2. Where are these defaulters now, while the rest of us carry the can for their speculation?
3. Will their credit rating be affected by these write-offs or are they part of a golden circle that will rise again unblemished from the ashes of our economy?
It is pretty nauseating for the ordinary Joe Soap to hear of these write-offs and how quickly they seem to have come about. The property market has been slowing down for less than two years.
Considering how we ordinary customers are tied hand and foot for our debts and are now paying extra tax to fund builder/developers’ “punts” on the property market, it is surely rubbing our noses in it to wipe their slates clean so easily. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Ann Marie Hourihane suggests (Opinion, March 2nd) that rugby may be all we have going for us right now. I know she doesn’t quite mean that, but let me add a loose riff off the top of the head: The game of hurling, the NSO, the Museum, the Gallery and the NLI, Cór Chúil Aodha and sean-nós dance, Heaney, Longley, and Kerry Hardie, Glenstal, Melleray and Glencree, Peter McVerry and Sister Stan, Christy Moore and Resurgam, Lyric FM and The Irish Times, the credit union and chat with friends like Doll O’Connor and Josie Lawlor, with blessed peace north of the Border. . .
I could go on, and so could everyone. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It is well known, and well documented by experts, that when a country gets richer, or comes out of recession, the wealthiest people gain the most. Does it not make sense, then, that middle and higher income earners, who will gain the most from economic recovery, should contribute more than the lower income earners?
This can be simply ensured. In the same way that PRSI tax is gathered solely to contribute to social welfare payments, an “emergency” tax can be gathered solely for spending on economic recovery and stimulus packages (from which high earners will benefit more).
As a self-employed person who contributed at one time into the higher tax bracket, I would welcome a temporary tax hike that enabled the Government to boost the economy and provide an environment where I will have the ability to earn money again (I have earned no money since last March).
The alternative for the wealthy is not to contribute now and watch as the economy falters even more, leaving us in a state where money cannot be generated by anyone. If we don’t pay now, we will pay dearly later. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – One of the most frightful experiences of my youth was getting a “jab” from the school nurse. She used to hover the needle over my skin, trying to assure me that it wasn’t going to hurt that much – as if that would make it less painful when the needle actually went in.
Could the Government please stop dangling the needle and get it over and done with it? Make it quick, make it painful and let us get on with our lives. Yes, there will be tears; there will be plenty of people crying home to their mammies. But it has to be done, so let’s just do it. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – For banks and developers, the current decade has certainly been the naughties. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In September 2007 the German Ambassador to Ireland, Christian Pauls, caused uproar when he was reported as having said that prosperity has made the Irish coarse.His observation that Irish politicians and hospital consultants were paid much more than their German counterparts also seemed to ruffle some feathers. He was reprimanded by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Will an official apology be forthcoming, now that the Irish Government needs as many friends as in the German establishment as it can get? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Exchequer returns for February show we are in serious danger. The lower tax take from capital gains tax and stamp duty are understandable given the slump in house sales, as are the reduced income tax returns. But can we be sure that the self-employed sector is making accurate and complete income tax and VAT returns? The Revenue’s quarterly lists of tax defaulters showed that tax evasion was still rife among the self-employed even in the good times of the Celtic Tiger.
The Government’s mini-budget will introduce tax increases and further cuts in public service costs, resulting in a lower standard of living for the PAYE sector. Will the Government allow the self-employed to escape the hardship this time, or will they send a clear message that tax evasion is a crime against the citizens of Ireland? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – With retail sales in freefall and jobs disappearing every day, it seems we are all spending less these days. The only exception is, of course, the Government which managed to spend €300 million more in the first two months of 2009 than in the equivalent period last year.
Perhaps it is time to helicopter all the ministers and junior ministers to a nice hotel somewhere for a think-in so they can figure out how this keeps happening. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – While I don’t wish to condone online gambling in any way, it seems the depths of hypocrisy for banks to penalise ordinary citizens for habits that they themselves have indulged in to the nth degree to the ruination of all.
A case of the pot, the kettle and the black hole? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – My abiding memory of the reportage of the 2009 Fianna Fáil ardfheis will be the image on RTÉ News of an acutely embarrassed David Davin-Power boxed in, jostled, squeezed and almost smothered by a family-photo array of Fianna Fáil local election candidates – elderly, suited, and male, and all leering at the camera. It was like the cast of the horror movie Night of the Living Dead.
In one short week, Mary Coughlan tells us that the public finances are “under control”; Martin Cullen takes an €8,000 helicopter trip for a photo-opportunity in Killarney; Noel Dempsey tells us the Government will spend the next three weeks far from the madding crowd drafting the “not-a-mini-budget” draconian whammy which they could and should have hit us with on October 14th last.
Are these people genuine extra-terrestrial aliens from a planet far beyond our solar system? Or just second-rate actors from a flopped and forgotten science fiction television series? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Following the release of the latest Exchequer figures, would it asking too much of our politicians – of all persuasions – to agree to a 100 per cent tax on pensions paid to serving TDs before they start to iron the sackcloths and rake the ashes for the rest of us to wear? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Would those who continue to blame the media, and even the street conversationalists, for our financial plight please desist? Patrick Lynch (March 3rd) says the media’s extensive coverage of the crisis will only worsen it. This is the first cousin of the argument from a few months back that we were going to “talk ourselves into a recession”.
I think we can now agree that we did not talk ourselves into a recession but that the main causes were actually: (a) a complete lack of banking regulation; (b) a complete lack of banking ethics; (c) a complete lack of political planning and foresight; (d) greed.
Mr Lynch is indeed correct to assert that we need to concentrate on efforts to address our problems. However, before we do so, we need to know the correct root causes. – Yours,, etc,