Dublin Opinion

There’s an ad for the Bank of Ireland on RTE these days that sums up perfectly the core problem with the Irish economy. It’s a fucking fairy dreaming about a car loan. she introduces herself by saying that “someday I’m going to be running this place”. At the moment she’s only starting off in her career, and so is looking for a bank that sees the “potential” in her - a bank that knows that she is going places and, eventually, will be earning BIG money. Until that day, she’s going to need a helping hand.

So, what’s the helping hand for?

Is it to fund further education? you know, make her more employable. Life-long learning and all that.

Is it a start-up loan for her business idea? You know, help her find her feet until the money comes running in.

Is it for any type of investment?

No. She wants a loan so she can buy that car. Oh, and an overdraft to “tie her over”.

Irish credit card debt rose by 16 per cent in 2006. Now, in fairness to the fairies, the largest credit card repayment took place in June of this year, when about 4 per cent of the ubiquitous SSIA saw itself channeled into that black hole. Mind you, seeing that 25 per cent of the SSIA is tax payers’ money, this means that the Great Irish Public have helped clear the credit card recklessness of others. Next time some Osama bag-laden SUV fucker cuts in front of you while you’re on a pedestrian crossing, just remember, your taxes are helping to clear his/her credit card debt. And schools are struggling to balance budgets to hire teachers.

Now the Bank of Ireland wants to give the fairies car loans.

It’s not just the fact that the Bank of Ireland is selling money to those who can ill-afford to buy it: the real con is the line at the start of the ad - that somehow you’re a go-getter, a Gordon Gecko, if you get a fucking car loan and an overdraft to pay for your holiday.

The desire to borrow vast amounts of money in order to buy vastly overpriced houses, and the desire of Irish financial institutions to lend vast amounts of money to people who can ill-afford it, has been the defining economic activity in Ireland for the last seven years. With 282,000 Irish jobs tied up with the construction industry, the tapering off of the mortgage fairies (the very same fairies whose collective 130 billion euro in outstanding loans has paid for all of this) has set the Irish economy up for a soft landing if you’re Brian Cowen, and a big fucking crash if you’re anyone else.

We have been told for years now that those who were buying houses as an investment were being entrepreneurial. We now know - from the 2006 census - that there are 1,469,521 dwellings in this country, of which, an estimated 230,000 are vacant. This means that just over 15% of all dwellings in Ireland are now vacant. In contrast, around 3.2 per cent of all dwellings in England are vacant. House construction stood at 93,419 dwellings last year, while the price for a second hand house in Dublin is at an average of €520,000 - about 16 times the average industrial wage.

More houses, less occupants, no crash? Makes as much sense as fairies buying cars.

Anyway… Here’s the Specials.