€132 billion.
That’s how much Ireland Inc. owes in mortgages.
€32 Billion.
That’s how much Ireland Inc. has ‘invested’ in buy-to-rent properties, around €23 billion of that taken out in the past five years.
Thing is, this figure contains mortgages that were taken out on vastly-overpriced properties, and as such, any move to re-capitalize the banks must go with […]
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“”All I’m saying is that I want to take one step back to take two steps forward,” Batt O’Keefe on Education cuts.
I teach History and English in a medium sized secondary school in Wexford Town. My sister lectures Economics in an Institute of Education. We don’t talk about it much but a big part […]
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This is another taping I made of the Vincent Browne Show - side B of the programme below. Again, it’s another fascinating discussion involving Browne and an informed panel of Dr. Kevin Whelan, Prof. Tom Bartlett, and Prof. Tom Dunne, with the topic this time the 1798 rebellion.
To download, right-click “audio MP3″ and save […]
Vincent Browne Show, 1798 Rebellion:
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The Fianna Fáil plan to fix the systematic problems within the Irish banking system is… to mortgage the entire country in order to keep the system running the same way as before.
The contradiction inherent to that decision - to fix a broken system by ensuring it runs the same way as before - is […]
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I’m standing at the corner of Cathal Brugha Street and Thomas Lane, waiting for my friend Lida to arrive. She’s starting up her own business soon, and wants me to write a blurb for the website. The buses are running a bit late but she gets here around 6.30pm and so we head off for […]
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It is not the poverty
Of soil in Leitrim that makes me raise my hat
To fools with fifty pounds in a paper bank” (Lough Derg, Kavanagh)
A friend of mine is fond of saying, “he who tires of Bray, tires of life”. And there’s more than a line of truth in that one. As for myself, today […]
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In the latest twist to the government’s ongoing battle with the economic reality, the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, has called for a “voluntary” ban on 1980s tribute bands as they are creating negative sentiment among Irish consumers. “People are going home after such shows and crying uncontrollably on fake leather sofas” he said, “instead […]
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I don’t know when, but I believe that Conor in some of his posts on the Property market in Ireland has made a couple of mentions of the Kenny Report, which “advocated that just slightly more than the agricultural value of land would be awarded in compensation to landholders whose land was deemed appropriate for […]
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This is part of a wider project, a study of work in the south of Ireland from 1926 to 2006. It’ll take more than a couple of years to get it finished (that is, to do it properly), but in the meantime I’ll throw up what I come across as I come across it. At […]
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Oh my oh my. Last Tuesday the Irish Independent told us that the Irish people voted no because they believed that the treaty could be renegotiated. Today (Saturday), they tell us that it was because of a disastrous ‘yes’ campaign.
What could have changed in the past week?
Well, the report they said was […]
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