Skip to main content

Daft Punk!...Just Clowen' Around!!!




..."Does Brian Cowen really know what he is doing?



...The Lisbon Treaty defeat was a fiasco for the government. Not that it matters even a tiny bit in the real world, but in the world of political perceptions and of the neurotic EU, it means everything and Cowen did not have the stature - yet - to tell the EU to cop on.

...Cowen seems to have been unnerved by the Lisbon defeat. He has seemed unsure, vacillating and unsettled since then. His performances over the last few days have been his worst, aided and abetted by Lenihan.

...The announced cuts in public expenditure are risible. Given the constraints that the prevailing hegemony has imposed on our political culture, tax increases of any sort are out of the question. There is no question that the people who made fortunes during the boom years should now bear the burden of a few bad years. Also no question about borrowing, beyond the constraints imposed by the EU.


...So the only way to deal with a sharp fall in tax revenues is to cut spending, and the cuts required next year will be several billion. This is not that much out of a total spend of around €60 billion, but the room for manoeuvre is being blocked by the elephant in the counting room: public sector pay. There is no option but to cut back on healthcare, education and affordable housing.


They fudged all the big decisions for now. Not a single tough choice: deferring decentralisation (what courage that took); projecting a saving of €30 million on social welfare fraud (how did they ever think of that one?); a ban on public sector recruitment (I thought Charlie McCreevy introduced that four years ago?); opting out of a scheme to help old people (splendid!); cutting back on overseas development aid (too bad about the poor of the Third World, but they will be comforted that this is being done under the guise of readjusting the figures because of lower GNP projections); and deferring a few capital projects. Pathetic.


And where will that leave us at budget time in December? Either there will indeed be ‘‘savage’’ cuts: social welfare increases just matching inflation, if that; cutbacks in health, with a pretence that these will not affect patients; cutbacks in education and, sure, nobody cares; the Metro deferred or maybe abandoned (this would be no bad thing); and several other capital projects deferred (so much for the talk of protecting the National Development Plan).





...Suddenly and rapidly, Cowen seems far less formidable than he did ten weeks ago. Out of his depth, some might argue. The transition to the top job appears to have been too quick and too bruising"...

Vincent Browne - the Sunday Buisness Post.

Popular posts from this blog

Ireland's Celtic Tiger Excesses...

'Bang twins' may never get to run a business again... POST-boom Ireland is awash with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses, as a rattle around the carcasses of fallen property developers and entrepreneurs will show. Few can compete with the so-called Bang twins for youth, glamour and tasteful extravagance. Simon and Christian Stokes, the 35-year-old identical twins behind Bang Cafe and exclusive private members club, Residence, saw their entire business go bust with debts of €9m, €3m of which is owed to the tax man. The debt may be in the ha'penny place compared with the eye-watering billions owed by some of their former customers. But their fall has been arguably steeper and more damning than some of the country's richest tycoons. Last week, further humiliation was heaped on them with revelations that even as their businesses were going under, the twins spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five star holidays and sumptu

I fear a very different kind of property crash

While 80% of people over 40 own their own home just a third of adults under 40 do. This is disastrous for social solidarity and cohesion Changing this system of policymaking requires a government to act in a way that may be uncomfortable for some. Governments have a horizon of no more than five years, and the housing issue requires long-term planning. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was intended to tackle some of these problems. According to its website its remit is to “drive the delivery of better public services, living standards and infrastructure for the people of Ireland by enhancing governance, building capacity and delivering effectively”. So how is the challenge of delivering homes for people in 2024 and beyond going to be met? The extent of the problem is visible in the move by companies, including Ryanair, to buy properties to house staff. Ryanair has, justifiably, defended its right to do so. IPAV has long articulated its views on how to improve supply an

Property Tycoon's Dolce Vita Ends...

Tycoon's dolce vita ends as art seized... THE Dublin city sheriff has seized an art collection and other valuables from the Ailesbury Road home of fallen property developer Bernard McNamara. The collection will be sold to help pay his debts. The sheriff, Brendan Walsh, is believed to have moved against the property developer within the past fortnight, calling to his salubrious Dublin 4 home acting on a court order to seize anything of value from his home to reimburse his creditors. The sheriff is believed to have taken paintings from the family home along with a small number of other items. The development marks a new low for Mr McNamara, once one of Ireland's richest men but who now owes €1.5bn . The property developer and former county councillor from Clare turned the building firm founded by his father Michael into one of the biggest in Ireland. He is the highest-profile former tycoon to date to be targeted by bailiffs, signalling just how far some of Ireland's billionai