Possible Good News

Cowen might have a number of things to answer for, but having dinner with bankers while Minister of Finance is not one. The Indo occasionally desperately scrabble together stories to jump on a bandwagon, at closer examination being balls of smoke. The Norman Turner passport thing was a good example. This is another. Non-story.

johnfás wrote:

tonys wrote:

johnfás wrote:

What does the Indo have to say?

The Indo doesn't say anything, it screams, and mostly rubbish at that.

We all know that but it doesn't particularly answer my question.

Well the point there would be that beyond the headline we don't know, but as you can see coc has an opinion anyway, so maybe he /she has an advance copy.

johnfás wrote:

Wow, he had dinner with some directors of the third largest bank in Ireland... that is hardly a scandal. I'm sure he dined with alot of people in that period.

I'd be more worried if he *wasn't* dining with them.
Toxic is correct, a non-story.

Private dinner, bank known to be in trouble? Minister of Finance?... don't agree.

What is the point of concrentrating on this word private? What does that even mean in this context? In the course of one's job one has dinner with hundreds of people in any given year. Just because you don't invite the media or hold the thing at the RDS in front of a couple of thousand people doesn't imply any wrongdoing or a lack of judgment. The concentration on that word is a media spin put on it by the Independent to try and make a story out a non story. To give the dinner an air of exclusion when there is no evidence that it was anything but a bog standard dinner between the Bank and the Minister which likely happen once or twice a year, as they would between most major interest groups and members of the Government, be that a Bank, a Regulatory Authority, The Church, a Consumer Group or a Charity.

What is the difference between a private an official engagment in Irish Government? Does anyone have the definitive definition ?

This really is clutching at straws and I say that as a detractor of the Government. In every walk of life people are brought for dinner and lunch in order than things can be discussed, Ministers in Government are no different. Obviously there is the potential danger of becoming beholden to such groups but that is merely something which one must guard against rather than being an argument against having dinner with someone! This is not a zero sum situation and the story in question does not provide any evidence that the line of appropriateness was crossed.

He should pay for his own lunches. I've taken this over to the other thread. tonys is having an uphill struggle to keep us on topic here.

tonys - its a beautiful day and the work in trickling nicely in to our office.
Trinity College says that its having an unprecedented number of enquiries from mature students - people are taking the wise option of studying out the slump.

Talked to a friend in the car sales business. Sold 1-2 cars in Jan..... and 8-9 in the last 2 weeks. Green shoot?? Not sure, some of his customers ended up in the place he works because many other dealerships now can't accept trade ins or are in receivership. But that may mean we've hit a floor here and the remaining businesses may be sustainable?? Any thoughts?

More good news... a pal who went to a garden centre ended up chatting to one of the guys that worked there; dead in Jan, busy now. Mind you that may just be because more people are trying to grow their own, but no harm there either.

Finally; Tonys was right, talked to someone at a party who works for one of the big foreign financials in the IFSC....the petrol price rises are indeed due to dollar strength. Current predictions inside the foreign financial organisation are that the dollar could rise in value to almost equal the euro

Would that not effortlessly improve our competitiveness and exportability (at least to the US)?? And we don't import much from them either, the only considerable downside would be a rise in petrol/diesel.

expat girl wrote:

Tonys was right,

"Tonys" is nearly always right and imo doesn't get the credit he deserves as an outstanding example of Irish manhood and general all around good egg.

tonys wrote:

expat girl wrote:

Tonys was right,

"Tonys" is nearly always right and imo doesn't get the credit he deserves as an outstanding example of Irish manhood and general all around good egg.

I thank you for that and agree 100%

More work to Squire Hall needed so some joiners, roofers and lumber jacks will benifit.

Now there's a bit of good news

http://www.breakingnews.ie/business/eyauaukfaucw/

tonys wrote:

Now there's a bit of good news

http://www.breakingnews.ie/business/eyauaukfaucw/

I'll post the Morning Ireland link to it in a minute. A bit long overdue and hopefully not too late but I'd like to actually get more details of that now. Your man said the interest on the loan would be 2%. There was interesting stuff on how you needed some kind of contract with the ESB before you get the loan - do you know if that's true ? If so then it's very limited because "renewable energy" is much wider than sticking up a wind turbine. Not that it isn't welcome.

I'd be interested to know if it covered other renewables suitable to localities - seaweed and algae production for oil, biomass ...

As this is the Good News thread it wouldn't be appropriate to ask what would happen to your loan if BoI happened to get nationalised ....

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys wrote:

Now there's a bit of good news

http://www.breakingnews.ie/business/eyauaukfaucw/

I'll post the Morning Ireland link to it in a minute. A bit long overdue and hopefully not too late but I'd like to actually get more details of that now. Your man said the interest on the loan would be 2%. There was interesting stuff on how you needed some kind of contract with the ESB before you get the loan - do you know if that's true ? If so then it's very limited because "renewable energy" is much wider than sticking up a wind turbine. Not that it isn't welcome.

I'd be interested to know if it covered other renewables suitable to localities - seaweed and algae production for oil, biomass ...

As this is the Good News thread it wouldn't be appropriate to ask what would happen to your loan if BoI happened to get nationalised ....

I give up

Yay - some more good news

Two houses up the road are having a complete revamp with quite a lot of blocks bought and people employed.

Several places also have scaffolding around them in Town which didn't have it before and a Trinity company has received €18 million in funding;

http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/news/news.php?headerID=1108&vs_date=2009-2-1

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Two houses up the road are having a complete revamp with quite a lot of blocks bought and people employed.

Several places also have scaffolding around them in Town which didn't have it before and a Trinity company has received €18 million in funding;

http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/news/news.php?headerID=1108&vs_date=2009-2-1

Lots of good news on that site Ard Taoiseach

cactus flower wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Two houses up the road are having a complete revamp with quite a lot of blocks bought and people employed.

Several places also have scaffolding around them in Town which didn't have it before and a Trinity company has received €18 million in funding;

http://www.tcd.ie/Communications/news/news.php?headerID=1108&vs_date=2009-2-1

Lots of good news on that site Ard Taoiseach

Yep, they have a fully-functioning Spin Machine producing these stories exhibited in the Science Gallery!

Does Cork need another 1,200 houses?

Intel's investment of €50 million is a bit of pretty good news, particularly because it's in R&D and it's in an area which needs replacement employment with the cut-back of employees at Dell.

I hope several good ideas come out of this new instititution which will lead to further investments in Ireland to actually produce these goods.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0227/intel.html

That is good news, Ard Taoiseach.

cactus flower wrote:

That is good news, Ard Taoiseach.

Indeed it is. And the multiplier effect will lead to hundreds of jobs in the services and support sectors.

There are more jobs on the way for the country, 35 of them;

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0303/jobs.html

Electricity and gas prices are to fall which will assist our recovery of cost competitiveness;

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0303/energy.html

and R&D spending went up €100 million last year;

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0303/research.html