Frank Connolly names the ministers who refused to clarify connections with Anglo

Four actual names up online now:

Quote :

Four of the 10-strong group of investors assembled by David Drumm, Anglo
Irish’s former chief executive, are: Gerry Gannon, Joe O’Reilly, Seamus Ross
and Jerry Conlan. Either they or some of their companies now owe several
billion to Anglo. All four declined to comment last week.
Gannon co-owns the K Club, which hosted the 2006 Ryder Cup, with Michael
Smurfit. He is the founder of Gannon Homes and owns a large amount of land
in north and south Dublin.
O’Reilly is best known for developing the €1 billion Dundrum Shopping Centre.
His company, Castlethorn, plans to build a €1.2 billion new town in
Adamstown, west Dublin. He also plans a mixed-use development on O’Connell
Street in Dublin.
Longford-born Ross runs Menolly Homes, the country’s biggest housebuilder. He
owns Dunboyne Castle in Co Meath and recently ended a dispute over profits
made on the development of houses in the K Club. He lost millions when the
International Securities Trading Corporation (ISTC), a finance company set
up by Tiernan O’Mahony, a former Anglo executive, came close to collapsing.
Conlan is the least well-known of the four. He sold 400 acres of land he
co-owned in Naas, Co Kildare, known as Millennium Park, for €340m. He used
much of the proceeds to found the Mount Carmel Medical Group which owns a
maternity hospital in Rathfarnham, south Dublin. Mount Carmel has been
appointed by the Health Service Executive to build private hospitals on the
grounds of public hospitals as part of the co-location strategy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5781014.ece

Just saw it on p.ie
http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/47614-four-anglo-ten-named-sunday-times.html

What do you think of that now Toxic ? Will Enda be roasting Cowen's nuts on an open fire next week ?

No, I shouldn't think so, unless one of these men says they were put up to it by a FFer. In fact, now that there are actual names, I'd guess Kenny will back off, if anything. There are other names mentioned as refusing to comment also, so they might be contenders also.

Aragon wrote:

If the country had another 20 Frank Connollys, we might all of us be in much better shape than we currently are:

D'you mean we could have multiple versions of him working for us internationally, or we could sing it at football matches, "one Frank Connolly, there's only one Frank Connolly, one in every country" You'd have to check that out with him first though, he mightn't like it.

Pin thread on it.
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=19007

This is more rivetting than a season-end episode of Dallas ...

It's certainly interesting to see some of the names, Mennolly is always a welcome sight. Kerrynorth says he was told a FF TD is one of the ten...

And boards
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055494719

Quote :

I love scapegoats.

Quote :

We may eventually get 10 names, but some names could merely be fronts for others. Perhaps only a name from a consortium of many.

The Sunday Times has been able to ascertain that the following businessmen, some of whom have had dealings with Anglo, are not among the 10 investors: Sean Mulryan, Patrick Doherty, Sean Dunne, Derek Quinlan, Denis O’Brien, JP McManus, John Magnier, Noel Smyth, Michael Whelan, Jim Mansfield, Richard Barrett, Johnny Ronan and Fintan Drury.


Here's Ross of Menolly Homes on the right



A TD one of them too .... ?

Some posts split to Carlton site thread
https://machinenation.forumakers.com/national-politics-f32/the-carlton-site-in-dublin-city-t2040.htm#70767

Thread unlocked.

toxic avenger wrote:

Wait till Nationwide is exposed. If it isn't as bad or worse than Anglo, I'll wear a dress for a month. And not a pretty dress.

Promise you'll post a picture here?

Aragon wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Wait till Nationwide is exposed. If it isn't as bad or worse than Anglo, I'll wear a dress for a month. And not a pretty dress.

Promise you'll post a picture here?

Aragon - would you be able to post a link to the story as published in the Main on Sunday ? I have tried but can't find it.

It seems that it would be no problem to put that up here.

The bottom line is that at the time of the article, a number of Cabinet Ministers had not clarified, due to lack of time or personal preference, to clarify if they had Anglo Irish loans. Under the circumstances, it would seem to me to be urgent that they should clarify it (and if they had loans, the terms of the loan) one way or the other.

As to who the various shareholders are, that is to some degree public information - the press seem to be very slow to have a look at the register and publish extracts, whether or not there is a degree of concealment behind company names and trusts and so on.

All of these banks, but in particular Anglo Irish, are entities whose finances and interests are inextricably mingled both with the property sector and the political class in many ways.

Fianna Fail has for years relied heavily on money from the property and construction sector, going both to the party and direct to individual TDs and councillors.
Other parties have accepted donations from the same sources. The Greens, who went in to government saying they wanted to end Corporate donations, have allowed the issue to go on the back burner. Fianna Fail has consistently put through tax regimes that have been highly beneficial to the construction sector. The Party refused to introduce a cap on the price of development land as was repeatedly recommended in expert reports. The party's role is imo reprehensible but does not explain why we experienced a bust in parallel to similar busts in a number of other states.

With interest rates very low and returns on property of 25% up to 2005, money pouring into the banks from outside Ireland, and a limit on the amount banks were allowed to hold to back loans, disaster was imo inevitable. In India, the government did everything they could to stop a parallel overheating and may have saved the situation in some extent for the Indian banks, foreign loans poured in to replace the local money and development did not ease off until the point of bust.

Now sources outside Ireland are aware that the state is heading for default in 6 to 18 months at latest. The Bank Guarantee was an inept and corrupt disaster. McWilliams, Feeney and others are saying that it must be reversed, but the spectre now is that reversal of the Guarantee at this stage would trigger collapse of all the Irish banks. It is still the lesser evil that the State being legally tied to the liabilities that are backed in the Guarantee.

There is no right answer fixing to a thoroughly bankrupt economic system. We are going to be at the sharp end of it because we are small, with a massive public overspend, geographically isolated, europes most expensive business destination and tied by the Guarantee to the madness of the last few years property speculation.
I don't think there is an answer to it in Ireland on its own - I think we should be making alliances with people in other countries who don't think the people should pay for the failure of a system that overwhelmingly is run for the benefit of a tiny few oligarchs, and be prepared to nationalise, barter, default, dig in and do anything it takes to look after each other.

I am getting a bit tired of the union rhetoric which states that the banks and developers took all our money and now we are paying for it.

The developers made big profits but so did everybody else associated with them, particularly the revenue.

The reason so many people were taken out of the tax net (albeit unsustainably) was that the property business yielded huge taxes. The reason for such high benchmarking was becasue such high property tax revenues permitted it. there may have been an unsustainable tax base but the people got the money, not individuals.

What tax are we talking about?

- Stamp Duty on development land purchases.
- Stamp duty paid by investors.
- Capital Gains Tax.
- Income tax for building workers.
- CGT on Developers' dividends.
- Income tax on Developer's Salaries.
- Corporation Tax on Developers profits.
- Corporation Tax on building materials manufacturing and supply profits.
- Corporation Tax and income tax generated by manufacture and production of materials.
- Income Tax paid by professionals including engineers, surveyors, solicitors, estate agents, architects, marketing professionals.
- Corporation tax and income tax from media organisations and employees.

And did the blameless poor and the civil servants get anything back? Yes they did. Huge investments in the civil service and other areas of expenditure. Huge amounts of people paying no income tax at all. Huge increases in public and civil service wages. Free college fees. Treatment Purchase Fund. University Qualifications for nurses.

What did we do with all this money? We spent it on sh_t, we went on extravagant holidays, bought new registration cars, put it towards pensions which have collapsed, put it into bank shares which have disappeared and we bought property abroad.

I would like to know what percentage of the money borrowed by developers and home buyers actually ended up in the pockets of developers? I would think they made a lot of money but that the rest of the population got their cut too. That's the cruel truth that none of the marchers wants to accept.

I am not saying there wasn't mismanagement or recklessness or wrongdoing. I am simply saying that people should stop kidding themselves and the rest of us that they got nothing out of it.

It would be wrong to get the impression that the views expressed here and on other web sites represent the views of the general public, that said, the black & white and simplistic nature of some views posted here would make you despair for the future.

I think maybe it is time for a general election, but an election with a very different type of campaign. It needs to be very short and very direct with every party putting forward a 5 year plan focusing exclusively on the economy and a way back to balanced budgets in 5 years. Each party could be restricted to one, hour long press conference, per day, no posters, no door to door, no party political broadcasts and no advertising, this way the Government would not be overly distracted and could continue to do what they need to do in the meantime.
The parties in opposition would have to stop playing this for all it’s worth and say what THEY would do in the full expectation that they might actually have to live up to it.

Let the people make their choice and live with the consequences.

tonys wrote:

It would be wrong to get the impression that the views expressed here and on other web sites represent the views of the general public, that said, the black & white and simplistic nature of some views posted here would make you despair for the future.

I think maybe it is time for a general election, but an election with a very different type of campaign. It needs to be very short and very direct with every party putting forward a 5 year plan focusing exclusively on the economy and a way back to balanced budgets in 5 years. Each party could be restricted to one, hour long press conference, per day, no posters, no door to door, no party political broadcasts and no advertising, this way the Government would not be overly distracted and could continue to do what they need to do in the meantime.
The parties in opposition would have to stop playing this for all it’s worth and say what THEY would do in the full expectation that they might actually have to live up to it.

Let the people make their choice and live with the consequences.

I agree with you completely but shouldn't this be the way it should always be ?? The Party publishes its 5 year plan long before the election and this is the only paraphernaila we see about it bar a Party Political Broadcast on tv the night before. Maybe some radio debates ??

Not this time though - I'd think it might be different this time. Isn't there noise of a National Government - do ye think that's an idea with any water ?

Or is it utterly impracticable and unnecessary anyway ?? I think it has to be considered.

Joe Behan was on local radio last week calling for a National Government. Liz McManus didn't appear too enthusiastic, but made a fair stab at trying to get Joe to join Labour instead.

I don't see the point of a National Government. Just have a quick election and whoever wins then has a mandate to do what needs doing and that'll be that. The current crowd are damaged goods and have no credibility nationally or internationally.

Every person or group is going to have a different intrepretation of the events leading up to and during (and I daresay after) the deeping Irish financial and economic situation. One only has to look how the same events are portrayed about Gaza, for example, by the Isreali media as opposed to Arabic media. The same scenes, occurences and facts can be presented by both sides but each side "interprets" the causes and results in diametrical opposition to each other, thereby drawing different conclusions. There are, of course, shades of opinion intertwining between various observers.

Not being able to predict the future (had to hock the auld crystal ball) and not being privy to so much information, I know only one thing with certainty (apart from death) is that I won't be able to give a synopsis of recent events that isn't biased by my personal experiences or inherent prejuedices. Even better, if I was in full remit of the facts, I'm quite sure my summation of events and recommedations would be biased in some manner - whether for good or ill.

What I observe more and more on a daily basis as this economic pantomime plays out is something particularly pernicious and which seems to have so deeply penetrated the social fabric of society that it's existence isn't acknowledged anymore. There is a sincere belief among many that the so-called experts, who by definition of their expertise, do not have any biases are slowly coming up with solutions. The very same academics and other people of power, usually, who constructed the "risk free" debt packages and financial processes will just return in another guise, and the same class of mistakes may be made again. It seems once the experts are involved then the rest of humanity can just sit back and let the experts, and those who claim to understand the experts, carry on with their psuedo-scientic approximations of how the economic and social world should ideally function.

'Twasn't that long ago that the people who got paid the big bucks took responsibility for the results of their companies, organisations (such as unions) and to a very lesser extent the govts they ran. When times were good, they crowed. When events, often out of their immediate control, they still took responsibilty. Some tried to rectify their immediate situation but, more often than not, their own peers had them replaced with someone who they thought could do the job better.

This doesn't seem to be the case these days. Those in power seem capable of avoiding direct responsiblity. I put this down the info manipulation and organisational manipulation. Much information is kept from the public behind the guise of classified information laws (again another reason why "experts" exist in that they have some access to classified info.) The media distribution of information is pre-manipulated before release from information sources. Also, a system of repsonsibilty between management teams has been blurred. We only have to look at the relationship between the Irish finance dept and the regulator for such any example of fuzziness. Who is repsonsible for what processes and their outcome? The new legal foundation, I would argue, was created so that such distinctions can not be made. It's a real "pass-the-buck" game.

The world financial/economic crisis (and our own particular Irish brand) was not created by one person or group of people; nor by a linear set of actions leading to the present outcome. A much more fundamental malaise underpins the current system. The system itself may be inherently unstable, which is open to debate. However, what is becoming more debateable is the seemingly remote possibility that an actual debate will take place which tries to identify the underlying problems, and if a plaon of action is going to take place to rectify the foundational problems. It seems from what I can gleen from various media sources that some regulatory frameworks are going to be overhauled. No arguments there from my perspective, but I really don't hold out much hope that game is going to change. They are only tweaking the rules a bit so that the same game can begin all over again.

All I can say at this juncture is that the much touted "information age" isn't turning out like the pundits predicted.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I am getting a bit tired of the union rhetoric which states that the banks and developers took all our money and now we are paying for it.

The developers made big profits but so did everybody else associated with them, particularly the revenue.

The reason so many people were taken out of the tax net (albeit unsustainably) was that the property business yielded huge taxes. The reason for such high benchmarking was becasue such high property tax revenues permitted it. there may have been an unsustainable tax base but the people got the money, not individuals.

What tax are we talking about?

- Stamp Duty on development land purchases.
- Stamp duty paid by investors.
- Capital Gains Tax.
- Income tax for building workers.
- CGT on Developers' dividends.
- Income tax on Developer's Salaries.
- Corporation Tax on Developers profits.
- Corporation Tax on building materials manufacturing and supply profits.
- Corporation Tax and income tax generated by manufacture and production of materials.
- Income Tax paid by professionals including engineers, surveyors, solicitors, estate agents, architects, marketing professionals.
- Corporation tax and income tax from media organisations and employees.

And did the blameless poor and the civil servants get anything back? Yes they did. Huge investments in the civil service and other areas of expenditure. Huge amounts of people paying no income tax at all. Huge increases in public and civil service wages. Free college fees. Treatment Purchase Fund. University Qualifications for nurses.

What did we do with all this money? We spent it on sh_t, we went on extravagant holidays, bought new registration cars, put it towards pensions which have collapsed, put it into bank shares which have disappeared and we bought property abroad.

I would like to know what percentage of the money borrowed by developers and home buyers actually ended up in the pockets of developers? I would think they made a lot of money but that the rest of the population got their cut too. That's the cruel truth that none of the marchers wants to accept.

I am not saying there wasn't mismanagement or recklessness or wrongdoing. I am simply saying that people should stop kidding themselves and the rest of us that they got nothing out of it.

I think you are making fair points, Zhou. I can see that people didn't set out to bankrupt the country and I think the slushing of money around the globe and our openness had something to do with it, coming onto a base of not a lot of experience. The UK of course without that excuse also grossly overloaned. We don't know the half of it yet.

To some extent in the west we have all been living on tick for decades, and now there's a profound shock. I heard Joe Higgins saying "We can't go down to Chinese wages" but I haven't yet heard him say how we can stop most of our existing employment migrating elsewhere. I think the Squire's posts have described our situation well in terms of a historic shift of wealth generation away from the west.

The problem is that Government just doesn't seem to see in terms of our immediate predicament that justice must be done and seen to be done, in terms of how burdens and resources are distributed. The boom being over, the have / have not gulf is opening up wide, and they seem to be firmly on the have side of it.

I was on the march on Saturday, and there was every point of view there, from the most self centred to people with no personal vested interest at all, and all kinds of different levels of awareness of the depth of the problem.

cactus flower wrote:

Aragon wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Wait till Nationwide is exposed. If it isn't as bad or worse than Anglo, I'll wear a dress for a month. And not a pretty dress.

Promise you'll post a picture here?

Aragon - would you be able to post a link to the story as published in the Main on Sunday ? I have tried but can't find it.

It seems that it would be no problem to put that up here.

I think you have it exactly right cf - the divide is between the have/have nots and the goverment is singularly failing to grasp that. It's like the only people they are truly taking seriously are the wealth backers and investors - the biggest losers and their supporting institutions and business arrangements. They are in denial about the collapse of their economics and the supporting infrastructure.

The bottom line is that at the time of the article, a number of Cabinet Ministers had not clarified, due to lack of time or personal preference, to clarify if they had Anglo Irish loans. Under the circumstances, it would seem to me to be urgent that they should clarify it (and if they had loans, the terms of the loan) one way or the other.

As to who the various shareholders are, that is to some degree public information - the press seem to be very slow to have a look at the register and publish extracts, whether or not there is a degree of concealment behind company names and trusts and so on.

All of these banks, but in particular Anglo Irish, are entities whose finances and interests are inextricably mingled both with the property sector and the political class in many ways.

Fianna Fail has for years relied heavily on money from the property and construction sector, going both to the party and direct to individual TDs and councillors.
Other parties have accepted donations from the same sources. The Greens, who went in to government saying they wanted to end Corporate donations, have allowed the issue to go on the back burner. Fianna Fail has consistently put through tax regimes that have been highly beneficial to the construction sector. The Party refused to introduce a cap on the price of development land as was repeatedly recommended in expert reports. The party's role is imo reprehensible but does not explain why we experienced a bust in parallel to similar busts in a number of other states.

With interest rates very low and returns on property of 25% up to 2005, money pouring into the banks from outside Ireland, and a limit on the amount banks were allowed to hold to back loans, disaster was imo inevitable. In India, the government did everything they could to stop a parallel overheating and may have saved the situation in some extent for the Indian banks, foreign loans poured in to replace the local money and development did not ease off until the point of bust.

Now sources outside Ireland are aware that the state is heading for default in 6 to 18 months at latest. The Bank Guarantee was an inept and corrupt disaster. McWilliams, Feeney and others are saying that it must be reversed, but the spectre now is that reversal of the Guarantee at this stage would trigger collapse of all the Irish banks. It is still the lesser evil that the State being legally tied to the liabilities that are backed in the Guarantee.

There is no right answer fixing to a thoroughly bankrupt economic system. We are going to be at the sharp end of it because we are small, with a massive public overspend, geographically isolated, europes most expensive business destination and tied by the Guarantee to the madness of the last few years property speculation.
I don't think there is an answer to it in Ireland on its own - I think we should be making alliances with people in other countries who don't think the people should pay for the failure of a system that overwhelmingly is run for the benefit of a tiny few oligarchs, and be prepared to nationalise, barter, default, dig in and do anything it takes to look after each other.

I can't post a link MoS Irish edition isnt online. I'll see if I can get it elsewhere.

cactus flower wrote:

The boom being over, the have / have not gulf is opening up wide, and they seem to be firmly on the have side of it.

I don't believe that is the case. The truth of the matter is that the wealthy and high earners have been hit as hard as anyone. Self employed people have been hit harder than anyone else. Those who are still earning a lot will be hit with a higher levy but the truth is that most of them won't earn that much this year.

The bad news for the public service is that the whole country was being paid too much and they might have been paid more than the average.

People think they are being unfairly treated because people are naturally selfish and biased. I saw the placards at the march and heard the comments of the oppressed. They sounded like the demanding mob to me. People are entitled to be angry, but every banner I saw and every comment I heard said the same thing: "Me Fein".

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

The boom being over, the have / have not gulf is opening up wide, and they seem to be firmly on the have side of it.

I don't believe that is the case. The truth of the matter is that the wealthy and high earners have been hit as hard as anyone. Self employed people have been hit harder than anyone else. Those who are still earning a lot will be hit with a higher levy but the truth is that most of them won't earn that much this year.

The bad news for the public service is that the whole country was being paid too much and they might have been paid more than the average.

People think they are being unfairly treated because people are naturally selfish and biased. I saw the placards at the march and heard the comments of the oppressed. They sounded like the demanding mob to me. People are entitled to be angry, but every banner I saw and every comment I heard said the same thing: "Me Fein".

I was on the march and heard all kinds of things, including uninformed grouching about the self employed. Overall, the split between private sector and public sector is a red herring and people need to get over it. The public sector has been paid more than we could afford, taxed from the wrong source. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and in the main avoidable. No-one has paid enough income tax to provide for deceint infrastructure and services. Money has been frittered on vanity projects as if there was no tomorrow. Indigenous industry has withered and FDI driven out of the market by crazy costs.
There has been price gouging and greed in the private sector too. Overall though most people have worked hard throughout the boom, and made the best choices they could for themselves and their families.

Graduated and progressive income tax across both sectors, with the same tax relief/terms for pensions whether one is in the public or the private sector would be fair.

cactus flower wrote:

Graduated and progressive income tax across both sectors, with the same tax relief/terms for pensions whether one is in the public or the private sector would be fair.

Would I be given the option of buying a defined benefit public sector pension at the same price as a public sector worker under your proposed scheme.

I agree that we haven't paid enough income tax and that reform is needed. We need to attack revenue and expenditure.

cactus flower wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

The boom being over, the have / have not gulf is opening up wide, and they seem to be firmly on the have side of it.

I don't believe that is the case. The truth of the matter is that the wealthy and high earners have been hit as hard as anyone. Self employed people have been hit harder than anyone else. Those who are still earning a lot will be hit with a higher levy but the truth is that most of them won't earn that much this year.

The bad news for the public service is that the whole country was being paid too much and they might have been paid more than the average.

People think they are being unfairly treated because people are naturally selfish and biased. I saw the placards at the march and heard the comments of the oppressed. They sounded like the demanding mob to me. People are entitled to be angry, but every banner I saw and every comment I heard said the same thing: "Me Fein".

I was on the march and heard all kinds of things, including uninformed grouching about the self employed. Overall, the split between private sector and public sector is a red herring and people need to get over it. The public sector has been paid more than we could afford, taxed from the wrong source. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and in the main avoidable. No-one has paid enough income tax to provide for deceint infrastructure and services. Money has been frittered on vanity projects as if there was no tomorrow. Indigenous industry has withered and FDI driven out of the market by crazy costs.
There has been price gouging and greed in the private sector too. Overall though most people have worked hard throughout the boom, and made the best choices they could for themselves and their families.

Graduated and progressive income tax across both sectors, with the same tax relief/terms for pensions whether one is in the public or the private sector would be fair.

Given that private sector employers can't and won't pay any more that they are paying employees at the moment and ignoring the 100% job security enjoyed by public sector workers, public sector average pay would have to come down by 33% to start on an equal footing with their private sector counterparts, this is obviously not going to happen so applying the same tax to everyone without also having some adjustment in the public sector pay bill will not address the fact that public sector worker earnings are beyond our ability to pay.

To each according to their needs, tonys. If they are not earning their money, give them a bit of training and cut out the two 40 minute tea breaks.