Firstly have shed loads of cash! Insurance and Pension Firms rank high on this list.

This is true but, stinging the bond holders would kill any confidence for future investment in Ireland. Looking at the big picture, it’s a bad move.

What does investment have to do with bondholders? A multinational firm deciding whether or not to set up an office/factory/branch on our shores would have nothing to do with whether or not we paid off these bondholders.

Why would it kill any future investment in Ireland Patrick?

Burning them now would give us breathing room to recover. Sure it might hurt our reputation now but wouldn’t there be regained confidence in us as a nation and a market following that recovery?

@Kerry foreign investors will see that we do not live up to our financial promises. They would be very wary to invest here. I would like to see the bond holders burned too, we don’t really have much of a choice but to pay up. The majority of the bond holders are German & Swiss nationals, Merkel would never allow them to be burned.

There are secured and unsecured bonds available, those that chose to buy unsecured bonds did so in the hope of making a high yield return at the risk of making a loss as well , essentially a gamble, the secured bonds have a more steady, stable and smaller guaranteed return.
These guys gambled, saying its lessens confidence is only rehashing government spin on justifying their actions and their inability to stand up and say no. Making them sovereign is where the confidence was shown.

Foreign investors will not invest in a country which has an unsustainable debt like Ireland has either. They would prefer to invest in a country which has written off its bad debt and started again. Besides this we are paying off unsecured bond holders. We are paying 100% to someone (hedge funds?) who took a gamble and bought Irish bonds at a 50% to 70% mark down from the original holder. What our government is doing is criminal and Stephen Donnelly is correct – yet again.

That’s a fair point Kerry.

@Patrick The government said during the referendum that nobody in the markets would lend to us anyway. The line that we need to pay unsecured bonds so that they will lend to us again is therefore moot.

Not when it’s an Irish bond. God forbid a German banker lost his Hugh profit on an Irish bond what would Enda’s boss say

That’s nonsense. Investors make investment decisions based on cold hard facts. The confidence fairy has nothing to do with. Burning the bondholders is actually more likely to increase “confidence” since the debt is *clearly* unsustainable.

Same game, different name! I am still utterly disgusted with myself that I believed their pre election lies…..nothing but continuity Finna Fail.

Same here – I feel soiled

I will revoke my vote next GE even if I have to spoil it by writing ‘kenny sold us out’ on it!

What irks me is that those they are paying out to, more than likely did buy them for a fraction of what they are worth when banks appeared to be in trouble and expect now to be paid the full value of them at our expense.

Unsecured also means unsecured, the original owners took a loss, those that would have picked them up (Insurance company’s and such) are now to make a tidy fortune from them. While ignoring the fact they are still unsecured and should be worth nothing.

And what’s more…Seanie and his lacky Drumm are still free to live the high life. Not a single one of them to be seen in handcuffs.

Not another red cent! Traitors, lie to get into power and hand our beautiful green island to Germany on a silver platter with our soverenty !!

They didn’t hand it over. The people voted.

Get the boat!! The people where cohersed and bullied as usual. Don’t give me that BS.

@Kilkenny Cat, people voted them in as an answer to the last shower, they won on promises of doing right and protecting the people of this country, when it turns out they are as morally corrupt, inept and ill-equipped to the job as the last lot and have gone against 95% of the promises that got them elected in.
Therefore you can certainly NOT claim that the people voted in support of their current actions.

Is Ireland is being held to ransom by the fools who are allowed to print money?

”FG and Labour”
”Irelands Liquidators”
”Working Hard On Behalf Of Faceless Corrupt Bankers”

People I think Killkenny cat is referring to the stability treaty, so she is correct.

The govt had a chance to grow a pair and not pay these bond.. 2 Hospitals could easily have been built.. The Queen just visited Fermanagh to open a brand new 300 bed state of the art hospital… Built in 3 yrs reportedly had 1,100 employed directly without counting the knock on jobs for suppliers and the local area… We could do with 2 state of the art Hospitals, we could do with the jobs… We are paying inflated salaried to a govt to take hard decisions and they bottled it, again… Burn the Bondholders and commit to 2 new hospitals with the new jobs as a bonus BUT this would risk our politicians upsetting the big bad bond holder (german & french no doubt) and the EU (germany & france), this in turn would maybe put them in the spotlight from europe to sort out their pay, pensions and croke park that is left untouched as long as they do as there told…. NO BONDHOLDER GETS LEFT BEHIND…. This goverment is sickening and with no mandate to carry out these actions surely this is treason ??? where is our president or senad to speak up for the citizens ???? hiding behind their numerous pensions & perks !!! I suggest anyone who can to Stop Paying Tax to finance these parasites and Emigrate! When a country cannot put its citizens as a priority over gambling bondholders who lost all hope is lost…..

Great idea in theory but like all other financial products traded on “the markets” these have probably been resold many times so god knows who owns them at this stage. For all we know our own banks might hold some of them the ultimate circular transaction.

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/10/who-are-the-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out/nNote the part half way down…Bond holders total worldwide investment – €20trillion! Investment in Anglo alone 1/5000th of this!! Doesn’t seem like too much of a burning if we withheld payment!!!!

Ooops! My comment got mixed in with link sorry! nhttp://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/10/who-are-the-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out/

Embezzlement even !!!

Makes me sick, if there is a hell Kenny will go to it.

Also worth wondering is, are we actually borrowing to pay this, with interest of course?

well said!!

I disagree with some of it as well. He may be wrong on many things, but it is a decent kind of wrong. A right wrong – if you will. As opposed to the likes of McCreevey or McDowell who might not be too different to him economically but who wouldn’t exactly be motivated by the national good, not by a long shot.

His intentions are good.

now thats very dangerous indeed

well said

Fine Gael’s war cry pre election was not a penny more. they were elected on the back of this and when they got elected the phrase turned into not a penny more that the last government promised. they conned the irish public into voting for them. the real reason fine gael are paying because they want everything to stay the same so they can do their term and then retire with their big fat pensions.

There is no connection between the bond holder payments and our governments pensions. Zero, zip,zilch,nada,nein…none!

You’re very, very naive if you think opposition parties are going to be able to do exactly as they say they will try to do pre-election. Dangerously naive really.

I suppose you thought that jobs would appear the day after the Lisbon treaty(and similarly, of you opposed it, that the minimum wage would drop to <€2 the day after) too?

People need to realise that what a government want to do and what a government can do are two very different things. Overall, they can only do the best with what they're given as unfortunately for our current government, they weren't given much more than a massive financial hole and a sinking ship. This is reality.

Winston,nThe effectivity of blackmail and threats is directly proportional to the moral courage of the victim.

So all those who succumb to threats are cowards?

No, it comes down to what is at stake and obviously there is a lot of the government have to put their plans by the wayside to deal with them.

Winston C. If I remember correctly all the parties met with the Troika before the election and held discussions with them. All parties also had access to the Dept of Finance before the election. They had the full picture of Ireland’s problems and still made claims that they knew they could not follow through on.

Niave! I think its the other way round sir…If you think Enda Kenny is doing his best you are living on another planet..he went missing during the final weeks of referendum and he continues to avoid questions on what he is doing to get ireland a better deal.
Fine Gael got elected by promising that they would do a better job than the last lot but they are exactly the same.
Your point about promises in opposition not being fulfilled just goes to show that you find it acceptable that politicians are allowed to lie and cheat their way to power.

Damian, yes, naive.

If it were a case that the success of a party in an election was solely based on what it said leading up to the election then Sinn Fein would now be in government and by quite some margin too with all their empty promises. However, that is clearly not the case.

Yes, I think Enda & his party are doing the best that they can. Given that satisfaction in the government has risen in the past few months, it would appear that I’m not alone in thinking so. In fact, 32% back FG, almost twice that of the nearest opposition and are rising.

Sinn Fein were slow out of the blocks this time…but by all accounts their popularity is on the rise and thats a purely unbiased assessment as i have no ties whatsoever to sinn fein…your entrenched party loyalties are well and good but only galvanise my first impression which is party first country second. you say you are against the paying of the bondholders but ahh lads sure what can we do. Enda Kenny is not up to the job.