Our total internal and external debt is 2900 billion the 9 th largest in the world
Yes you read it right 2900 billion
The source for this figure is C I A fact file Ireland just google it to see

@ john g how do this government or any other plan to pay this debt off ??

We had them over a barrell? When we went to them and said “Lads, we’ve no money. We need various payments totalling several billion because NOBODY will lend to us.”

Now in what way did we have the ECB, EU or IMF over a barrell? And what was our ace up our sleeve? Was it “We’ll shoot ourselves even more in the foot by burning bondholders ….ha ha…we’ll be screwed…but so will you”?

Tom – you’ve got a bad case of TB (True Believer) therefor your mind is closed to ANY counter argument, but I’ll try anyway;

When we were negotiating the Troika deal, Ireland had enough money to last several months. At that time the Euro was on a knife edge. If we had threatened to burn bond holders, we could have extracted a lot more from the EU/IMF. We didn’t, instead we rolled over.

But you won’t agree with any counter argument, because you are blind to all logic, reason and fact. It’s the same with all TB’s whether they are defending religious beliefs or political one.

Ah yes. “Feck off lads. We’ll burn bondholders and be alright for eight months by which time you’ll be so screwed that we can call the shots even though no one will touch us with a barge poll at present. In eight months we’ll be borrowing at below your bailout rate. Ha ha!”

Yes….over a barrell alright. :)

Your right, he only has to spend another 3 years or so doing nothing for the good of the Irish people and lots for the good of the bondholders and then he going to retire with a big massive pension with the rest of the gobshites that left the sinking ship.

Well said connman collaborating with E U at the expense of your own people history will remember you kenny ..

He traded it for magic beans. Which are now the bondholders beans. So no beans for anyone.

@ Marks Reference to Magic Beans
Official bondholder comment after receiving the beans: “Nom nom nom nom nom”

Gary, not sure Id agree with you on the Labour part. I’m pretty sure that most of the promises made during the election were never going to be fulfilled. I don’t believe that the Labour party are being manipulated and belittled, they know exactly what they are at!!! When are the people of Ireland going to stand up and realise that all politicians are the same, their in it for the power and the money!!

@Gary the Labour party played the game lied alongside Fine Gael to get power when they didn’t have too.But they will suffer for it at the next election.Sinn Fein will owe Gilmore a big thank you.

You should see last night Vincent brown to see minister Leo V on his high horse telling us we don’t understand the grand plan.

Thats Leo V for ye though, he really thinks he is better and is cleverer than everybody else. He has a dark heart that one, he’s dangerous.

Enda’s grin is stupid not cheeky

Regarding the Enda in spedo s comment would that be a breach of standards in public office

Oh please do you not think his photo on here or his voice on radio is enough to give one nightmares without having him on billboards in speedos yuck yuck

Are you saying that everybody in Ireland who doesn’t have to worry about bills should be pessimistic? That doesn’t make sense.

Yes, he said he’s optimistic about Ireland because he’s an optimistic person. Not because there is anything concrete to be optimistic. Time to pull the fingers from the ears singing LA LA LAAAA LAAAA

Stop telling us what you cant do and find a solution

KEVIN PERFECT and enda did say he was answerable to the irish people

An opimistic fairy if you will

Completely agree he is more concerned about getting elected as president of the EPP then being a leader for ireland! Cant stand d sight of d man! I think there is a real conflict of interest he should be made resign from that party or even better as taiseoch! Corrupt f*****!

I agree Bernadette, The Irish people shouldnt have voted this shower in just to get back at Fianna Fail.
Who’s going to be better than them though?

Good analagy. To go a little furhter I suggest we concede this frame and try to win the match.

This government is bizarrely honest, and not just by Irish standards.

I couldn’t quite agree with the ‘honest’ comment Tom.
Too many changes to the pre-election manifestos for that

Nigel,

In fairness there have only been two real pre election promises which have changed, one from FG about paying bondholders, the other from Labour about tuition fees.

Labour promised no tuition fees is they led a government, so in fairness their hands are tied by FG who were very upfront about tuition fees.

As regards the repayment of unsecured bondholders, the ECB have said no and we have no ace up our sleeves because the ECB know where we are. For political expediency the government could have kept the 5.8% repayment rate and reneged on unsecured bondholders and that would have curried favour but would have cost us more in the long run.

Perhaps FG should have known that the ECB would put the blockers on burning bondholders….but they weren’t in power until after it was all agreed.

Tom correct me if I’m wrong but did not FG and Labour in fact all the then opposition parties meet with the troika BEFORE the general election?

Couple of other election promises. Salary cap on political advisers – broken already. No more cuts to the childrens allowance (Joan B). Roscommon hospital – just a couple of examples off the top of my head.

jeez tom you really are a brainwashed little blueshirt….fine gael led governments are always very poor …fianna fail spent years tidying up after previous poorly led fine gael administarions…mark my words this government will not last its term labour will pull the plug and try save face with the electorate….enda as leader of this great little nation is embarassing to say the least….end of enda coming soon and i for one cant wait….kenny is a complete muppet

Fair play Martin.

Officially the most loyal FFer ever. You guys should be horsewhipped for what you did to my country.

tom check ur history ok fianna fail did some bad things but we would not have the infrastructure we have without FF …tempke bar …multinationals….all FF ….fine gael have given us nothing but grief….and they are still lying…..

Ah yes. FF’s biggest achievement was changing Dublin’s Jewish Quarter into Europe’s biggest drinking den.

And as for infrastructure…we needed schools, power stations and resevoirs and we got roads which are the most expensive to build per kilometer in the world.

You must be so proud.

All Fianna Failers should be flogged.

I’ve a slightly different view but agree in principle. I believe in constantly seeking improvement.

Our government should be constantly trying to improve the state of the nation, even if they are comfortably returned in the next election. The problem with FF is that they focused only on election results.

I believe the current government are tackling the problems head on and being very honest about where we stand. It ain’t pretty but at least it’s the truth that you are getting from this government.

You have to say that Enda is doing better than most expected. I voted Green and independent the last time out and will probably do the same again next time but I at least respect what Fine Gael are trying to do and understand the pain that has to be put on people, sometimes unfairly. It’s not easy unraveling a decade of Fianna Fail, particularly when they have no control over the finances.

But we them out now before they do more damage to us

We as citizens have to take some responsibility for the problems we’re in. We can go on blaming government and banks – they played their parts well – but the average Joe buying 8 houses didn’t say “No, something isn’t right here”.

You want them out? You GOT THEM OUT. THEY are Fianna Fail. This is what you have now. Maybe the purse strings are tighter now but don’t delete your long term memory so quickly. There is good reason why today things are tough and it’s got about 5% to do with the current government.

Your some balloon mr inda. “the average joe is also responsible for this mess by buying 8 houses”. Cop yourself on. You hold people to account on there words and deeds. And on both counts this crowd are failing badly.

You are either a huge google fan or you’re having predictive text difficulties!

Eh…no. :)

Not sure if you noticed but a shower called Fianna Fail ran the country into the ground.

Yes Tom you are so right,while your BELOVED FINE GAEL sat in the opposition benches And took all Android never stopped while they all took the huge hikes in Salaries and over exagerated expences along with exaverated foreign trips ah yes expencive lesson for the Irish trusting Tax Payer…. So yes Tom you may brag about Fine Gael but we all know the Blue Shirts are no better than Fine Fail…

That post doesn’t make any sense. Care to expand?

unfortunately tom you too have your head in the fine gael cloud that your answers will always be pro fine gael. you sir are as big a part of the problem as the government is

Ah indeed Joe. Now given that you fully accept where we are economically, what major objections do you have to the government?

D problem with d current gov is tat they are liars! Take off ur blind fold and stop being grateful for d crumbs they throw to d irish prople while given millions to unsecured bond holders! SHEEP!!!!

I don’t know about Joe but I object to the fact that

1. They work part – time
2. They are accountable for their actions perhaps once every 5 years
3. They are in jobs for which they have no qualifications and no experience
4. They prolong a system for managing our nations affairs that has not really changed in almost 100 years, is inefficient, cumbersome and totally un fit for purpose
5. and on and on and on

We cannot solve our nations problems by dealing with the symptoms. The first thing we should do is reform our system of state management – it is only then can we make progress of substance.

Well Aisling given that they have told the truth about why we can’t default on unsecured bondholders, perhaps you can give us your wisdom in how we raise money without a bailout and austerity?

@ tom what truth have they told us ?? And why can’t we burn the bond holders ??
Nearly 200 billion in debts how we as a nation going to pay that and at who’s expence not this governments thats for sure ..

Not sure if you’ve read a newspaper in the last six months, but the ECB have decreed that we cannot burn the unsecured bondholders. Both FG and Labour (and in fairness to all parties and independents) were anxious that bondholders get stung. However when the guy who is writing the very cheques that allow you to pay your daily expenses says “Don’t burn the bondholders” you can hardly burn them and hope for the best.

This is not a game of poker, contrary to what the last government would have you believe. As a nation we are broke…and the ECB and IMF know that we are broke. They know what cards we are holding. If we threaten default, then can say “well best of luck borrowing on the open market”. If we say we won’t pay unsecured bondholders they can say “And that borrowing on the open market mullarky, how’s that working out for you?”

Unless you ignore newspapers completely you would have known that it was the ECB, and in particular JC Trichet, who insisted that bondholder repayment would be part of a rescue package.

But of course you have some cunning plan about how we raise money after the ECB cuts our funding when we default?

I did not stand before d people of ireland and say tat we would not pay back money to unsecured bond holders and then make a complete u turn on that issue! Instead of paying this money in march invest in jobs,(no legal obligation to) they could take a huge paycut like d rest of us and maybe put tht money into creating jobs! If they can’t do wht they said they were able to do then they should resign! The only issue on enda kennys mind is to make sure we join up with germany an d rest of his chums and hand over what ever little power we have left with out a referendum! We have choices on how to deal with this mess but our gov have blinkers on they dont seem to notice that what we are doing isnt working! If you havent noticed already most of the money we supposedly owe is not our debt but the debt of foreign banks an we are being forced to pay it by our so called gov, i never give anyone d mandate to rob me or any future kids i may have or our hard earned cash and force us out of our country due to no jobs, Another thing that anoys me about this gov is taken d credit for d interest rate cut when it had nothin to do with them, c tom more lies from them u could go on an on. They were one of d parties also advocating a yes.vote for lisbon and look at what shit we are in now! They havent even got a back up plan, they are spending all this money on advisors who can only see one option to this mess, a bunch of idiots! I have read a lot i diff peoples views on how we can get out of this maybe you should start researching this then taken what angela merkel (enda is only her irish puppet) says as gospel! Austerity is necessary nobody is saying any different it is the way they are doing it still protecting the rich!

Aisling,

I would strongly advise you to read the paragraphyjust above your response. They may have been posted just seconds apart.

If you promised someone something, but you know the consequences of breaking your promise to that person would be better than the consequences of keeping the promise, would you still keep the promise? I wouldn’t.

You’d effectively be screwing someone over just so you could look that person in the eye and say you kept your promise.

:)

well tom they have broken every single election promise ….no sign of endas 5 point plan…they are a bunch of hypocritic liars…they have lost the trust of the people….and it would not surprise me if they are somehow connected to these unknown bond holders …kenny and co are nothing but LIARS…..they are not a peoples gov like promised

Matrin,

When a good FF man like yourself (yes I looked at your Facebook profile) calls someone else a liar, I’ll take that as a compliment.

Now go away and don’t re-enter Irish politics until after we’ve repaired all the damage which you guys have done.

By the way Martin, just so you know, if you have a pension, then you are probably a bondholder yourself. Most pensions in Ireland would at some stage invest in bonds, both corporate and sovereign. :)

But like all FFers, I suspect you just gloss over things like that. :)

Correct Tom, most pension funds would have made investments in bonds. Most well run pension funds would have sold on those bonds (at a possible loss) once they saw there was a danger in Ireland defaulting around the time when the interest rate we were paying on the open market was heading for 7% Maybe you and the ECB can see the logic in paying someone who bought bonds at say 10 cent for every € being paid 100% of the bonds full value I must admit I cannot.

Tom, even tho our views are polar opposite I like ur arrogance, it makes me laugh and reminds me why I would never vote fg (or ff…ever). Anyway, I thought that too about the pension funds but I have since found out that the pensions/widows/orphans argument is not true. Will find the article for you.

Found it…
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/10/who-are-the-bond-holders-we-are-bailing-out/

Very convincing Niamh….apart from one small hitch. Virtually every company listed on your link is an asset management company which manages pensions. ROFLMAO

Btw that was a side issue and you couldn’t even get that right. :)

Presume you acknowledge that the ECB decreed that unsecured bondholders get repaid.

As I said you make me laugh :)…Tom, come.on now….did you actually read it? the article explains or exposes the fact that these companies have little or no interest in.pensions and are actually wealth funds. maybe try reading the article this time.

Lol Elaine. I see you didn’t even acknowledge the point about the ECB so just wondering if you are giving up on that.

On the secondary point about whether we say to pensions, mutual funds and even those pesky hedge “tough luck guys, bad invrstment’ I have no philosophical objections. Just want you to know that some ultimate investors will be pensions. :)

Also I would love to know what a “wealth fund” is. Lol. Would a mutual into which someone invests 2k per annum be a “wealth fund”? :)

Looking forward to your respone…I can feel a Jim Corr reply coming.

Have a good weekend.

Tim, who is Elaine? are you debating with someone on the side???? Shame on you :) And I trusted you!!!

I have no problem accepting that the ECB ‘forced’ us into paying off the bondholders, but what do we have politicians for…oh yeah that’s it, to do what is right for the people they represent not to do as they are told by some unelected bureaucrats. Nice try tho trying to distance FG from their responsibility, doesn’t work! You can sit and pretend to yourself that you have all the answers and that the failings of this country are caused by previous governments (don’t disagree with you there) but FG are not doing too hot a job either. You can also pretend that the problem is that the plebs don’t understand the issues and therefore are not capable of thinking for themselves or come up with any solutions, that isn’t working. People are more educated and aware about what is going on now than ever before. The day of keeping people in the dark and letting on that the politicians have all the answers are gone. We see through the motivations….money, power and a nice fat pension at the end.

So you accept that the ECB were in a position to dictate our future lending terms when we had no money and your strategy was….sorry but I missed that in your reply.

Let’s role play. I’ll be JC Trichet and you can be Joe Higgins.

JC: So M Higgins, you want a multi billion euro loan beforr your money runs out. In return we want 5.8% and you don’t let any bank fail. Agreed?