Please Read and Share This morning in Parliament I got a chance to make a one-minute contribution, on the topic of the report of the Ombudsman (Ms Emily OReilly) for 2013. Youve got to take every opportunity… First, congratulations on your reappointment and best wishes on your continued work. I would like to bring to your attention a matter thats being totally ignored by the Irish media - the destruction of thousands of millions of euro. It began in March 2011 when €3bn was destroyed, resumed last year with the destruction of a further €1bn in two tranches of €500m each. This obscenity is the legacy of the bailout in 2010 of the failed institutional investors in two failed non-systemic Irish banks, Anglo and Irish Nationwide, desperate measures taken by a panic-stricken Irish government/Irish Central Bank/ECB troika in what were admittedly desperate times for the euro and the eurozone. It served its purpose, bought some time for the euro, prevented the onset of the feared contagion had those banks been allowed fail. There WAS fallout, however, the insistence by the ECB that because the Irish Central Bank printed that money, they must now take it back out of circulation. And so you have this obscene situation where a broke, hugely-indebted country where the austerity programme has already wrought havoc - especially among those who can least afford it - is forced to borrow thousands of millions, to destroy. The social repercussions of the bank bailout cost in Ireland have been horrendous: Record numbers lying on trolleys in hospital corridors; Growing numbers suffering from depression and despair as they are forced into poverty; Growing numbers taking their own lives rather than continue in this new living hell; Quarter of a million of those aged between 18 and 26 emigrated, our future devastated. The most odious element of it is surely though this Promissory Note debt, not a cent of which went into the Irish public purse. €31bn is €6bn MORE than the entire tax take on income and wealth for Ireland in 2010; would ANY of the bigger countries be forced to do this? I ask you please, as a priority, to have a look at this abomination. THIS IS THE RELEVENT PART OF MS OREILLYS REPLY: I want to thank you all for your contributions, I will take them on board. I just want to make one point about the Troika. Many people have come to me over the last year to see what I can do to investigate the Troika. The Troika is not an EU body per se, even though the ECB and the EU Commission are critical parts of it. What I have said to individual MEPs is that if they wish to work with me, if there is a particular issue or facet of the work by the Troika as it relates to an EU institution that they feel I can legitimately investigate, then that is something that Id be very happy to do. At the moment, as the Irish members know, there is an investigation into the banking collapse that led to the financial crisis in Ireland, theyre trying to get the ECB over to explain itself to the Irish people and well see how that evolves. THIS LADY MEANS BUSINESS, AND SO DO I!
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:48:39 +0000
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