Sinn Féin took a drubbing in the European and Local elections at the weekend but the news isn’t all bad. Here is Eileen Paisley wife of loyalist Dup firebrand Ian Paisley now thinks that the Partition of Ireland was a “wrong division” and she would accept a United Ireland if there was freedom of religion . We should surely manage that ! Maybe a referendum on a United Ireland might go our way in the next five or ten years.
Was watching RTE (this crowd owe me millions in unpaid damages) news at six o’ clock this evening and saw a piece about Nama repaying the “state” some €2 billions euros this year and possibly another €2 billion next year before its wound up likely next year also.
This was reported as positive news, while any repayment of funds is welcome the RTE news reporter didn’t give a overview of how much has been gotten back by Nama. Nama took over € 74 billion in defunct loans from the five major banks, its borrowed money which was kept off the books and it is all owed by the taxpayer it is private debt made public.
One has doubts whether it will stop there either as the national debt or state debt stands at over €211 billion that’s €45,000 for every man, woman and child in the “state”. This debt was recklessly brought on by a Fianna Fail government who despite the “boom” left the country in a far worse state than they got it in 1997. We owe a lot more- €40 billion in late 90’s to over €211 billion in 2019 and haven’t got that much to show for it.
Don’t think Nama is on the books either here. The running of Nama doesn’t inspire confidence as they sold their northern loan book for €1.5 billions when it was worth over € 5 billion. Someone made a “killing” there, i’m sure that’s not the end of it either.
So any one out there know what the “sums” are on Nama ??
Big loss, break even or a gain ?
Now for the news reporting, the journalist who was reporting the item on Nama presented it as “good news” without the overview. He presented it “1984” style as in the film “1984” the chocolate ration is cut from 30grams to 25 grams but they report it as “chocolate ration up to 25 grams” hurray ! The journalist’s report was very similar to “1984” newspeak. That’s my observation anyway.
In light of the European and Local Council elections to be held on Friday 24th May, here something that was to be put to a referendum a few years ago and that is a vote for our emigrants. Ireland (republic) is out of step with our European neighbours in not allowing our emigrants the vote whilst they are away. The English for example allow their citizens/subjects to be absent for up to 15 years whilst still having the vote in United Kingdom elections.
Ireland eschews any form of giving representation to emigrants, Governments in the Republic are know to fear a emigrant vote would lead to their dismissal and alternative governments being formed. Indeed successive Irish governments have encouraged Irish people to leave and seek a livelihood elsewhere in Europe or perhaps the World. (Successive Irish governments have practically shoved Irish people “out the door” by establishing employment offices abroad and encouraging people to leave like ~RTE’s “Better off abroad” , “Making it down under” and so on.)
This is all to cheat people out of a days wages and to ensure that establishment parties are not held to account for the way they run the country. The Landlords of old never had it as good , but we are stuck with the “political landlords of Fianna fail and Fine Gael” for the present anyway. Perhaps the culture of Tweeddledee and Tweedledum represented by Fianna fail and Fine Gael might be coming to an end but I have my doubts.
Here something the Government announced in the last two weeks which has gone down like a lead balloon. No wonder with the news that the Government was splurging out over €3 billion euro with its private partner investing only €220 million initially . The deal is so lopsided In the fact that the private contractor gets to own the rural broadband network after 25 years and the state/ public gets to own nothing after the same period. Basically the public has nothing to show for all the money they have invested. The Government has sought to defend their plan but its not the vote getter they had imagined.
This Government has showed little enthusiasm for the public interest with contracts like the National Maternity Hospital to have the nuns as “sole owners” despite the public paying over €350 million to build it, also the National Children’s Hospital at record overspend at € 1.4 billion and counting upwards .
So why are we basically giving over €3 billion away?
There is loads of projects that need to be done but there is “no money” there to do them or so we are told. Everything seems to cost 3-4 times what they would cost anywhere else. The National Broadband plan is quite pricey and there is cheaper alternatives .
Another point to make is that whose job is it really to roll fibre broadband ? The answer is that its Eircom/Eir’s job to roll out broadband anyway and they have been allowed to bail out on people living in rural area’s and cherry pick by just connecting the towns only.
Its not good practice and eircom/eir shouldn’t have be allowed to “cherry pick” as they have. They (Eircom/Eir )are the national phone company and its the phone network that is being upgraded. Eircom/Eir collect the line rental and should be able to supply broadband services such as video calling, cable tv, music streaming etc … over the new fibre optic rural service to help finance the cost. The present “modus operandi” of Eircom/Eir and people in rural Ireland won’t be connected to a phone service. It shows what a disaster the Eircom privatisation really is.
