Irish Ruled by Lipstick Wearing Pigs.
It’s so incredibly depressing here in Ireland!
A series of lipstick wearing pigs have been trotted out by the Irish media and people are falling for it hook, line and sinker. All hail beautiful lippy pig! We worship and adore you!
A constant parade of pigs including economic ‘recovery’, social house building, rent certainty, profitable banks, enquiries, etc etc have Irish people swooning in awe!
The latest is the confidentiality clause being upheld by the Department of Finance,in relation to the investigation of questionable transactions and deals made by IBRC, (the state bad bank), comprising the uber dodgy Anglo and Irish Nationwide banks. Interestingly in documents procured by Catherine Murphy MP, under the freedom of information acts (after much foot dragging and redaction), the department itself had major concerns over these same transactions. Now the cosmetic inquiry is dead in the water.
Another glossy piggy –
is the fact that barely a mention of allegedly fraudulent behaviour by a Bank of Ireland employee as aired in a Spotlight documentary by BBC NI was hardly discussed here by the media. She allegedly falsified bad debt insurance claims during the administration of Meteor, an electrical wholesaler based in Northern Ireland. The Irish state own a 14% stake in Bank of Ireland. The story was carefully avoided particularly in radio coverage, which is the most popular form of news uptake in Ireland.
EU Fiscal Compact Treaty rules are pushing states like Ireland into the arms of Investment Funds like KKR. The final remnants of our pension reserve fund, now called the ISIF, have been leveraged by the private equity arm of KKR. They are investing in the construction of a small amount of social housing. This is being done to slightly alleviate the worst homelessness crisis ever seen by the state. The new housing bubble and a largely unregulated rental market, (held in main by foreign investors), are creating havoc in people’s lives . Social housing, traditionally a state asset, is now part owned by a private equity firm. All of this in order to keep state investment off balance sheet. I had pointed to the crisis and the emergence of funds investing in Irish property back in 2012 but to no avail.
Currently more than 130, 000 families are recorded as being unable to provide adequate housing for themselves and two families a day are ending up on the streets. (Ireland’s population is equivalent to Seattle). These families are entitled by law to social housing. While they wait up to fifteen years to be housed they are given paltry housing benefits to keep some sort of roof over their heads. Currently the vast majority of social housing is in the process of being, de facto, privatized. New housing benefit rules will force people in receipt of temporary allowances to remove their names from social housing waiting lists on pain of losing their payment. Once off the list they will be deemed adequately housed. The new payment will go straight into the pockets of rack renting private landlords with little security of tenure afforded to the tenants. Nominally they remain on a transfer list whereby they can swop their insecure rental property for a secure council house. (This rarely happens). Duking the stats in this way makes government look good. A third of Irish MPs are also landlords.
Prime minister Enda Kenny now says he fully supports David Cameron’s bid to for the EU to fast track TTIP. Well what else would you expect from a model prisoner?
I could go on and on as the M.O. of robber bandits continue apace, pillaging awestruck Irish citizens who are worshiping the lip stick wearing pig. The current lipsticked piggie puppeteers, the Fine Gael ruling party, are on 30% in the opinion polls as the general election fast approaches.
It’s so bloody depressing!
The curious case of an ‘obsessive’ TD, the state losing millions, and a Denis O’Brien company
Department of Finance defends confidentiality of IBRC documents
Foreign investors control rental market, claims Mick Wallace
Cork City Council: ‘We lack resources for social housing targets’
Bank of Ireland official filmed discussing fraudulent claim
Nearly a third of TDs are landlords – no wonder there is no rent regulation
Fintan O’Toole: Opposition to social housing is matter of ideology not economics
Why could State build housing in hungry 1930s and postwar 1940s but not now?
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