RUN TO THE DÁIL

BLOG:             http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.com/

ONLINE PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11

TWITTER:         @ballyhea14

FACEBOOK PAGE:   Ballyhea bondholder bailout protest

May 23^rd 2011

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – RUN TO THE DÁIL

I hate running, absolutely hate running, and a few weeks off 57, after decades of abuse on various hurling/rugby fields and even more various construction sites, the body is in poor repair, the joints badly rusted, bits falling off here and there.  But I said I’d do it, I will do it, hand-deliver the anti-bondholder-bailout petition to the Dáil, on foot from Ballyhea to Dublin, running from town to town but with a protest march down every main street along the way, culminating in Dublin on the Friday morning.

DAY 1 – TUESDAY MAY 31^st

START  FROM – TO        DISTANCE (m) ARRIVAL

07.00  Ballyhea/Charleville            5.5            08.00

08.15  Charleville/Banogue             8.8            09.45

10.00  Banogue/Croom                   3.1            10.30

10.45  Croom/Patrickswell              6.7            12.00

12.15  Patrickswell/Limerick           6.6            13.30

14.00  Limerick/Birdhill               12.3           16.00

16.15  Birdhill/Nenagh                 12.5           18.15

                                       55.5               

DAY 2 – WEDNESDAY JUNE 1^st

08.00  Nenagh/Toomevara                7.3            09.30

09.45  Toomevara/Moneygall             4.1            10.30

10.45  Moneygall/Dunkerrin             3.2            11.30

11.45  Dunkerrin/Roscrea               5.5            12.45

13.00  Roscrea/Borris-in-Ossory        7.4            14.30

14.45  Borris-in-Ossory/Mountrath      8.5            16.15

16.30  Mountrath/Portlaoise            8.4            18.00

                                       43.5               

DAY 3 – THURSDAY JUNE 2^nd

08.00  Portlaoise/Ballybrittas         9.0            09.30

09.45  Ballybrittas/Monasterevin       3.9            10.30

10.45  Monasterevin/Kildare            6.6            12.00

12.30  Kildare/Newbridge               5.6            13.30

13.45  Newbridge/Naas                  6.7            15.00

15.15  Naas/Rathcoole                  10.4           17.15

17.30  Rathcoole/Dublin                10.3           19.16

                                       52.5               

DAY 4 – FRIDAY JUNE 3^rd

12.00  Parnell Square/Kildare Street   1.3            13.00

                                       152.8 miles total  

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

Ballyhea protest - our 12th march

ONLINE PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11

FACEBOOK PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ballyhea-bondholder-bailout-protest/162154057174719

TWITTER:        @ballyhea14

May 22nd 2011

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – OUR 12^th WEEKLY MARCH

And then the rains came down.  Storm clouds over the parish all morning, high winds, heavy rain, and yet, just after 10am and just before we were to meet – as usual – at around 10.15 in the church car-park, a break in the weahter that lasted just long enough for our little protest march to follow its usual route up to the speed-limit sign and back.  And then, yes…

Almost three full months we’ve been marching now, 12 weeks, and we wonder – are we making any impression?  Why is it that even as the protests in Spain are – finally – making headlines here, this long-running protest by one community against the ECB-decreed bondholder bailout, our attempts to spread that protest nation-wide, are ignored?

Next Sunday we go on tour, headed for Thurles and the Cork/Tipp Munster senior hurling championship opener; 12 noon, meet in the car-park around the corner from Lar Corbett’s/Coppingers (the road to Semple Square from the square), then once around the square, and off we go to the match.  Please, join us.  If you're with a GAA club in either county, pass this around, share it, march with us.

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

SHEEPLE OR PEOPLE?

May 19th 2011

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – our 12^th march this Sunday – SHEEPLE OR PEOPLE?

Just back after a few days in France with my brother Paddy and his partner Pilar, both grieving the loss of their baby daughter last week; gave me time to take stock of my own situation, my obsession for the past six months and more with the bondholder bailout protest, the time and energy devoted to it, and I considered the old Jesuit philosophy – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I’ve made a few daunting decisions over the years: Emigrate to London before my 17^th birthday, June 1970 (flee to England, more like, from the wrath of my oul' fella, knowing full well that in the days before ‘free’ education, I hadn’t got anything near the Leaving Cert results needed for the expected university scholarship); join the Irish Army in 1972, risk losing three years for the opportunity of getting into the Ordnance Survey; emigrate to New York in 1984 when the bottom fell out of the construction industry here; leave wife and kids to go back to New York in 1994 on my own for a couple of years when things still hadn’t picked up here and the savings from the first stint in the States were almost gone; switch careers in 1998 from construction to journalism, just when construction was taking off again.

All those decisions, however, were personal, affected only myself and my family; this bondholder protest is bigger than any of them, affects this entire nation now and for at least one generation to come.  To protest, to fight, wasn’t a decision at all really, it was in my nature.  I’ve never allowed myself to be bullied, have shipped some serious punishment over the years in standing up to individuals and groups bigger and stronger than myself.  In my nature also, however, is intelligence, and so, the Jesuit thinking.

I’ve done everything I can think of to do over the past several months to try and bring this issue to the people; letters to every media outlet print/radio/TV that I can access, mails likewise; texts to all my contacts, to my friends, to acquaintances; phonecalls, meetings, house-to-house pamphleting, and all the while reading – so much reading! – to try and inform myself of what was happening.  Set up a blog, a Twitter account (me, a bloody tweeter, @ballyhea14), a Facebook page (Ballyhea says no to bondholder bailout), an online petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11), hours and hours of every day devoted to the protest, everything else bar my job taking a back seat.  But, I have a wife, I have kids, I have family, I have a life.  Everything I’ve done so far has failed miserably to spread this protest, to galvanise people into standing up for themselves.  Two more rolls of the dice and if that doesn’t work, that’s it, then I take a back seat myself.  We will continue to march every week in Ballyhea but I'll leave it to someone with a lot more clout, a lot more eloquence and a lot more energy to take up the cause nationally.

First, May 29^th, Ballyhea Bondholder Bailout Protest march goes on tour, to Thurles for the Cork/Tipp Munster championship match, 12 noon, once around the famous square; then, two days later, Tuesday May 31^st, start the run/walk from Ballyhea to the Dáil (town to town, via Limerick city, c. 150 miles on foot, going to be painful) to deliver whatever names we have on the petition, which looks to scrap the deal of November last, or to at least hold a referendum on the terms of that deal.

So, sheeple or people?  €35bn of bonds still to be fought for, do we continue to bow to the demands of the ECB or do we march?  Lord knows we’ve bleated – and are still bleating - to the heavens high but we’re also still being shepherded along by Frankfurt and its barking dogs, our own government ministers.  Penned in, do we wait to see where they’re going to herd us next, or do we move?  Sheeple or people, people?

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

Bitter searching of the heart

From bitter searching of the heart

Leonard Cohen sings from his new album "Dear Heather".
Words by Frank Scott (1899-1985)
Music by Leonard Cohen

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.

The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.

Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part.

300 men and three men

BLOG: http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.com/

ONLINE PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11

May 13th 2011

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – SUNDAY 10.30am - 11^th MARCH

In all its uglier guises I hate nationalism.  Benign nationalism is fine, e.g. beating England at anything (so long as we can enjoy each other’s good company – over a few pints maybe – before, during and after), the surge of national pride felt when someone like Katie Taylor steps on to the podium to receive another gold medal.  But chest-beating nationalism, as in ‘the best little nation in the world,’ or ‘the most hospitable nation in the world,’ or the wittiest or the wisest or whatever you're having yourself – must have been away when all those particular competitions were held.  As for the tattooed, in-your-face, aggressive nationalism – keep it, and welcome to it.

There are occasions, however, when we have to stand up as a nation, times of national crisis; now is one of those occasions.

In November 2010, when the ECB demanded of our government that as a condition of getting the much-needed funds to keep the country running in the face of a massive budget deficit, they would also have to assume the massive bank/bondholder debt, it represented an attack on this country.  No shots fired, no bombs dropped, no blood spilt, but an attack nevertheless, a potentially lethal attack at that.

To coincide with the 95^th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly there was a protest in Kildare Street on Thursday evening last outside the Dáil against that bondholder bailout deal, small in number, and I couldn't help but wonder – how many of those inside those gates today would do as Connolly did then, put themselves in the line of fire for the sake of their country’s freedom and independence?  Successive governments have failed us, so on this, we must stand for ourselves.

The opening lines of the opening verse of that song, A Nation Once Again, has always resonated with me: ‘When boyhood’s fire was in my blood, I read of ancient freemen; of Greece and Rome who bravely stood, 300 men and three men.’  The 300 we all know about now, Leonidas and his Spartans - the power of modern media; of Horatius and his two companions who held the bridge over the Tiber, saved Rome from the army of Clusium, less is known.  Both, however, were instances of a few standing against overwhelming odds, a delaying action.  Well, only a few are standing now against the actions of the ECB; in Ballyhea, in Fermoy, in Dublin on Thursday last, in a few other areas around the country.  Until such time as this nation awakens to what has been done to it, until it rallies to its own cause, we will stay standing, and we will stay fighting.  We must.

Then out spake brave Horatius,

          The Captain of the Gate:

     "To every man upon this earth

          Death cometh soon or late.

     And how can man die better

          Than facing fearful odds,

     For the ashes of his fathers,

          And the temples of his gods.”

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

10th March report, 11th march promo

ONLINE PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – 10^th MARCH

Our 10^th march took place last Sunday, May 8^th, a good core in place now.  We’ve been so lucky so far weather-wise and even on a weekend when the skies darkened and the heavens opened, with monsoon-like rains, the clouds lifted just long enough for us to complete our usual march, from car-park to speed-limit sign and back.  Suggests that while those to whom we are appealing down here are still turning a deaf ear, someone up there is listening, and approves of our efforts!

To again outline our protest: It is strictly non-party-political, no paraphernalia of any description, the tricolour the only flag allowed, our own banner front and back of the march the only banners; it is single-issue, we demand the annulment of the deal struck under duress (Brian Lenihan’s own admission) by the then Irish government with the IMF/ECB in November of last year, the bank bondholder debt subsequently treated as it ought to have been treated then, those bondholders to suffer their own pain.

Our 11^th march takes place in Ballyhea again this Sunday, at the now regular time of 10.30am.  This is your opportunity, perhaps your only real opportunity, to make a tangible statement on the massive injustice that has been visited on every individual in this country.  We’re a tiny voice, and we are crying into a wilderness of sorts, but we must keep trying.  The alternative is to simply roll over and invite further abuse.

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

Paddy Honohan, comedian

Picked this up off Constantin Gurdgiev's twitter (a man worth following, believe me), thought ye might like a laugh. From a paper produced by our main man at the Central Bank, the patriot Paddy Honohan, in September 2000.  Look particularly to the final two paragraphs.

WP'S ZLf I

POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 2441

Controlling Fiscal Costs of Banking Crises

Patrick Honohan and Daniela Klingebiel

The World Bank*

I. Introduction

In recent decades, a majority of countries - rich and poor alike – have experienced a systemic banking crisis, requiring a major - and expensive - overhaul of their banking system. Not only do banking crises hit the budget with outlays that have to be absorbed by higher taxation (or spending cuts), but they are also costly in terms of foregone economic output.

Many different policy recommendations have been made for limiting the cost of crises; but there has been little systematic effort to see whether these recommendations work in practice. This paper attempts to bridge that gap. Specifically, we seek to quantify

the extent to which fiscal outlays incurred in resolving banking system distress can be attributed to crisis management measures of a particular kind adopted by the government during the early years of the crisis. We do this by analyzing forty crises around the world for which we have data. This data includes information on costs and on the nature of the resolution and intervention policy.

We find that fiscal costs are systematically associated with a set of crisis management strategies. Our empirical findings reveal that unlimited deposit guarantees, open-ended liquidity support, repeated recapitalizations, debtor bail-outs and regulatory forbearance add significantly and sizably to costs (isn't this exactly what the ECB - Honohan its Irish Central Bank rep - forced our government to do? - DO'F). 

Using the regression results to simulate the effects of these policies, we find that if countries had not extended unlimited deposit guarantees, open-ended liquidity support, repeated recapitalizations, debtor bailouts and regulatory forbearance, average fiscal costs in our sample could have been limited to about 1 per cent of GDI' - little more than a tenth of what was actually experienced. On the other hand, policy could have been worse: had countries engaged in all of the above policies the regression results imply that fiscal costs in excess of 60 per cent of GDP would have been the result (my italics, but again, isn't this exactly what was mandated here by the ECB, and isn't this what's happening, our debt/GDP ratio rising out of sight??? - DO'F).