WEEK 76 - TAKING THE BALLYHEA PROTEST TO DUBLIN

August 14th 2012

Emerging from cavernous Croke Park at around nine o’clock last Sunday evening, all the All-Ireland hurling semi-final work for the Irish Examiner tucked up and put to bed (that’s ‘tucked’ up!), I was heading to my car when hailed by a guy along the way. He had been there for a while he told me, waiting for me to emerge, knowing I would have to pass where he was parked because he had noted my car further on with all the ‘Ballyhea Says No To Bondholder Bailout’ stickers.

He was waiting so he could apologise, apologise for a remark he had made several hours earlier when passing our little group as we were getting our picture taken in front of Croke Park, having marched from the Garden of Remembrance.

It wasn’t his true form, he explained, wasn’t his true feeling either; far from disparaging what we were doing he respected us, even supported us in principle. I accepted the apology of course, fully and without reservation.

Truth be told, though I had heard the comments and noted the speaker it hadn’t bothered me, not in the slightest. Over the last 76 weeks those of us who have been marching every week in protest at the extortion of tens of billions of euro from us by EU/ECB have become used to every kind of criticism, have become inured to every kind of disparaging remark.

This isn’t to say we’ve become pros at this protesting lark – far from it. We’re all so far out of our comfort-zones now that we’re going to need assimilation courses to get back to normality when all this is finally over. Many times over the past 16 months my guts have been in knots as I waited for our next move to unfold – sit-down protests on the main Cork/Limerick road, Run To The Dáil, a week-long bread-and-water fast, the ECB HQ protest in Frankfurt. Last Sunday in Dublin was no exception. 

Unable to make the Ballyhea protest because of the All-Ireland hurling semi-final in Croke Park (for those who don’t know, I work for the sport section of the Irish Examiner), I had decided at the last minute to bring a branch of the protest to Dublin, meet at the Garden of Remembrance at 11.30am, the same time they were meeting in Ballyhea, then set off at noon for Croke Park. At that appointed hour, I can tell ye, 11.30am, the Garden of Remembrance was a hell of a lonely place!

A few people did turn up, and I'm so grateful to them – so should be the whole country. We marched, got a lot of bemused looks, a few shouts of support, and yes, some disparaging words. But in spite of it all we march, because we know, now more than ever, that our cause is just.

At the end of June and to much fanfare, our media proclaimed a great deal for Ireland – the Eurozone leaders had met and from that summit was issued a statement which began with these immortal words: ‘We affirm that it is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns.’ This is an admission that the policy which had been forced on Ireland hadn’t worked, had in fact seen us caught in this ‘vicious circle between banks and sovereigns’.

In the next few weeks, to absolutely no fanfare, that vicious circle continues, a €600,000,000 bond from Anglo on September 3rd, then a billion-euro bond – yes, that’s €1,000,000,000, would fund a lot of gold medals – on October 1^st, this one from AIB. We own both those banks, that’s our money, and this scandal is still going on.

That’s why we march, that’s why we risk derision, even from our own friends and neighbours. We don’t ‘cod’ ourselves about either our size or our impact but neither do we care; some day everyone else will awaken to what the EU/ECB is doing to us, the people of this little nation. It's not just wrong, it's not just bullying, it's criminal; it is extortion, it is larceny, it is blackmail, tens of billions of public funds (€69.6bn so far) being diverted to bail out failed private banks and their failed private bondholders. It’s a crime being perpetrated by the EU/ECB against one of its smallest member states at a time when that state is at its most vulnerable.

This Sunday, Aug 19th 2012, we’ll meet again at the Garden of Remembrance, 11.30am, in solidarity with the march back home in Ballyhea and Charleville, and we’ll march again, at noon, to Croke Park. We wouldn't mind a few extra with us, however, wouldn't mind at all!

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

WEEK 75 - The flyer; feel free to print and post!

Ballyhea/Charleville Bondholder Bailout Protest

Upcoming Event

This Sunday 5^th August at 11:30am

Town Plaza, Charleville

              

              Mr Stephen Donnelly TD                         Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev

To mark the 75^th Week of Protest Marches against the ongoing payments to bondholders we are delighted to announce we will be joined by Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev (Economist) and Mr. Stephen Donnelly (Ind. TD Wicklow) amongst others, who will discuss the inequity of the payment of those bonds. We will commence proceedings with our usual short march and then move to The Charleville Park Hotel for speeches and discussion.

PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR IRELAND 

HELP SHAPE IRELAND'S FUTURE 

JOIN US

WEEK 75 MEDIA NOTIFICATION

Ballyhea

Charleville

Co. Cork

Aug 2nd 2012

Ref: WEEK 75 BALLYHEA/CHARLEVILLE BANK BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST MARCH

Dear Sir/Madam;

It began on March 6^th 2011, the weekend after the General Election when Fine Gael leader and prospective Taoiseach Enda Kenny indicated, even before he had formed a government, that he would be going back on his pre-election promise of burden-sharing with the bondholders; 75 weeks later it’s still going strong.

Ballyhea is a rural parish in north Cork on the main Cork/Limerick road, has a population of around 1,000 souls, Charleville the nearest town, has a population of around 3,500. Sixteen weeks into our protest a group from Charleville followed our example and began marching in the town; several weeks after that we joined forces and since then we’ve alternated the march between the two centres, every second Sunday in each place. This week it’s the turn of Charleville, gathering at the Library Plaza at 11.30am.

We will be joined this week by well-known economist Dr Constantin Gurdgiev (his third march) and by highly respected Independent Wicklow TD Stephen Donnelly (his first outing), along with several other high-profile individuals. After the march, which lasts for only about 15 minutes, Constantin and Stephen will host a discussion at the Park Hotel, on the outskirts of the town.

With the recent statement from the Leaders’ Summit, ‘We affirm that it is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns’, the EU has admitted that its policy of the past few years as forced on Ireland, the conversion of private bank debt to sovereign debt, was wrong, has to be changed.  In Ballyhea/Charleville, we’ve been protesting that wrong for 75 weeks. 

This admission by the EU is welcome, very welcome. However – and this point is critical – it doesn’t right the wrong, it merely acknowledges it. We can’t undo the massive damage done to the Irish economy and to Ireland’s reputation as a result of the EU/ECB policy over the past few years; we must do our damnedest, however, to get back the billions we were blackmailed into  pumping into our failed banks to enable them to pay the failed bonds (a practice, by the way, that continues unabated - €19bn in bonds from Irish banks this year alone).

So we march, 75 weeks now. It’s not Olympic-standard endurance but we are in search of gold, our gold, and until we see this wrong righted, until we see action as opposed to rhetoric, we’ll continue to march. We invite anyone in the area to please join with us this Sunday. This is not just Ballyhea’s fight, nor just Charleville’s fight – it’s YOUR fight, it’s everyone’s fight, right across Europe.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

THE EURO AREA SUMMIT STATEMENT INTERPRETED

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED

Per this document, the EU/ECB policy whereby every bondholder in every bank in every country will be paid in full still stands but now (at their discretion), directly through the ESM mechanism. Who funds the ESM? Why we do, all those nations that have signed up to it, so the bank debt is still being transferred to public shoulders. That is STILL wrong, the bondholders SHOULD still be made to take their own pain, but let’s leave that aside for another day.

THE CHANGE

We affirm that it is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns. With that one short sentence the EU has finally acknowledged that the policy it has adopted for the past four years, the policy whereby Ireland has been blackmailed into pumping €67.8bn of public money into failed private banks (mostly to enable them to pay failed bondholders in European, British and American banks), has failed, is wrong.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Mario Monti (Italy) and Mariano Rajoy (Spain) did what our Taoisigh Brian Cowen and Enda Kenny didn’t have the guts to do, they stood up to Angela Merkel and to the ECB and said ‘NO!’ to bank debt being made sovereign debt. If the ECB wants those bonds paid and those banks bailed out, said Mario and Mariano, then they will have do so themselves through the various mechanisms (EFSF, ESM) set up to deal with such emergencies. The subsequent debt will be bank debt, owed by those individual banks; critically, it will NOT be sovereign debt, it will not be owed by either Spain or Italy.

WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT MUST NOW DO

Monti and Rajoy have opened a door for us, we must storm through. No more pussy-footing – we’ve seen where that has left us. Even the 'Ireland' clause Enda is so excited about that was inserted – The Eurogroup will examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with the view of further improving the sustainability of the well-performing adjustment programme. Will someone please explain to me what the blazes that actually means? As someone whose stock-in-trade these days is the written word I see only vague gobbledegook. If it had been along the lines of ‘The Eurogroup accepts that what was done in Ireland is wrong and will now right that wrong’ then yes, that’s clear, concise language. But the statement above?

WHAT WE MUST DO

We must march, we must protest what was done to us, we must demand our money back. How much money?

• c.€21bn taken from our National Pension Reserve Fund;
• €31bn in Promissory Notes, two of which have already been paid, €6.2bn of our money destroyed by our own Central Bank;
• c.€12bn borrowed from the ECB itself to fund the banks;
• €5bn "state aid so far" from Nama to the banks; 
• All interest paid so far on the money we borrowed; 
• All interest lost on the money taken from the Pension Fund.

SUMMARY

There’s an expression in sport, in life – ‘you make your own luck’. What we’ve been given is a Lotto ticket but unlike the real Lotto we can work to ensure a win here, we can make our own luck. 

Firstly, we must know that those who are negotiating on our behalf are demanding all the above, and it is NOT acceptable to be told – as we were again my Junior Minister Brian Hayes this week – that this will be kept secret. ‘Paddy likes to know’ – remember that remark by Enda Kenny? Well, tell us, because based on what you've done so far we just don’t trust ye anymore. 

After the Greek bailout deal Ireland got a subsequent cut in interest rates, a cut we had repeatedly failed to negotiate for ourselves but which fell into our laps as a result of the deal done for Greece – this government claimed it as a triumph of their negotiating strategy. After this Euro Summit Statement Enda Kenny claimed a similar great negotiating victory for Ireland – neither was any such thing. We’re in the bind we’re in vis-à-vis the additional bank debt burden because of our passivity, we have this opportunity now because of the courage of others.

Now more than ever we ourselves, the people, need to make our voices heard. An opportunity has been presented to us, we must grasp it, we must become active. In Ballyhea and Charleville we’ll continue to march, we’ll continue to keep up the pressure. This Sunday, week 71, we’re in Charleville, meeting at the Library Plaza at 11.30am. Join us.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

RAISING GENERATIONS OF DEBT-SLAVES AND EMIGRANTS

On Sunday last we in the Ballyhea/Charleville Says No group marched for the 69^th week in protest at the continuing bank bondholder bailout. In the march with us was 6-month-old Patrick O’Brien, brought along by his parents John and Clara, who in turn had been alerted to our protest by John’s parents Pat and Frances.

Patrick O'Brien, b. Jan 2nd 2012

  

On Monday Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) paid out two bonds which between them came to over €600,000,000; on Tuesday and Wednesday, Anglo pay out two bonds which between them come to over €500,000,000. Both those banks are zombie banks, now owned entirely by us, kept open for the single purpose of paying off bonds; all four of those bonds are unsecured, unguaranteed.

Here's what Michael Noonan said about the bank bailout in the Dáil just two months before becoming Minister for Finance: "The Minister for Finance (Brian Lenihan) reduced social welfare payments, punished the blind, disabled, widows, carers and the unemployed and he taxed the poorest at work, and for what? It was so that the taxpayer can take on liability for debts the country never incurred and arose from private arrangements between private institutions. What a disaster and an obscenity."

Here’s what the same Michael Noonan said a couple of months into his tenure as Minister for Finance, in an RTE interview in the US with Richard Downes: “I put my cards face up on the table, saying, ‘Look, it’s no longer a bank. Anglo is now merged with Irish Nationwide. It’s a warehouse for impaired assets. Its deposit base has been moved out into the pillar banks. And it doesn’t work as a bank anymore. You can’t put your money on deposit in Anglo Irish. You can’t get a loan from Anglo Irish. So the only thing that gives it the name of a bank is because it has a banking license. It needs the banking license to access the monies from the Central Bank. So I said that as far as I am concerned, this is not a real bank. This is a warehouse, and we need your assistance in dealing with the senior bond holders because we don’t think the Irish taxpayer should have to redeem what has become speculative investment.”

On Monday I was 59 which puts me in the same generation as Michael Noonan, Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte, the same generation as Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan of the previous government. I look at the legacy my generation is passing on to the generation of John and Clara O’Brien, to the generation of young Patrick O’Brien. And I am ashamed, ashamed and angered. Instead of confronting a problem that is of this generation – even if not fully created by ourselves – we have allowed ourselves to be blackmailed and bullied into a situation where we are now raising generations of debt-slaves and/or emigrants. 

My own kids are aged 23 and 21 and the liklihood as of now is that for most of their working lives they will be paying off this massive bank debt, with interest. As things stand, and if you too are of this generation, this is our legacy to them, the result of the inept, incompetent and - worst of all - spineless governance by our own.

You CAN do something about it. With €30bn of Promissory Notes to be fought for, with €50bn in bank bonds yet to be paid, this war is far from over. Join us. March with us in Ballyhea and Charleville or start your own march. But protest, take a stand. Before it IS too late.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

BALLYHEA BANK BONDHOLDER BAILOUT FLYER

BALLYHEA/CHARLEVILLE WEEKLY PROTEST

THE NUMBERS 

 (NOTE: A billion euro, €1,000,000,000 =  500 Lotto wins) 

•  €109.7bn    Bank bond payments 30/09/08 to 30/06/12
•   €39.9bn  Bank bond payments 30/06/12 to 31/12/15
• €149.6bn  Total bank bond payments 30/09/08 to 31/12/15
•  €67.8bn  Bank recapitalisation – what we’ve paid to date
  
• €14,799  INDIVIDUAL BAILOUT COST FOR EVERY IRISH RESIDENT
•   €44bn   Possible future exposure (per Namawinelake)

THE FALLOUT

                2008    Mar 2012   DIFF

National Debt  €43.9bn    €169.0bn   + €125.1bn

Pension Fund   €21.2bn      €5.8bn   –  €15.4bn

Unemployment    6.3%       14.5%     +  8.2%

Emigration:  111/day, 3,330/month,  40,500/yr

             At its highest since the 1840s and 

             the Great Hunger.

Human cost:  Immeasurable

Page 2

THE HISTORY: The major banks of Europe’s so-called core (Germany, France etc.) were owed tens of billions of euro by Irish banks, hundreds of billions by the banks and/or governments of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy. In Ireland’s case it was private debt, every cent, but the ECB feared ‘contagion’ if an Irish bank defaulted; it decided that every bond would have to be paid in full.

THE ECB’s SOLUTION: Abusing its financial muscle it coerced a weak Irish government into converting what had been private debt to sovereign debt.

HOW IT WORKS: The ECB lends billions to the Irish exchequer which gives it to the Irish banks (that’s the €67.6bn to date - overleaf) which pay the bonds and VOILA! What was once private bank debt has become sovereign debt and without ever even being asked, YOU have a debt of €14,799.

MARCH WITH US: Every Sunday, alternate between Ballyhea (the church) and Charleville (the Library Plaza) , meet at 11.30am, 15 minute walk.

FURTHER DETAILS:   

Facebook page - Ballyhea bondholder bailout protest

TWITTER:         @ballyhea14

BLOG 1:          http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.com 

BLOG 2:          http://thechatteringmagpie14.blogspot.com

NOONAN'S 'WHERE'S THE PEA' CON-JOB ON P-NOTE 2012 COMPLETE

And so, the trick is complete, Minister Noonan's 'where's the pea' con-job on the Promissory Note for 2012 sold to the Irish public as a 'deal' that has postponed payment. The mainstream media has been mesmerised by all the sleight of hand of the past few months – where exactly did Michael slip that €3.1bn?

Our man 'Marcel-so-what' at the BofI EGM on Monday morning

Now we know. On Monday Bank of Ireland finally held their EGM and decided by an overwhelming majority (I think the final vote was over 99% 'for') to buy from NAMA the sovereign bond it (NAMA) had been ordered by Minister Noonan to purchase from Minister Noonan, a bond which will 'mature' in 2025. Well they would, wouldn't they? Bank of Ireland will simply take the cheap money on offer from the ECB (ah, generous selfless people, those ECB bankers), then charge the government (that's us, people) a nice little mark-up to assume this bond. Their annual take? Oh, around €38m - money for jam.

While all this has been happening though, all this moving around of the 'cups' to distract people, what has happened to the pea, or in this case, what has happened to the P Note of €3.1bn? Why, it's gone! Anglo took from NAMA the €3.1bn given to them of OUR money (thanks...), in turn gave it to our Central Bank (thanks again...) who in turn, and by order of the ECB (did I mention them earlier?), destroyed that money. Every cent of it. Thus was the Promissory Note of 2012 paid, in full.

The deal? A sordid, shameful episode of 'financial engineering' (get used to that term) whereby a problem debt of this generation's creation that was eminently arguable has been transformed into a sovereign bond, but a bond that will be paid by the NEXT generation, when Minister Noonan and his friends are long gone from office.

We've been conned, people, and even as we speak the same Minister Noonan and HIS people are looking to pull a similar con-job on us on the remaining P Notes, taking today's problem and very arguable debt and transforming it into sovereign bonds to be paid by our children, and possibly even by our children's children. Is that how you would conduct your own affairs?

Meanwhile we continue to bail out the failed bank bondholders. Next week we pay four bonds, two each from the rotting corpses of Anglo and INBS, all four totally unsecured, coming to a total of over €1bn. My friends, we have been locked in a dance of death with those zombies. Time to break free. Join us in our protest in Ballyhea and Charleville, every Sunday. This week (week 69 – 16 months!) we’re in Charleville, meeting at the Library Plaza at 11.30am – plenty of time to march and still make the throw-in in Páirc Uí Chaoimh!

Regards,

Diarmuid O’Flynn

@ballyhea14

http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.com

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