In the course of debates with the
Fine Gael candidates during the recent election the same two points were raised
again and again by all three of Seán Kelly, Deirdre Clune and Simon Harris (Phil
Prendergast of Labour didn’t bring it up), two points that both Fine Gael and
Labour spokespeople also brought up again and again over the last year and
more.
Both fall well short of the full
truth.
‘THE PROMISSORY NOTES ARE GONE’
In February last year, and in his
own words of explanation to the Dáil recently, Michael Noonan ‘exchanged’ the Promissory
Notes for Sovereign Bonds. Only the actual notes – the paper on which was
written that debt – was destroyed; the remaining €25bn debt on the Promissory
Notes remained exactly as it was, in full. So yes, the notes themselves are
gone; the debt they were covering is still there, every cent.
‘WE SAVED THE COUNTRY €20bn’
If you buy an item reduced from
€30 to €10 you have saved yourself €20; if you buy that same €30 item for €10
but have the remaining €20 paid over the next three years with interest, such
that it will now cost an additional €60, that is NOT a saving, it’s deferred
payment.
In essence that is what happened
in the Noonan Promissory Notes deal. As explained above we have exactly the
same debt; under the old arrangement the bulk of that would be paid over the
next ten years; under the Noonan deal those payments for the next ten years are
reduced but they are then loaded on for the following 30 years.
In total, over the 40-yr lifetime
of the Noonan deal, the €25bn becomes an estimated €72bn, some of which reverts
to ourselves (complicated story…) but around €60bn goes to private investors.
Possibly even many of the same people whom we are forced to bail out when Anglo
Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide were issued with the original €31bn.
THE QUESTION FINE GAEL REFUSED TO ANSWER
None of the three candidates
would answer this simple, straight-forward question – what happens to the money
when the first of those Noonan sovereign bonds is sold in the next few months,
all €500,000,000 of it? What happens to the €500,000,000 similarly raised next
year, and the year after and the year after and the year after? What happens to
all €25,000,000,000 thus raised in the coming years?
The answer: It will be burned. A near bankrupt country borrowing billions that were used to bail out two bust banks, then burning those billions - it's an obscenity.
Fianna Fáil/Greens/PDs broke this country; Fine Gael/Labour are breaking its people.
I'm now out of the picture
nationally; I just hope our various journalists in print/radio/TV continue to
ask this question, and no longer allow those Fine Gael and Labour spokespeople
away with what they know is simply untrue.
Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.
