SUMMER SUMMARY - A CRITICAL TIME

Going to be out of action for a few weeks (date with a knife tomorrow, July 17th, old war-wounds that couldn't be ignored any longer!) so a quick update on the Ballyhea campaign.

EUROPEAN ELECTIONS

The recent European elections threw up a very positive result for us, the election of three independents (Luke Ming Flanagan, Nessa Childers and Marian Harkin), now joined by Brian Crowley, all of whom have stated unequivocally that they will be working towards the alleviation of the bank-debt burden on Ireland. Already, since the election, we've been in touch with all those MEPs, have met with a few, and in the coming months we will be working with them on the bank-debt campaign.

Sinn Féin also had a very successful European campaign, returned four MEPs (Liadh Ní Riada, Matt Carthy, Lynn Boylan, Martina Anderson), and Sinn Féin too have indicated that bank-debt writedown for Ireland will be a priority. That's eight Irish MEPs now actively campaigning with and for us (the people, not just this campaign group), a quantum improvement on the previous Parliament.

PLANNED MEETINGS

On Friday week (July 25th), Central Bank governor Patrick Honahan has agreed to meet a delegation which, along with ourselves, will include representatives from those MEPs, plus representatives of the Technical Group in the Dáil.

At the moment we are also pursuing meetings with a) the ECB (accompanied again by elected representatives from both the national the European Parliaments), b) the new chair of ECON and c), representatives from all the major groupings in the new Parliament.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE – IN FACT NEVER MORE TIMELY OR URGENT

For those who believe that it's too late to address the bank-debt, that everything is done and dusted, I can't stress enough - nothing could be further from the truth. In fact it was never more immediate, never more stark, than it is now. Why? The dreaded Promissory Notes, or more accurately, the Promissory Note bonds, the instruments used by Finance Minister Michael Noonan to transfer responsibility for payment of those Promissory Note billions from this generation to the next, and to the generation after.

PROMISSORY NOTES IN A NUTSHELL

In a nutshell the situation is this: in 2010 two Irish banks - Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide - had entered zombie stage, had €31bn in liabilities between them and only junk assets to cover those liabilities. If they went under, however, the fear was that this would start a domino effect across a number of other deeply troubled banks and would bring down not just the major banks in the so-called core European countries (Germany and France especially), but would bring down even the euro currency itself.

To avoid this very real possibility the ECB accepted from the Irish government as collateral for the €31bn issued to those two bust banks the now infamous Promissory Notes; theirs was the final say in this and in doing so, they bent (and possibly broke) their own rules.

 

Critical to note here, this money did NOT go to the Irish people, it went to bail out those two banks and by extension, to bail out their creditors. Now, however, the ECB wants its pound of flesh. 'The Central Bank of Ireland printed that extra €31bn,' goes their logic; 'The Irish government acted as guarantor; now we want that €31bn taken back out of circulation.' 

No mention of their own role in accepting the Promissory Notes; no mention of the fact this possibly saved the European banking system, if not the euro itself; no mention of the fact that all those billions went to banks, not to the people. Just this insistence that the entire burden must be borne by us, the Irish people.

Of course we don't have that €31bn (we're broke like - in fact we're over €200bn in debt already!) so, we're forced to borrow it.

THE PROMISSORY NOTE BONDS

We're doing this in the form of sovereign bonds and we're doing it in stages. This year the Central Bank will sell a bond for €500,000,000. That's almost exactly what the government expects to raise from water charges for the year; it is also the projected shortfall in the HSE budget for 2014, a shortfall that will necessitate further cuts in an already critically-stretched health service.

What will the Central Bank do with this €500,000,000 - invest in our water services, in our health service? Neither. It will destroy it, every last cent, the ECB insisting on its pound of flesh.

WORSE TO COME

As noted above however, that is merely the first step. Next year, another €500,000,000 raised by the Central Bank, another €500,000,000 destroyed, then likewise for another three years. And it gets worse.

For each of the five years after 2018, €1,000,000,000 raised by the Central Bank, then destroyed; for each of eight years after 2023, the figure increases to €2,000,000,000, raised and destroyed; finally, in 2032, €1,500,000,000, making a total of €25,000,000,000.

These are telephone numbers, I know - even beyond telephone numbers. On their own they're difficult for people to take in but even more difficult for people to absorb, the fact that all this money, all those badly-needed billions, will be destroyed.

The story doesn't even end there: As each of the bonds are sold, we start paying the interest to the new bondholder, and we pay it annually for the lifetime of that bond. Then, when the bond 'matures' (and the first chicken comes home to roost in 2038), we have to pay the principal, the full original sum of each individual bond, again a total of €25,000,000,000 - again a figure and a concept almost impossible for people to grasp.

CRISIS POINT – A CALL TO ARMS

But that is the plan, that is the vaunted Noonan Promissory Note 'deal', that's how 'gone' those Notes are. The debt remained, in its entirety; the billions are still destroyed, in their entirety; all he has done is this – rather than challenge the ECB on the legitimacy or even the morality of the debt itself, he shifted the payment burden from this generation to the next, and the generation after. Would you, as an individual, do that to your kids, and to their kids?

It can be stopped. It can be stopped now. It can be stopped without cost. It can be stopped without consequence (that money is already in circulation; taking it out of circulation now will have no effect in Europe, it WILL have an effect here).

That's why this campaign is now so critical, that's why there has never been such urgency. The sale of those bonds must be stopped and for this, we need a coming together – of the media, of our politicians local, national and European, of our stars of stage, screen, music and sport, of our people in every organisation at home and abroad. Because this affects us all.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

THE MINISTER AND HIS MINSTREL BOY

The following is the transcript of a few minutes from an interview conducted by Pat Kenny with Finance Minister Michael Noonan on RTE radio on February 8^th 2013, a couple of days after Minister Noonan’s lauded Promissory Notes ‘deal’.

Pat Kenny: What changed, why did the ECB then change its mind about the whole principle of this which I think was described –  Phillip Boucher Hayes reported from Frankfurt or he was talking to people from Frankfurt, they described it as 'barely legal'.

Michael Noonan: Well I don't think that's right, you see the legal people would say that the existing Promissory Note arrangement was totally contrary to, ah...

PK: Was illegal?

MN: Totally, you know, so any –  I mean my argument all the time was...

PK: So it's an improvement in its legality?

MN: Yeah, I mean some of the bank people were saying to me 'Look, what you're saying is illegal'; I used to say to them 'It's an awful lot more legal than what you agreed three years ago!'

At this point they both had a little laugh, the Minister and his Minstrel Boy; that laugh was at our expense.

      A question that simply screams out from the above exchange:

• When Michael Noonan admitted the original Promissory Notes arrangement was totally illegal, why didn’t Pat Kenny – the highest-paid broadcaster on RTE – not ask Minister Noonan why he hadn’t challenged that legality in court before transforming those Notes into sovereign bonds, effectively condemning generations of Irish people to 40 years of debt slavery? Hell, why didn’t Michael Noonan challenge the ECB, why didn’t he even ask the ECB for debt writeoff?

When the narrative of this entire sorry period in our history finally comes to be written, that little exchange above will loom large. To ease the budgetary pressure on his own government for the remainder of its tenure, Michael Noonan took a debt he believed totally illegal and rather than face down the ECB, shifted the entire debt burden, plus interest, to the shoulders of his own nation’s children and their children. And was lauded and applauded for it by those such as Pat Kenny above.

In Ballyhea and in Charleville, in Ratoath and a few other places around the country, we continue to protest, we continue to campaign, Sunday after Sunday. We can still reverse this. Join us, write your own piece of history.

Regards,

Diarmuid O’Flynn.

TWO YEARS ON FROM ENDA KENNY'S 'SEISMIC SHIFT'

 LETTER TO OUR EDITORS

Ballyhea

Co Cork

June 25^th 2014

Dear Sir/Madam;

'Lions led by donkeys'; nearly a century on, that's how the British infantry (including tens of thousands of Irish) and its officer corps are remembered from the First World War.

I wonder, a century from now how will we and the current Irish political leadership be remembered?

Cast your mind back two years ago, to June 28th 2012 and yet another Eurozone summit meeting, the short statement issued at its conclusion on the separation of bank debt from sovereign debt, which included the following: '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.'

 

Remember Enda Kenny's 'seismic shift' boast – ‘I’m a hard grafter and, as some of them found out, they shouldn’t tangle with me too often’? Remember Eamon Gilmore's 'game-changer' bombast?

Two years on, what has shifted, what has changed?

For starters, we've had Michael Noonan's acclaimed Promissory Notes deal, Notes Michael himself described in an RTE interview as ‘illegal, totally' but which now sees that €25bn of disputed debt transformed to sovereign bonds. 

The first of those bonds are sold this year, €500,000,000, that money then destroyed by the Irish Central Bank; €500,000,000 a year in fact for the next five years, borrowed and burned, then €1,000,000,000 a year for the following five years, €2,000,000,000 a year for eight years and finally, in 2032, the last bond, €1,500,000,000. 

A total of €25,000,000,000 that had been used at the behest of the EC/ECB to bail out two bust banks, now borrowed by this broke and broken country and burned at the behest of that same EC/ECB, all set up by a compliant, obeisant Kenny/Gilmore government without even a murmur of protest. They didn't even ask, never mind confront.

Then there's the vaunted ESM from which we were to receive the billions refund of the 'legacy' bank-debt arising from the June 2012 statement - what has actually happened there? Well the fund has been established and Ireland has already contributed a €1bn share to that, which of course we also had to borrow and on which we are now paying interest. What have we received? How much 'legacy' debt relief? Not a single cent.

The actual legacy of this government, the legacy this generation leaves to those who will follow us, is debt piled on debt, 40 years of debt-slavery to our new European masters, all uncontested.

In Ballyhea and Charleville we have been campaigning since March 6th 2011 against this debt imposition, this sovereign surrender. This Sunday in Charleville at 10.30am, week 174, we're joined by three of our recently elected MEPs, Luke Ming Flanagan, Nessa Childers and Marian Harkin. New leaders, same cause; lions needed.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

TWO BIG LIES ON THE PROMISSORY NOTE DEAL

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.

FROM THE MEP ELECTION CAMPAIGN TRAIL

From the campaign trail, a number of major issues that have come up repeatedly. This is my position on them. I want to make clear; everyone working with me on this campaign doesn't agree with me 100% on everything I say and do. We have our differences of opinion on policies and on approach; mine is to be blunt and as honest as I can in answering every question put to me. I'm told it doesn't get people elected. Fine. I'd prefer NOT to be elected than to be elected and have people accuse me afterwards of having misled them.

WIND TURBINES AND OVERHEAD POWER LINES

Not another inch of overhead power lines, nor indeed even one other major commercial wind-turbine forest, nor any more ‘planting’. They are a blight on the landscape, an eyesore. 

When the power-lines are being costed, and as with so much else in this country over the decades, it’s always done on the most short-sighted basis – money. Not included in that costing is the long-term effect on tourism but just as important – perhaps even more important – the long-term effect on those who live in the area. I'm not talking just about the health effect, and there are arguments to and fro over that; I'm talking about the spiritual effect. Those of us of a certain age were brought up enjoying one kind of countryside, those growing up with these monstrosities on their horizon are growing up gazing on quite another. What price the difference?

Then there are the wind-turbine forests. We have enough of them. We do need to meet our 2020 renewable energy targets – indeed we should be looking to far exceed them, and not because the EU have said so but because it’s the right thing to do. But there are other ways, less intrusive ways, more reliable ways, all developing in a fast-changing world.

We need also to look at saving energy, in the transport area and in the heating area. Passive homes, retrofitting on a major scale – this is all long-term thinking, should be done now.

ABORTION

The ugliest word in the dictionary, leads to the ugliest arguments, the most vile and vitriolic of exchanges. In the recent debate leading to changed legislation following the X-case I stayed out of that debate. I had and have my opinions but they were nobody’s business but my own. I accept however that is no longer the case, that many people have a genuine concern about how I might vote should the subject arise in an EU context. Herewith then, my thinking, and undoubtedly a host of lost votes!

The only occasion on which I can foresee abortion arising in the EU is as an equal rights/civil right issue. I would vigorously oppose any such imposition on Ireland. 

We have been too slow as a nation to introduce and implement equal rights and civil rights legislation over the decades in this country and in that respect our membership of the EEC/EU has been a benefit – they haven’t so much shown us the way as dragged us kicking and screaming into becoming a truly equal society. However, I believe there are already far too many areas in which the EU is now dictating policy that properly belongs to a sovereign government, far too many diktats coming down from on high on issues minor and major. 

Abortion is an area in which we should remain sovereign; this is an issue for Ireland to decide, on its own.

I have further been asked if I would work to reverse that recent legislation on the above-mentioned X-case. This could happen only if I stood for the Dáil – that won’t happen, now or ever. I'm giving politics this one shot; win or lose, that’s it.

Again, however, I can see why people would want to know where I stand on this, even if there IS nothing I can do about that legislation in an official capacity (if elected as an MEP) one way or the other. 

Over the years I've argued many an issue with my family – my mother, my four sisters, my wife, my daughter, my father, my four brothers, my son, all strong-minded strong-willed independent people – and with my many friends. Abortion has figured occasionally in those discussions. We’ve agreed on various topics, we’ve disagreed, but we’ve always got on, respected each other’s thinking and each other’s decisions. 

To sum up my thoughts on such a complex issue is difficult but has to be done.

There are lots of things I don’t know for certain, which is why dogmatism has never appealed to me. I don’t know if there is a concerned God who watches over everything we do, I don’t know if there’s not; I had all religion battered out of me by the Christian Brothers by the age of 14 (they weren’t too keen on the kind of questions I was asking, not in the 60s) so content myself now with my own spiritualism, my own wonder at and appreciation of the world around us.

I don’t know when life begins. I do know I don’t like to see it deliberately ended. There is life in a foetus, helpless life that needs nourishing and protection. Everything possible should be done to bring that life to the birth stage. 

I believe in the equal right to life of the mother and child. If there is a threat to the life of the mother there should be timely medical intervention to save her life. Every effort should also be made to save the life of the child; if this fails, it fails. Life hurls such tragedies at us and in this family, we haven’t been immune.

I can see why many people believe that such a threat to a mother’s life should include suicide. I don’t agree. I believe this then makes the life of the unborn foetus subservient to the life of the mother. 

Even for the most stable, mentally strong woman, abortion is surely a highly emotive decision. A suicidal prospective mother is already suffering serious emotional stress. An abortion will add to that stress.

In the situation where a suicide threat is deemed real (and I can’t imagine a situation where a professional is going to put her/his entire career on the line by saying ‘Ah, I don’t believe you’), the unborn foetus is aborted, its life ended. But how do we know the threat was real?

On the other hand, if the suicide clause is removed there will certainly be cases where a suicidal prospective mother will take her own life, in which case – even allowing for the fact that very often no-one really knows what triggers such a drastic decision – those of us who would push to have that clause removed stand accused of helping to cause this death.

It’s a lose/lose scenario, a most divisive argument and for very obvious reasons. But there it is. I know that in a situation where I'm going to need every vote I can get this will cost me but given that I'm coming out of nowhere I believe it’s only right people should know who I am.

GAY MARRIAGE

Another thorny issue and another divisive argument, one in which again I'm going to lose votes, maybe even votes I might have gained in the above argument. Again though this has to be said, brought into the open.

I don’t believe in levels of equal rights – either we’re all equal or we’re not. I believe we are. Not all the same, which is why there are different sexual orientations, but all equal. This includes the right to marriage and the right to adopt  for all.

I strongly believe that alongside this legislation, the rights of the father should be made equal to the rights of the mother in the case of their own children.

So there we are. If those are your do-or-die issues for your favoured MEP candidate I'm probably dead in the water and either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael will take a second seat in the Ireland South constituency, or Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour will take one each. If you take a wider view and prioritise the issues on my manifesto, the issues I see as critical to a new and better Europe and a new and better world, I have a chance. 

But I won’t hide, and I won’t pretend. It was never my way, never will be. If I'm going to be elected, it will be on an honest platform.