BALLYHEA SAYS NO - WHY WE PERSEVERE

Last Sunday we marked week 250 of the Ballyhea Says No campaign against the imposition of odious bank-debt on the Irish people. In the days before and after I was asked many times – how have ye kept going? How do ye persevere with a cause that gets so little publicity? My answer, and it’s rhetorical, not a question – having learned what we’ve learned over the last 250 weeks, knowing what we now know, how can we not.

And God, what we’ve learned.

THE ECB COMFORT-BLANKET

The message broadcast is that this is a home-grown problem (our Taoiseach leading that particular chorus), that it all began with the Blanket Bank Guarantee of September 2008.

We know it did not.

• We know it began with the launch of the euro, a currency union which even the European Commission and the ECB admit lacked many of the most crucial structural elements, elements they are now trying to install, pillars such as the Single Resolution Mechanism (for troubled banks), central bank deposit guarantee scheme, full Economic Monetary Union/Banking Union/Fiscal Union;
• We know that the catastrophes that befell the eurozone subsequent to the launch of that flawed euro (five near-bankruptcies, record debt/GDP levels in most other euro area countries) were foreseen, predicted as far back as 1998 by renowned economists such as Paul De Grauwe of the London School of Economics;
• We know this crisis was NOT home-grown, it was an EU-created problem in which yes, we have a share, but ONLY  a share.

We read that the ECB were livid with Brian Lenihan and the then Irish government for offering that blanket bank guarantee. 

We know this to be nonsense. 

• We know that when the then government and the government that succeeded them tried to burn senior unguaranteed unsecured bondholders, they were told in no uncertain terms by the ECB heavyweights – try it and see what happens;
• We know that in 2008 the ECB had no structures in place to deal with bank failure but they had a policy – no bank will be allowed fail, no burden-sharing will be allowed. In effect, the ECB’s own policy was also a blanket bank guarantee.

BAILOUT YES, BUT FOR WHO?

It has now become accepted fact that in November 2010 Ireland got a bailout from the Troika. 

We know the truth. 

• We know Ireland got loans of €67.5bn from the Troika (€22.5bn each from the IMF and two EU funds), loans on which the Troika were making big profits (charging Ireland a few percentage points above what they themselves were borrowing for), loans that didn’t even cover our full bank bailout cost of €69.7bn; 
• We know also via a Bloomberg/Bank of International Settlements report that in 2007/08, German and French big banks were exposed to Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to the tune of nearly $800bn, that if even the relatively small Irish banks defaulted it could start a process that would end with the fall of the banking system even in Germany and France; 
• We know that now, in 2015, well over 90% of that exposure has been transferred from those big German and French banks to the shoulders of the sovereign in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. 
• Yes, we know who did the bailing out, we know who got bailed out, and it wasn’t us.

PROMISSORY SOUR NOTE

The Irish people are told over and over that Michael Noonan did a fantastic deal for Ireland on the Promissory Note debt, that he saved us tens of billions.

We know different. 

• We know that under the old schedule Michael and his government were under enormous pressure to come up with €3.1bn every March, billions the Central Bank of Ireland would then destroy, legacy of the bailout of the failed creditors of two failed banks, Anglo and INBS; we know the destruction of the first €3.1bn sneaked in under the radar in March 2011, the election just over; 
• We know the pressure Michael came under in March 2012, the publicity being generated by the proposed destruction of another €3.1bn, the stunt he pulled to get around that, one debt swapped for another; 
• We know that what Michael Noonan and this government then did, in February 2013, was betrayal on a scale not seen before in the short history of this state; rather than challenge the ECB on what even he himself admitted on national radio was ‘totally’ illegal debt, to ease the pressure of having to find that €3.1bn every March, and the attendant negative publicity, he borrowed the entire remaining €25bn and created a new schedule of destruction, a schedule that lifted the burden from this government’s shoulders and transferred it to future generations, the final payment due to take place in 2053; 
• We know that 100 years after the generation of 1916 sacrificed life and liberty to win freedom and independence, the legacy of this government is decades of debt-slavery to the EU, our freedom and independence surrendered without even an argument, never mind a fight.

TIGHTEN THOSE BELTS

We’re told that we must live within our means.

We know that under this new debt regime, we will be living well BELOW our means for many decades.

• We know we paid around €9bn in national debt interest last year; 
• We know also that around €2.5bn of that is bank-debt-related. Given the record low interest rates prevailing at the moment, we know this will only get worse.

When the Central Bank destroyed two tranches of €500m each last year, three more this year, a total of €2.5bn received from the sale of Promissory Note bonds, our national media was silent, no comment.

But we know. 

We also know the Central Bank of Ireland is holding a further €25.5bn of Promissory Note bonds to be sold (includes the balance from the 2012 bond), the billions thus raised also destroyed but all those billions eventually to be repaid, along with the interest accrued.

WHEN DOES A WRONG BECOME ALRIGHT?

We’re told that nothing can now be done about any of this, that it’s all too late, water under the bridge, and sure aren’t we out of the woods now, unemployment falling, everything hunky-dory and this government proven right.

Again, we know the truth. 

• We know how the unemployment numbers are massaged and manipulated, that the true figure is nearer 20% than 10%, that if it wasn’t for the traditional safety valve of emigration, Ireland would now be destitute; 
• We know how we’ve gained from the collapse in value of the euro against the British pound the US dollar, two jurisdictions to which we are major exporters; 
• We know that interest rates are at a record low and have been for a record period, which has helped enormously to keep our payments down; 
• We know how our recovery is exaggerated by the dark dealings in the IFSC and by the tax-avoiding antics of the multi-nationals.

Over the last several years we too have been adversely affected by all that’s gone on, we too have lost loved ones to emigration, to suicide; we want desperately to see a recovery, a real recovery. But we know, what was done to us from 2008 to 2011, the transfer of all that bank debt, was wrong and that wrong has never been righted; we know that much of the pain that has been inflicted on us is directly related to that odious debt. And we know, lift that burden and Ireland will soar.

Knowing all this, how can we stop?

This is a fight that MUST be won, a fight that will be won. How? Stop the sale of those P Note bonds immediately and the subsequent destruction of billions, challenge in the European Court of Justice the legality of the entire arrangement.

In the meantime, our first challenge is to shine a light on what has happened, to let people know. When that’s done, when YOU all know what we know, we’re certain – you will be with us on this campaign.

Regards and thanks,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

BALLYHEA SAYS NO – WEEK 250

Since Sunday March 6th 2011, over four years ago, a small group of determined people have marched every week in protest at the imposition of private bank-debt on the Irish people.

IN EUROPE
During that period, recognising that this was an issue on which our government was not going to be of any assistance, the protest morphed into a self-funded self-propelled campaign.

We have been to the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt (old and new), we’ve been to Brussels and met and argued with senior officials from:

1 The European Commission (senior economist Istvan Szekely, with responsibility for Ireland);
2 The European Council (Shahin Vallée, economic adviser to then President Herman Van Rompuy);
3 The European Parliament (Sharon Bowles MEP, then head of the ECON committee);
4 Submitted a Petition to the Petitions Committee;
5 Formally presented Ireland’s case to the GUE/NGL parliamentary group (has 52 MEPs).

IN IRELAND
1 We have twice met and argued our case with Patrick Honahan, then head of the Central Bank, on the second occasion accompanied by two MEPs (Luke Ming Flanagan and Nessa Childers) and two TDs(Peter Mathews and Stephen Donnelly);
2 Met and argued Ireland’s cause for nearly two hours with senior ECB Troika representatives, the first and so far only group to ask directly for debt write-down;
3 Had a Private Member’s Bill brought before the Dáil (house of parliament);
4 Hosted several major public information/conference events;
5 Been featured on several international newspaper/radio/TV and documentary programmes.

MONEY TO BURN
Already this year the Central Bank of Ireland has destroyed €1.5bn, part of the legacy of the infamous Promissory Note debt, which itself is only part of the €69.7bn total bank-debt imposed on the Irish people.

The Promissory Note debt is the €31bn created in 2009/10 to bail out the creditors of two failed zombie Irish banks, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society, €31bn that the ECB now insists Ireland take back out of circulation, thus the ongoing destruction.

To date €5.5bn has been destroyed (€3bn 2011; €1bn 2014; €1.5bn 2015); the Central Bank is still holding €25.5bn worth of Promissory Note bonds, all awaiting sale, all those billions then destroyed but all the resulting interest to be paid by the next several generations of Irish people, the principal repaid through the 2040s and into the 2050s. This MUST be stopped.

AN INQUIRY SET UP TO FAIL
This week the watered-down result of the watered-down Banking Inquiry is emerging, one of the proposals from which is that the Irish government should bring the ECB to court on the strong-arm tactics (we say blackmail tactics) that were used to force Ireland to accept the entirety of the bank-debt, no burden-sharing allowed.

We agree with this proposal but we go further. The government should immediately challenge the ECB on the continued sale of the Promissory Note bonds, should press for their destruction and additionally, should demand the recreation of the €5.5bn already destroyed.

SOVEREIGN SURRENDER
It should be understood, however, Ireland is not unique. This government-sponsored transfer of debt from the few to the many and the reciprocal transfer of wealth from the many to the few is happening globally, to the extent that 80 people – about enough to fill a double-decker bus – now has more wealth than half the world’s population combined.

That concentration of wealth, and the power that goes with it, is accelerating in recent years, and it’s not accidental – it’s orchestrated.

The proliferation of tax havens (of which we are one) facilitating tax avoidance by the wealthiest individuals and the major global corporations; the growing number of massive international ‘trade’ agreements that facilitate the erosion of labour rights, the reduction of protections to environment, food production and quality, the privatisation of what were public services – water, health, education, energy etc; ALL of this is facilitated by captured, compliant legislators in thrall to the powerful and their disproven philosophy of ‘trickle-down’ economics. The only thing trickling down is pain; meanwhile, the wealth is flooding up.

It’s all part of the race to the bottom and with their ‘inducements’ (bribes) to the multinationals, to the sharks and vultures of the finance world, successive Irish governments have been leading that charge.

CHANGE STARTS WITH YOUR VOTE
We need to change this, we need national politicians who look beyond themselves or their party and see the bigger picture.
In the upcoming general election I will be standing as an Independent Alliance candidate in Cork North-West and if elected, one of the first priorities will be to form an all-party (or failing that, a cross-party) committee to negotiate with the European Commission/ECB/Eurogroup on Ireland’s bank debt.

Meanwhile, through all the above we’ve been marching every week and on occasion, several times a week.

WEEK 250
This coming Sunday, December 13th, is week 250. As usual we will be meeting at 10.30am, this week in Ballyhea; as usual, hail rain or shine, we will march.

Afterwards we'll meet in the nearby Charleville Park Hotel to discuss how far we’ve come, where we’re going to go from here. This is a call to all those who have occasionally marched with us, who have wanted to march with us but couldn’t, to join us for this one significant day.

Our marches are quiet, dignified, without chants or fanfare, non-threatening, non-violent, minimal disruption to traffic. They should NOT, however, be underestimated. We have an iron determination, an unbreakable will, and the weekly march – small as it may be – underpins everything we do. We will win this battle.

Regards and thanks,
Diarmuid O'Flynn
Ballyhea
Co Cork

COVENEY’S CALL TO ARMS

EUROPAWNS

Ireland is a pawn in the stuttering euro experiment, a minor piece that can be sacrificed at any time in the greater game that has been played out for many decades between Germany and France in their drive for a federal ‘United States of Europe’-style EU.

Full European Monetary Union (EMU) is an integral part of that drive, all new entrants to the EU mandated to join the euro, all current members (with the exception of the UK and Denmark) mandated to join eventually. With EMU comes full European Fiscal Union, European Banking Union and every other economic union you care to mention, all national monetary, fiscal and banking policy surrendered.

Within that union Ireland is insignificant, dispensable – witness the threats before the Troika came to town, witness further what happened to Greece, with a similar-sized economy to our own but twice our population.

Despite the fact that already we have grievously suffered as a direct consequence of joining the new currency (and we aren’t alone, with five Eurozone going bankrupt, all the rest bar Germany with massively increased debt/GDP ratio), our current government sees no problem with this drive to ever-closer union, more than willing to see us subsumed into this new EU.

For those of us who would prefer to see Ireland as an independent republic among equals in a scaled-back EU, that’s a serious concern.

EU-PAWNS

Of even more concern, however, is what emerged last week, the invocation by the France of the EU Treaty clause 42.7, the mutual defence clause, and our government’s response to it.

Because of our long-held and widely respected policy of neutrality, we have an exemption under that clause, yet this government has opted to send Irish troops to the al Qaeda hotspot of Mali, to enable France to free up its troops there. This is a dangerous development, really dangerous.

What happened in Paris last Friday week is deplorable.

What happened in Beirut a few days before that is deplorable.

What happened in Kenya this year, in Nigeria, is deplorable.

What’s happening right now in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine is deplorable.

Indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel, attacks on individuals, is deplorable.

None of those statements in any way takes from the others – there are so many atrocities happening right now across the globe, carried out in the name of one god or another, fiscal or physical or theological, all deplorable.

Ireland, however, does NOT need to be sucked into this.

A KALEIDOSCOPE IN BLACK-AND-WHITE

What’s happening in the Middle East right now is being presented to us in very simple and stark terms – it’s good versus evil, a clash of civilisations, them against us.

It is not.

The Middle East may not be the kaleidoscope of people and religions and attitudes that we enjoy in Europe but neither is it a monolith, one people with one idea and Israel apart (as it is), one religion. There is, and always was, diversity, colour, tolerance, friendship, hospitality, music, laughter, song.

What’s happening now though, the destruction of the Middle East, is all about the oil, about control of the fields, the production, the pumping, the pipelines. 

Since the early 1900s, Britain and/or the US has been toppling regimes in this region, replacing them with those whom they deemed supportive of UK and US needs. How those puppet regimes treated their own people? Irrelevant. Does anyone seriously believe that the western ‘allies’ gave a damn about the everyday fate of ordinary Libyans under Ghaddafi, or ordinary Syrians under Assad, any more than they gave a curse about Iraqis under Saddam Hussein or Iranians under the Ayatollahs?

This isn’t conjecture, this isn’t conspiracy, this is recorded fact. Almost a century before the recent ill-fated western-backed ‘Arab Spring’, in 1916 we had the western-backed ‘Arab Uprising’ against the Ottoman Empire, but when it was all over, Britain and France carved up what was left between them. Ever since then, the US a late but most enthusiastic arrival to the party, they have all played their own games in that unfortunate area.

BUSH FIRE RAGES ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST

The current turmoil was started by George Bush Snr in 1992 with the first invasion of Iraq, continued by his son and his allies in 2003, subsequently added to with orchestrated chaos right across the region. 

Many of those on the ground – probably most of those on the ground – are fighting what they see as a religious war. That’s what those who are pulling the strings want them to think, that’s what they want all of us to think, that’s what our own government now seems to think. But, just as with Ireland and the euro, they are pawns in a much bigger and much dirtier game, WE are pawns in a much bigger and much dirtier game.

We need to step back from this and have a good, hard look. By all means offer all the non-military help we can to the people of Paris and of France, to any other of the innocents in all this. But Mali, al Qaeda, troops? An increase in our defence budget to include fighter jets? 

Where are Enda Kenny and this government leading us, exactly???

A cartoon from 1916, a few decades before the US became involved

For further reading:

The Guardian, Iraq was really about the oil;

The Spectator: The wars that are really about the oil;

Or if you want to off mainstream and for a really big read, Blowback Paris: Exxonomics 102.