Brian Cowen - Can someone fill that hole please?
I am so angry this morning.
Yesterday I drove through Bandon in West Cork on the way to a client meeting and watched a long queue of men (one woman) outside a Post Office waiting to collect their dole money. Depressing sight.
I watched Alan Dukes of Anglo Irish Bank this morning on Ireland AM in mono tone explaining how the hole gets bigger because the “property” assets keep reducing in value: “we have to protect the depositors!” – who are they, please tell me?
I heard 47yr old Declan Murphy, 4th generation menswear store from Newcastlewest in Co.Limerick passionately talk on Newstalk this morning about how he is taking his wife and 3 kids to Australia because he can’t provide for them here. He is a proud Limerick man but can’t see himself coming back to Ireland.
He made a very simple point, which I believe in strongly ..
Unless we do positive things to generate employment and get things going in this country instead of pumping money into a bottomless pit we will never recover. A “win-win” he called it.
The hole will get bigger unless we treat the symptoms.
We need positive activity (People are more positive but outside of that I see absolutely none, not with banks or government) – that does not mean decisions to pump more money into NAMA and Anglo. It means generating employment, more income for people which will in time generate demand for some of those ghost properties – maybe the hole will get smaller?
Maybe it’s being very simplistic but it does seem very obvious – I wonder what our old friend Willie Sutton would say about it?
Best of luck in Australia Declan, come back and visit your folks sometime.
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
Tags: Anglo Irish Bank, Brian Cowen, Declan Murphy Newcastlewest, Fuzion, Fuzion Communications, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Irish Economy, Nama, Positive Thinking, Recession in Ireland
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 
September 1, 2010 at 8:44 am |
These are truly worrying times. Are better days just round the corner, or is something worse lurking?
What I have noticed though is that people are starting to mentally disconnect themselves from the banks and the government. Whether this is out of mental self-preservation or out of a positive drive of “Well, we’ll sort it out ourselves then”, I can’t say for certain. But my gut feeling is that folk are starting to shake of their sense of pessimism in favour of a more pro-active approach to the situation. That can only be good. Sadly, it does mean some will choose to leave.
September 1, 2010 at 9:04 am |
Thanks for reading Roger.
I am driving on like yourself and so many others, making things happening for ourselves.
On the positive side I can see real positivity creeping back into the market as you were saying.
It does drive me nuts to hear them talking about the hole, coming up with ways to fill the hole and not actually thinking about how to really plug the hole and make the hole smaller!
Cheers,
Greg
September 3, 2010 at 9:28 am |
Hi Greg,
I am with you all the way; frustrated. I listened to much of the same news yesterday, looked at some of Primetime last night and then decided I had enough doom & gloom and Alan Dukes was fudging. He has a vested interest in keeping Anglo going. And here goes with conspiracy theory I’m curious about what other people have a vested interest in keeping it going.
Protecting the depositors. If you were a depositor would you leave your money in Anglo – I wouldn’t. I just wonder how much really is on deposit there? But then “they” don’t seem to be able to tell us – the people and the taxpayers – anything in the way of hard figures. It is as if it is ‘Ah. sure, we’ll have to wait and see, we can’t say at the moment’. Just imagine the revenue generating businesses behaving like that and then going into a bank and asking for a loan! What answer would they get? As if they could get a loan anyway. The banks, especially Anglo, are ready and willing to foreclose. What is stopping the government?
I could rant on a lot longer but that won’t do any good. So I am just wondering what concrete action can be taken now to start remedying the situation and get this economy going again rather than wait & see. Sadly it seems the answer has to come from the top – the EU. What does that tell us about the political will and skill locally.
Greg provocative as always
All the best
Julie
September 3, 2010 at 9:40 am |
The best of all is the “Good Bank/Bad Bank” suggestion!
How can an intelligent man (making an assumption) sit there and make suggestions like that.
I worked as a General Manager in various companies – if I came up with such vague, nothing BS I would have been fired 10 times over.
Thanks for reading Julie ..
Greg