The Past, The Present & The Future

The Past (The Good)

• Low national debt
• Full employment
• Export lead growth
• Meaningful Social partnership
• Great EU Presidency

The Past (The Bad)

• Rezoning irregularities
• Excuse banks for "off-shore bank" account scandal 
• Illegal payments / gifts to politicians
• Tax breaks for small minorities
• Tax breaks for developers
• Ignore property bubble warning in 2001
• An €8bn tax surplus to a €20bn tax shortfall in a couple of years
• Collapse of Banking System
• Rocketing National Debt (again)
• Light / Non-existent financial regulation (let the markets decide)
• Millions frittered away in a bloated health service
• Millions wasted on e-voting machines
• Millions blown in consultancy fees for inoperable computer systems

The Present (The Ugly)

• Guarantee all bank deposits
• Guarantee all bond holders
• Banks can't (won't) lend to businesses
• Nationalise Anglo Irish Bank
• Set up NAMA 

The Future (Scenario 1 - The Bad)

1. Pay the banks between 40-50% more for their toxic loans than they're currently worth
2. Pay a fee to the banks to administer these bad loans that the tax payer now owns
3. Don't tell the tax payer how much you are going to pay the bankers due to "commercial sensitivities".
4. Don't charge interest to property developers until they can afford to pay.
5. Cleaned up Irish banks get flogged off to foreign investors, shareholders get a nice carpet bagging payoff and the Irish Tax Payer gets left holding worthless junk.
6. No time-scale for NAMA... 
7. Generations of Irish Tax Payers will get to pay for this arrangement
8. This arrangement is unfair because the risk is loaded onto the tax payer and removed entirely from the banks, and shareholders.

The Future (Scenario 2 - The Better)

1. Nationalise the banks
2. No need to hire administrators to look after the bad debts because the nationalised banks will do this for us at no extra cost.
3. No need to hire Arthur Cox & PriceWaterhouseCoopers and no need for them to construct "chinese walls" in order for them to manage any conflicts of interest.
4. Tax payer pays the actual value of the loans...let the markets decide (remember that one?)
5. What the tax payer pays he gets in back in return when the property markets return to sane levels...let the markets decide 
6. Property developers who go bust go bust, those that survive - great...let the markets decide.
7. Tax payer will receive a return on their investment when the banks are refloated. 
8. This arrangement is fair to all stakeholders - banks, developers, shareholders, and tax payers.

NAMA as currently proposed benefits:

• The Bankers
• Their shareholders & bondholders
• The property developers (because NAMA will probably keep them afloat on interest free holidays rather than call in the loans)
• Foreign investors who get to snap up clean banks

NAMA as currently proposed shafts:

• The tax payer
• The tax payer's children
• The tax payer's grandchildren