It is far from a riduclous deal.We had no hand to play and the ECB had us over a barrell with the amount of liquidity the are providing the Irish banking system.There was zero chance of a write down and the way it was structured means the effective interest rate is very competetive.

As for your topped up mortgage Silver you have my sympathy.

I agree the ECB held the upper hand but we are so far gone that Noonan could have afforded to play some chicken and see what happened. It's the lie back and take it attitude that grates with me. There was definitely a much better deal to be had on the capital repayments. The whole mismanagement of the PR element is astonishing too. No-one seems to be the steering the ship. I mean like Mike Aynsley strolling about over in London and first he heard about the liquidation was after the event.

....and I agreed completely with yours at 19.10.....

Allduckornodinner......what will be interesting in the years to come will be in auto-biographies etc, is what really went on behind closed doors in Frankfurt / Brussels  / Dublin. One thing I've been pretty sure of is, whatever public stances were being made over the airwaves, I'm sure what we were saying in Europe may have been slightly different.

I used to find it laughable that the media here (and some of the opposition) thought that Noonan et al was going to relay what was said / what is going to be said. Childish.

I too, am angry and genuinely sickened at what went on, how could you not be? While I disagree at times with some of the approaches of this government - I do wish someone would ask SF - how the whole default thing was going to work. My gut instinct was not to pay......but I couldn't figure out how we could get away with it (disregarding the fact we were morally right to do so) - and even now nobody has explained it to me in nay way that was even close to feasible.

It is a valid point about the future interest rate but it is equally valid to assume that the rate will lag behind inflation.The passage of time will erode the debt by the rate of inflation less the rate charged approximately.

Well Diamond Joe, if there is one thing we can all take from this, it's that you have absolutely no clue what you are on about.

You're right, I do spoute some 5hite about stuff I haven't a clue about. Think I'll join the gym, be more productive.

Note being sarcastic by the way.

Note** That should read not

The results of this poll are truly amazing.No one could forsee this turn around in the fortunes of the Soldiers of Destiny. You might ask what is it that they have done, to bring this about ? Fianna Fail have done little or nothing. They didn't have to, because this present crowd have done it all, and continue to do it, arrogance beyond belief. Broken promises by the hatful.Smoke and mirrors instead of the transparency they promised. Not another cent to Anglo, and and our childrens children will know all about that! Frankfurt's way or Labour's way, well we know who won that one. It wasn't even close. This Government are hell bent on destroying, Teacher's profession, the Gardai, the Nurses, (lets not mention 3 card trick man Reilly), and anyone that watched our Parliament sitting the other night, must surely have seen and heard the heckling and shouting of Ministers, especially Howlin at the front.Apalling behaviour. This crowd have been intent on destroying our people from the moment they got elected, but as this poll shows we are a strong resourceful people and the Government have merely destroyed themselves.

voters*

the poll is truly misleading.if it was taken now id say that fg would be up 10 and lab up 5..it was taken at the real wrong time for the current govt.and its truly anazing that ff are up so much.there really is room for an alternative centre right party in ireland.

Only a couple of weeks ago jay they were all patting each other on the back high fives all round after negotiating a deal with Europe over the wind up of Anglo, couldn't wait to remind us of the untold billions they were saving us every year, and yet they still insist in introducing this property tax?, not to mention they were straight back into hacking away again at the poor within the public service, who I may remind you have already taken huge cuts in pay and allowances.

If they introduce these threatened water charges in a country awash with water, that really will be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Oh and less we forget they will soon be handing back power to the banks, watch this space interests hikes all round, increased charges etc etc.

What a sad sad country we live in, I never thought I'd see the day when Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein would be sharing power?.

The two of them are equally as bad, Fine Gael particularly spineless.

Did it ever occur to you tolmi why you needed big wages in this country, do you remember the price of a simple 3 bedroomed house in this country before the crash or the price of a small family car?. Many of these people can't afford to pay for them now because of the drastic cuts they had to endure and no sign of it abating either with the gutless ones in power.
Probably the most expensive if not the most expensive in Europe at the time?. If you're going to throw out the high wages argument best to compare like with like first, the cost of living in most other European countries was dirt when compared with little old Ireland.

Agree to a point, the cost of living in certain areas has come down, but in other areas its still extremely high, the already taxed to the hilt fuel prices are rising again, other essentials like gas, oil and electricity are still sky high, the grocery market is probably the only real place where a housewife could make a saving.

Of course because of the property crash the price of property has taken a dramatic nosedive but many are still tied to enormous negative equity which makes that scenario almost null and void.

Yes people over borrowed in some cases, borrowing because at the time they just about had the means to pay back, how much more do they want to take ffs?. If they keep taking money off people they get themselves even more into debt, that makes no sense at all to me?.

If they really want to cut back even more on public spending now is the time to introduce loads of early retirement packages as many within the public service are so p!ssed off thousands (particularly the older public service workers) would leap at the chance. If this is thought out and introduced properly then untold savings could be made and I'm no financial expert just my observation of the general mood that pervades at the moment within many public service environments.

I'm sure those over worked nurses would disagree timber, they work horrendous hours doing jobs that many of us would cringe at the thought.

The simple fact of the matter is that we as a country are spending billions more than we are taking in in taxes.It is no secret that we spend at least as much per head of population on our health service as the French yet they have a world class health service and we don't.The unpalatable decisions that have to be made are either cutting back services which cause outcry or cutting back wages which in my opinion is the fairer alternative.

As for retiring people earlier I spoke with an actuary recently discussing a local garda who had taken early retirement.He valued his package at over €2m if a private sector worker were to get the same deal.The public sector pension is a massive timebomb coming down the track with people living much longer and totally inadequate funding in place for the pensions.

The other area that we need to tackle is the excessive public expenditure on Social Welfare.It would appear that despite an opportunity to do so the Government will put Children's Allowance reform on the long finger.How can it make sense to have someone on less than €20k a year paying tax part of which goes to fund Children's Allowance for a family earning €200k a year?In addition the Social Welfare system has encouraged larger families on Social Welfare to stay on it with a person on Welfare receiving extra par child yet a working family having to pay for the extra cost out of their after tax income.Makes no sense...

The more I read Jay Trump the more I think Sinn Fein is his natural political party...condemning all tax rises and also opposing any expenditure cuts.At least Fianna Fail have been by and large responsible in opposition which I would think is the reason they have been doing well in polls.

On a point of information JTOTD -Ministers' salaries are currently around E145,000.I agree that it is still too much but let's not over-egg the pudding of indignation.
We must bear in mind the insanity that sees the Secretary-General of the Dept of Finance earning 199,000 ( even after the latest reduction. This is 14,000 more than the Taoiseach and 54,000 more than the Minister of Finance.
And remember the obscene salaries paid to the main RTE presenters . People spill out their stories of misery to Joe Duffy who is probably on 10 to 12 times the annual industrial wage ...not to mention Pat Kenny who has to struggle by on over 600,000 and that waste of space Finucane who is on something over 400,000 I believe.
It's Alice in Wonderland stuff.

Jay Trump,

If you can point out at any stage on this or any other thread where I made a statement advocating cuts to the disabled I will make a substantial donation to any charity of your choice.If not I await your apology for implying that I did.

Excellent post dingle, national hero my acss

Vubiant dont forget to take into account all the travel exes, vouched and unvouched.

OK tolmi sorry if I implied that you your good self are in favour of cuts to the disabled, when in fact you intimate that you are more in favour of cuts to wages for our Nurses, Teachers, Firemen, Guards,low paid Public+Civil servants etc. However your un-wavering support for this Fine Gale/Labour Government most certainly allows for inferences to be drawn that you will support them to the end regardless of any cuts, new stealth taxes,and their failure, and inability to see that austerity has crippled our people.

Enda has said that it is morally wrong to tax a persons home. But he is happy to do it now to bail out his bank buddies.

Also tolmi you have persistently put up posts more or less alleging that I am a Fianna Fail voter. In one of your latest posts you have attempted to link me with Sinn Fein. I take no umbrage from these inaccurate assertions.

At no stage did I link you to Sinn Fein.I merely stated that Sinn Fein would appear to be your natural habitat given your ability to oppose all tax increases and also all cuts in expenditure.

As for Fianna Fail I recall in a thread in the past you admitting having been a Fianna Fail supporter.If I am incorrect in my recall I apologise but normally my memoey is quite accurate.

In common with many contributors to this thread you do not appear to understand what needs to be done to bring our budget deficit down to 3% of GDP.Our memorandum with the Troika which was necessary because of the ineptitude of our previous government contained many clauses one of which happened to be reducing our expenditure on health.As a % of GDP our health spending is well in excess of many of our EU neighbours.In order to bring this expenditure back into line cuts need to be made in this area.I am merely stating that if you don't cut wages you have to cut services.Obviously in the ideal world a combination of savings made on the ridiculous cost of medicine and the removal of some of the layers of HSE bureaucracy would suffice but this seems to be beyond the ability of the Government/HSE/Unions.In this event tackling the wages of staff would seem to be a fairer way to me than making cuts to disabled services.

A nurse working a 12 hour shift on a Sunday earns €417.This is far in excess of comparative rates in our neighbouring countries and would seem to me to be excessive and in need of addressing.The moaning of the creepy Liam Doran makes my stomach churn.

My apology was not half hearted it was genuine conditional obviously on being wrong in my recollection.At no stage in your latest reply did you address the point about yourself and Fianna Fail.Instead you went off on some bizarre rambling about my memory, Enda Kenny and opinion polls.
Unlike yourself I try to look at our predicament objectively.In this thread alone I gave credit to Patrick Honohan not Michael Noonan for the promissory note deal and also gave credit to Fianna Fail for providing constructive opposition.You on the other hand unleash a constant stream of bile against the Government yet when I asked you directly about your opinion on the real architects of our downfall Ahern, Cowen, Dempsey,Haughey,Burke,Flynn et al you failed to reply.Unlike many of the above I happen to think that at least Enda Kenny is not corrupt.
For what its worth austerity is the only long term solution to our underlying problems.We as a nation have been living way beyond our means and while I would disagree with some of the methods being used to reduce our budget deficit I agree with the concept of bringing under control.
If you tried to be more objective in your appraisal of our current position and less blinkered in your views you might have a better chance of being able to articulate your point.

I was referring to getting the budget deficit under control not any private debt.