THE DIRTY DOZEN w/e July 22nd 2012

Happy birthday to some lucky punter who took a gamble on a failed docket from five years ago which today, nevertheless, gets paid out in full. Yes, another unguaranteed bond, this time from Bank of Ireland, £200,000,000; That's pounds sterling, or €250,000,000 give or take a few million - who's counting? 

Some will point to the fact that we own only about a sixth of Bank of Ireland so that our share of this is 'only' about €40,000,000 - I ask, from which economy do ye think the balance is being drained? Which economy is producing all that money, all that profit, to enable our banks pay all these bonds?

Oh, ye've heard and read that these bonds are no longer a factor, that most of them have actually been paid by now? A few numbers for ye, and I guarantee ye, these numbers are rock solid:

• €15.2bn - paid to date in 2012
• €4.8bn -   yet to be paid in 2012
• €17.4bn - yet to be paid 2013
• €5.9bn -   yet to be paid 2014
• €11.7bn - yet to be paid 2015

You think maybe it's German businesses and German people generating this profit in our banks so they can pay the failed bond investments of the German banks in those bailed-out Irish banks? No my friends, this is our money being bled from our economy, the ongoing ECB-ordered transfusion to the major financial institutions who made what turned out to be a bad investment in Irish banks, investments the ECB in turn blackmailed and bullied successive Irish governments into paying.

Under pressure from Spain and Italy the EU has finally admitted that the policy they forced on us has failed. They have a made a very vague statement on Ireland that appears to have got a lot of people very excited here - 'oh, we're going to get our money back'.

Let me emphasise this - WE ARE NOT GOING TO 'GET' OUR MONEY BACK. 

The EU/ECB have blackmailed and bullied us once, to get us to pay the €69.6bn we've so far put into our banks; they will try to blackmail and bully us again. Anyone who seriously believes we're just going to 'get' that money back is naive beyond belief.

Anything we now get back from the ECB on the strength of their admission and change of policy, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGHT for TOOTH-AND-NAIL.

Who's going to be fighting for us? The same people in the permanent government (the civil servants), the replacement people in the elected government (the Oireachtas) who are implementing to the letter the same EU/ECB-led policy of the previous government, the same people who have already been cowed, coerced and scattered by the EU/ECB negotiators, that's who. We know - because Enda has told us - they'll use words to communicate their message, but what words?

One word I would use - demand. We demand back from the EU/ECB what they took from us. We demand:

• €30.6bn - Promissory Notes - tear them up
• €22bn - National Pension Reserve Fund - replenish this fund, plus interest lost
• €17bn - Writedown of money owed to the EU emergency funds.

Until agreement on the above has been reached, those of in Ballyhea and in Charleville who have been marching every week since March 6th 2011 in protest at what the EU/ECB have been doing to us will continue to march. This Sunday, week 73, we're in Charleville, meet at 11.30am at the Library Plaza. Please join us.

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