Banking policy is now an unclear mess
Senator Joe O’Toole seems to be in a better position to explain Government policy than the Government. He said on the Order of Business today there is double speak and double think on this issue of credit.
The principal basis upon which NAMA was advocated by the Minister for Finance, put through these Houses and supported by Members on the Government side was that it would lead to the availability of credit to small businesses. Every time anybody on the Government side says anything about NAMA, they claim that it is necessary so that credit can be provided to business. It is not leading to the provision of credit to business at all.
We now have a policy that is not clear and is in a mess, and when the Labour Party was told a year ago that our position on nationalisation was ideologically based, the Minister is now doing precisely what we said he ought to have done in the first place.
More :: State forced to take 16% stake in B of I in lieu of €250m cash (Irish Times)
I wish you well with holding the government to account but if you were an effective Opposition you would have demanded objectives for NAMA and would have demanded detail - metrics, timescales and the like. You would then be in a position to challenge the government and test their policies now against reality. Sadly you are not in a position to do that. However it’s not too late to hold NAMA to account by
demanding an all-party committee to quiz NAMA every fortnight
pare back the first tranche of loans from €16bn to less than €1bn so that you can have a quick review to test the valuation methodologies and modus operandum of NAMA
demanding detailed objectives from the government by which NAMA can be judged a success or failure WITH timescales (and don’t get fobbed off with a 10-year timescale).
demand that NAMA stop giving secret briefings to select journalists and that they officially publish information (the updates on their website nama.ie are pathetic)
Again, good luck with effectively holding the government to account.
Could you explain the arithmetic of what just happened with Bank of Ireland.
As I understood it we (the govt on our behalf) invested €3.5bn last Feb 19th in BoI and received preference shares paying 8% per annum in return.
Should we not have received 8% of €3.5bn last week which is €280m, no? Instead the Independent reports that BoI have given us €250m (not €280m) of ordinary shares. How does that work, are these new issues? The share price closed today at €1.12 and yesterday it was reported that the govt were given 184m shares, so the €250m is now worth €205m? How the hell did we lose €75m in one day?