For entertainment, do listen to that podcast. Michael O’Leary is hilarious.

One who is Dana because he couldn’t get elected to the Dail, one who used to be Dana but couldn’t get re-elected and one who wanted to be Dana but he couldn’t get elected.

What a comment….

Patricia McKenna is yelling at me via TodayFM podcosts. I don’t like this. I mean, you’re on the radio, you don’t have to yell.

EDIT: I’d also comment that Patricia McKenna’s record as health spokesperson for the Green Party makes her incompetent to comment on changes to health policy. Here’s why I think that.

Liam Carroll’s companies were back at the High Court yesterday for round 2 of “Please Give Us Examinership”.

The High Court said no, and the written judgment from Justice Clark is due out this afternoon some time.

The reaction – again – has been very interesting. When the first case followed by the Supreme Court case was heard, it didn’t feel like that many people were discussing the ramifications of the Zoe companies not getting court protection although it was headline news at the time.

This time, a huge number of people are interested, discussing what happens next. A lot of people on politics.ie are convinced that the banks who may be protected by NAMA will buy out ACC’s 136 million euro debt. But if that was likely to happen, it would have happened last time round so there is clearly something in the way.

There has been a provisional liquidator in place since the last Supreme Court hearing and the next question is whether the High Court will give Liam Carroll’s companies the leave to go back to the Supreme Court.

Two national newspapers are running with the story that this should see Liam Carroll’s business empire unwind. I am just not sure over what time frame, that’s all. The business he operates in is currently basically dead right now.

So, we continue to live in interesting times…

Dear Eamon Ryan,

please get a grip. I see here you claim that NAMA will not pay over the odds for assets.

If NAMA was not going to pay over the odds for the assets, NAMA would not be necessary to save the skin of the banking industry. The whole country is getting up in arms because they know full well that we as tax payers will be paying too much to save banks at a time when education, health and social welfare services are being cut.

If NAMA is not going to pay over the odds for assets, then amend the legislation so that every single item in the NAMA accounts can be checked without cost by any member of the public. If the banks scream, then you can be damn sure that they’ve something to hide. I don’t care about their commercial privilege. Their commercial privilege got us here.

Regards

Thingsthatstrikeme.

Ulster Bank hold some shares as security for debts from Liam Carroll’s companies and they are taking an interest in that security now according to the Irish Times.

You’d be inclined to wonder why. Up to last week, apparently the only bank that wasn’t playing ball with the “we can trade our way out of difficulty” was ACC Bank, the irritant that insisted on requesting a liquidator through the courts and now, it appears that Ulster Bank are somewhat concerned now too.

Meanwhile, in last week’s reports regarding the next High Court Action, due on Thursday this week, Anglo-Irish Bank voiced willingness to give the Carroll companies another 8 million to fund development at North Wall.

I’m a tax payer and indirectly co-owner of Anglo-Irish Bank, which is a nationalised company. I resent them ploughing more money into a company which both the High Court and the Supreme Court have already suggested is no longer viable.

My favourite qu0te about this whole saga, from the Supreme Court Hearing incidentally was this:

Cush said there would have been no need for an examinership if ACC had not moved against the group but Chief Justice John Murray replied that that was “somewhat disingenuous” as “there would be no need for an examinership petition if the companies weren’t insolvent”.

which you’ll find in Neil Callanan’s Sunday Tribune piece.

Fifteen years ago, I sat in an economics lecturer where the guy giving the lecture was talking about a discussion he had had on meritocracy with some students he was teaching in America. He stated that they were all fully in favour of meritocracy until it was clarified that in a truly meritocratic society such as they couldn’t envisage, they would not be able to rely on – for example – their trust funds – to pay their college fees. Suddenly, he said, they weren’t quite so enthusiastic.

Where is this coming from? Well…part of it is of course linked to two recent newspaper reports involving the Irish National Building Society, and also, in part, to some recent newspaper reports regarding the Liam Carroll group of companies. Put simply, we’re at a junction where of course there will be half hearted demands for change. I’m just not sure we’ll get the sort of change that we really…require.

For such a small country, and population, Irish society is decidedly class ridden and divisive. There’s always something. For years it was religion, often it’s sport, the county you come from, the school you went to. Always something. For years, also, our media doesn’t reflect the reality that most people live in. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been to one party mentioned on the back page of the Sunday Independent, for example, and personally I don’t know anyone who gives a toss one way or another who Amanda Brunker is.

Realistically, I’d like to live in a society whereby your value is not judged by a) what school you went to b) what sort of a car you drive c) where in the country you come from d) what you do in your spare time provided it’s not illegal per se e) what food you eat.

I’m not sure how we get that though. We’ve a lot of discontented people, people who are either losing their jobs or over extended on their mortgages or in particularly problematic cases, both. People who are paying a shocking amount more to the government via income levies and the like than they were 12 months ago. And life is not improving. There are calls for street demos, revolutions. Arise my people. But no one is altogether clear on what we want.

Well I know a few things I want but they would be specific details rather a general outlook on a healthy society. I know people who don’t want Fianna Fail to ever get into power again but in terms of what should replace them, they are curiously silent. What sort of a society is desired…no one ever seems to say.

Two key things happened this week. The legislation for NAMA was published and Liam Carroll and the Zoe Group of companies were in court looking for examiner protection from its debtors. The hearing was by Mr Justice Peter Kelly and the result came out yesterday afternoon. Friday of a bank holiday weekend.

Liam Carroll is not someone I know too much about – he’s not, to my scant knowledge, a regular interviewee of Barry Egan of the Sunday Independent, which as everyone knows is the sole benchmark of fame in this country, but the debts owed by his group of companies is estimated to be around 1.2 billion euro. It’s hard to work out whether that’s a lot of money for a man who’s supposed to be one of the biggest if not the biggest developer in Ireland via Zoe Developments. There’s a part of me thinks it’s not such a lot of money, but there’s another party of me thinks that it’s a shocking amount of debt to be on the shoulders of just one developer. Put into one context however, it’s not that far off the total profits of AIB the year before last – you know, before they started needing to be saved.

The Kelly judgment on the six Zoe companies involved was interesting though, because if he decided not to grant examinership, then those companies would be looking at the appointment of a liquidator or a receiver and if that happened, a lot was going to hinge on what value could be realised out of the assets of those companies. Put simply, if you firesale the Zoe assets, then the State’s options for overpaying via NAMA are a touch more limited.

Except the legislation is so couched in terms that keep everything under wraps, it’s not likely you or I will ever know one way or the other. Still, the judgment was going to be interesting and when it came, Peter Kelly said no. No examinership. Companies pretty unlikely to trade their way out of trouble given the current business climate and anyway, here’s a long list of things that really caused me concern.

There’s a stay pending appeal until Tuesday regarding the appointment of a liquidator or receiver.

I have no doubt that something like NAMA is required to sort out the mess of shite that the banks currently have not really attempted to put any realisable value on. But I also think the banks are still getting off scot free. I don’t hold bank shares so obviously I am completely unbiased. I wonder, however, if the banks that loaned 1.2 billion euro to Liam Carroll’s business conglomerate (I loath the word “empire”) were in fact, doing their job properly, and in that case, I think there should be a few stings like…

nationalisation. We nationalised Anglo Irish when frankly we should have let it go broke. Possibly the reason we didn’t was because they were scared they’d have to nationalise either AIB or the Bank of Ireland and now, we still have to save their bleeding guts because we need banks more than they think they need us.

So, if I were Brian Lenihan, I’d be sitting in an office with ACC, AIB and Bank of Ireland, and saying “AIB/Bank of Ireland – merger, forthwith, followed by nationalisation. ACC, mark down your debts accordingly and we will bring them under NAMA” and meanwhile, get Zoe wound down as soon as possible.

But I’m not Brian Lenihan so this is going to drag on. There’s a simpler way to do it of course. Close down all the private schools in Dublin.