Month: October 2010

Minister Brian Lenihan was interviewed by Bloomberg yesterday. You can watch it here.

He’s extremely definite in his views, I’ll have to add a few quotes in the QFBL section for future reference. One in particular caught my attention. “The position with Allied Irish Bank is; it will be fully capitalised and transformed and restored into its greatness”. Poetry, minister Lenihan, poetry.

The DIRT scandal.

Foreign exchange overcharging.

Revelations of €8.6m additional overcharging on a range of products ranging from trust funds to student and graduate facilities, effecting more than 50,000 customers, following anonymous tip-offs to the Financial Regulator.

Insurance Corporation of Ireland (which, if memory serves, we’re still paying for to this day).

The findings of the Moriarty Tribunal in relation to the settling of a £1m overdraft for a Mr Charles Haughey.

Faldor Ltd and the subsequent AIB executives’ settlements with Revenue.

John Rusnak.

Greatness? Jayzuz.

The author of the McGarr Solicitors blog on NAMA…

NAMA’s purpose is to defer the fixing of the valuation of the loans as long as possible. It claims that it is paying prices reflecting “long term economic value”. This is an admission, of course, that the loans are not currently worth NAMA’s estimate.

Long after the Government has left office we will learn the real value of NAMA’s “assets”. So, too, will the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator. Only then will the cost of the Bank Bailout be known.

The Government devised NAMA. It has designated NAMA as exempt from Freedom of Information legislation. When this writer asked for information on the agreement between the Government and the Commission of the EU on the NAMA loan pricing mechanisms, the information was refused.

Everything of relevance in the possession of NAMA is a secret…

Worth reading in full.