That ECB bailout letter – an update

Back in August economist Karl Whelan pointed to an odd discrepancy in the dates referred to in my requests for information from the ECB in relation to Ireland’s baillout. Notwithstanding the ECB making a series of errors in their releases to me, and notwithstanding the ECB releasing several documents that the Irish Department of Finance had refused to release, there still remains two major, and indeed critical questions:

1) Was there a communication between the ECB and Brian Lenihan on November 12, 2010?
2) If so, what was the content of that communication?

Why you may ask, is this important? Well thestory.ie has spent the past 12 months trying to answer this question. We’ve gone to the ECB repeatedly. We’ve appealed their refusals for access to documents to the ECB President, Mario Draghi. We’ve appealed his refusals to the European Ombudsman. We’ve appealed refusals by the Irish Department of Finance to the Irish Information Commissioner.

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The Evening Herald leads with documents obtained by thestory.ie

In every communication, both bodies have denied the existence of any record of a communication on November 12, 2010. But we believe this position to be untenable. Let’s cast our minds back to that week and look through the chronology of events:

Friday, November 12: Bloomberg reports on Irish bailout “Being urged by European policymakers to take emergency aid”. Brian Cowen led denials that weekend. Our contention is that communications took place between Ireland and the ECB on this date. Any record of communication is denied.

Sunday, November 14: Following speculation over the weekend, on The Week in Politics, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern again denied that bailout negotiations were taking place. He said he spoke to Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan “that morning”.

Tuesday, November 16: Lenihan goes to Brussels for meeting of Finance Ministers. The main issue is Ireland.

Wednesday, November 17: British Chancellor says Britain is willing to lend to Ireland.

Thursday, November 18: Morning Ireland. Patrick Honohan calls RTE and goes on air from Frankfurt. “A loan will be made available, and drawn down as necessary”. He says he did not discuss the call in advance with Cowen or Lenihan. Teams from the IMF, EC, ECB etc were already in Dublin that morning, and “within an hour of the [Honohan] interview, the teams were sitting down in the Irish Central Bank for their first meeting”.

Friday, November 19: Lenihan confirms talks on a bailout are underway. This apparently is when the ECB sent a letter to DoF about a bailout, but how could it be the only substantial communication from the ECB given all that had happened over the previous week?

Monday, November 21: Government formally asks for help.

So on what basis do we believe the critical communications took place on the 12th, and not the 19th as is contended?

1) Brian Lenihan indicated it clearly, personally
2) His advisor Alan Ahearne said the same
3) Journalist Stephen Collins refers to it, having had sight of other leaked documents

Dan O’Brien says in his BBC documentary (at 5.07 in the interview):

Dan O’Brien: “Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has told us, in fact, that he had received a letter from Jean Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, on the Friday – and so before those government denials. In it, he says, the ECB spelled out its concerns about the amount of money it was owed by Irish banks and suggested that the country should be looking at applying for a bailout.”

Mr Lenihan says in audio:

“Mr Trichet wrote to me, he raised the question about whether Ireland would be participating in a programme at that stage. I rang Mr Trichet after receipt of the letter, but it was clear to me that there was a serious issue for Ireland, and I said it was important we discuss those concerns. And we agreed that on the following Sunday there would be an official level discussion about these issues in Brussels.”

When pushed about the rumours of a bailout over that weekend, Lenihan continued:

“I was in very difficult negotiations, we were simply having exploratory official discussions.”

And Alan Ahearne:

“Yeah, the letter came in on the Friday from Trichet. The ECB were getting very hostile about the amount of money that it was having to lend to Ireland’s banks. The ECB demanded something be done about it and it mentioned Ireland going into the bailout. They were keen to get Ireland into the programme.”

He added:

“Lenihan rang Trichet that day, and they agreed officials would meet the following day in Brussels. When they met, the ECB put huge pressure on Ireland to go into the programme.”

Ahearne said Lenihan was now at the centre of international chaos and Ireland’s future hung in the balance.

“The following Tuesday, Lenihan went to the eurozone meeting, and I remember him coming back and describing it as a total circus.”

So why would the ECB and the Department of Finance deny records of communications on November 12? And why would an apparently contentious letter be sent after the bailout had been implicitly agreed, surely it would have been sent before?

Would an earlier communication prove that pressure for Ireland to accept a bailout came from the ECB long before the bailout had been implicitly agreed would take place as Patrick Honohan said on radio on November 18?

Is it credible that the ECB made no written communication to the Department of Finance between November 4 and November 18, when ECB officials were already in the Central Bank on Dame Street on November 18?

Is it credible that the ECB sent a contentious letter to Ireland on the 19th as they claim, when ECB officials were already meeting with our Central Bank governor, the IMF and European Commission representatives in Dublin the day before?

(For FOI nerds the issue is the existence, or not, of a record of communication, under Section 10 of the Irish FOI Act)

We await answers with interest.

What now?

Via the Central Bank comes the following statistics. I’ve taken the stats and put them in a graph, which I think helps us understand the extent of the mortgage arrears problem. The euro amount of arrears of 180 days or more has increased by 375% since September 2009, or from €306,730,000 to €1,461,816,000 in just three years. The total amount of mortgages in arrears over 90 days is €16.8bn or 15.1% (Source)

The other interesting thing is the new data from the Central Bank. For the first time they have given a breakdown of mortgages in arrears over 180 days. These are worrying statistics: €785,800,000, or almost 54% of the mortgages in arrears over 180 days are in the over 720 days category (out of a total balance of loans of €4,193,875,000).

All the latest data:

The mystery of the €95 Oireachtas phone call

(This is a story featured in the Mail On Sunday, by Ken Foxe)

A politician ran up a €95 bill on one single phone call but Oireachtas authorities have no way of tracking down who made it.

The same person is understood to have run up more than €344 in costs on five separate phone calls to Colombia, records from the Oireachtas show and details of which were published in the Irish Mail on Sunday.

The single most expensive call, made in May of this year, to an unidentified number in South America ended up lasting one hour and three minutes. It was made during peak time and charged at a rate of €1.50 per minute with the final bill coming in at precisely €94.79.

The hundred most expensive calls from the Oireachtas have cost the taxpayer in excess of €3,400 since the beginning of 2011.

However, there is no way of checking on the vast majority of these calls and whether they relate to legitimate business or were simply keeping in touch with family members or friends abroad.Phone calls made by TDs and Senators, under law, are not logged for ‘reasons of privacy and confidentiality’ meaning their legitimacy can never be checked.

The costly calls form part of more than €280,000 that will have been spent providing free telephony to politicians and staff during the past two years.

Two of the ten most expensive calls listed on Oireachtas records were made to Colombia with the second costing €86.06. Seven of the most expensive calls were made to Kenya, mostly at peak time, and cost between €61.44 and €79.51, while a further call to Mozambique cost €76.01.

Enormous bills were also run up on calls that seem inexplicably long with a 17 hour phone call listed on January 20. That call, made to an Irish phone number at peak time, ended up costing the taxpayer €36.72 and was attributed to ‘faults in [a] broadcasting line’. Two other marathon phone calls are also listed in the Top 100 with a 14 half hour call costing €31.28 and a 13 hour one costing just under €30.

Here is the data in full: (Download here)

Information Commissioner orders release of IDA data

Here at thestory.ie we appeal lots of decisions of public authorities to the Information Commissioner. Of course the one that has taken the longest is our appeal against NAMA and Anglo Irish Bank in relation to environmental information (via AIE not FOI). We are awaiting judgment from the High Court in relation to that appeal.

However many of these appeals often result in what are known as ‘settlements’. These are situations where the OIC acts as a neutral arbiter, and the requester and public authority come to an agreement on the release of information.

But in situations where no agreement can be reached, the OIC must make a formal decision, about who is right and who is wrong with regards to exemptions being applied to information releases. On this occasion no agreement could be reached, as the IDA insisted that they were not in a position to release the information I had requested.

Following a series of submissions, and again with the help of Fred Logue, the Information Commissioner has ordered the IDA to release data I had requested. This process in total cost €240 (a figure we should be ashamed of, as one of the only countries in the world that charges for this type of process). It also took a large amount of time – I sent this request for information in January 2011.

The issue of the release centred mainly on Section 28 – Personal Information. This is one of the most oft used exemptions in Irish FOI and is often misapplied by public authorities (indeed I have just submitted another appeal to the OIC which again centres on Section 28). The long and short of it was this: I wanted to know who leased property to the IDA. I was given some names and the names of some companies, but not all names. The IDA decided that releasing the names of individuals who lease property to the IDA would be a breach of their privacy rights and that the public interest would not be served by their release.

We disagreed and argued strongly that this was wrong on a number of levels. In their preliminary view several months ago, the OIC agreed with the IDA that the information was potentially personal. After 2 years and lengthy submissions, the OIC has agreed with our position, insisting that:

“…whilst I empathise with the affected third parties in relation to any concems they might have over their personal safety in particular, I consider that the public interest in optimising openness and transparency in relation to the use of public funds outweighs, on balance, the public interest in protecting the right to privacy of the individuals in question.”

Here is the decision in full and the submission we made in relation to it. For those of you who have Section 28 applied to your requests, it is worth reading in full. We will publish the data released as soon as we have it.



This was our submission to the OIC:

Continue reading “Information Commissioner orders release of IDA data”

Ivan Yates bankruptcy documents

There are the bankruptcy documents of former Minister and broadcaster Ivan Yates. He is one of many who have gone to the UK to avail of a more lenient bankruptcy regime there.

The documents were released in full to the Sunday Times, who made them available to thestory.ie. I have removed some information that I would deem to be not relevant, including bank account numbers, national insurance numbers, mobile numbers, email and a car registration number.



Department of Taoiseach contracts in relation to EU presidency

There are the contracts awarded by the Department of the Taoiseach as a direct result of the planning and administration of Ireland’s Presidency of the EU 2013. Costs include the website http://www.eu2013.ie/, which cost €244,741.71.

Thanks to Vinnie O’Dowd for obtaining the data.

Another bailout letter released

Daniel McConnell in the Sunday Independent today writes about a letter released this week to thestory.ie. This came after an appeals process initiated in May, and now with the Office of the Information Commissioner. This is the full text of the letter released.

Thestory.ie currently has appeals with the Irish Information Commissioner and the European Ombudsman in relation to letters exchanged between the ECB and the Department of Finance in the weeks around the bailout in 2010.