A day when Dublin and Washington couldn’t be so different

Well it’s the day that Americans have looked forward to more than any other, Barak Obama assumes the presidency and with it a veil can be drawn on the last 8 years of political mediocrity that passed for leadership. Lets be honest, Bush was handed the 2000 election by the failure of the Democrats to win 2 states, Gore’s and Clinton’s. Losing your own turf is unforgivable and yes Bush stole Florida. The debacle about Florida would have been a non-issue if the top 2 Democrats had delivered.
George Bush’s presidency was stumbling into lethargy in 2001. He spent most of the summer on his ranch in Texas and media comment was rife about what his whereabouts and an administration on auto-pilot. It seemed that it looked like another one term Bush in the Whitehouse until that bright sunny September Manhattan morning in 2001. Bush’s behaviour on the day of 9/11 smacks of a rabbit caught in the headlights. Bin Laden rescued Bush’s presidency not once, but twice, on the eve of the 2004 election he issued a tape warning of attacks on the US. This swung waverers behind Bush to deliver another GOP win over a real war hero who’d been softened up by smear, John Kerry.
Tuesday is their chance to wipe the slate clean. How we’d love that chance in this country on the day we mark the 90th anniversary of the first Dail, another day in history when a people started out with optimism for the future. On a day when an Afro American assues the presidency because of a US president named Johnson, we in Ireland mark an event inpsired by his Liverpudlian namesake, Tom Johnson.
5 time zones east of DC things couldn’t be more depressing, one reason why Europeans are enthused by Obama is he gives us a rare commodity in this jurisdiction, namely hope. I don’t believe Obama is any more on the political left than Kerry or Gore, both of whom I believe would have run significantly different administrations to Bush. In politics timing is everything and Obama is the right man at the right time. His tendency to include everyone in his decision making sees Republicans, the Clintons and their allies all on board. If he lets people down then so do they! Smart politics, but I hope for everyone’s sake that he does deliver.

If he wants to see how it pans out when you dither he should ring up the other famous Offaly man Brian Cowen. Exactly a year ago his poll rating was above Bertie Ahern’s now the murmuring among FF supporters is bring Ahern back. It won’t happen. For the modern world’s first republic they may well reflect how far they can go, for us the anniversary of the first Dail may suggest how far we’ve gone indeed whether we’ve moved at all. When you reflect on the aspirations of the Democratic Programme inspired by Cathal O’Shannon and Tom Johnson towards a fairer and equal society one wonders whether their remains in the Mansion House any echoes from the Anglo Irish Bank EGM of last Friday or indeed Batt O’Keeffe will have a Pauline conversion when he reads It shall be the first duty of the government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens of a Free and Gaelic Ireland. The conservatives in Sinn Fein undermined the Democratic Programme 90 years ago, make no mistake the conservatives in Irish society still undermine progress today. I understand as soon as the speeches are over the Back To School allowance is set for the chop at a prolonged cabinet meeting.
Same day 2 nations one looking up and forward another looking down and out!

Anglo Irish bonuses take the biscuit

Just why are top executives at Anglo Irish Bank being paid bonuses? It seems that the outgoing CEO who resigned when it became public knowledge that the Chairman admitted that he had been less than transparent with his own financial dealings sanctioned Christmas bonuses when he was on the way out the door. Bonuses are generally given n the basis of achievement or reaching a target so how exactly did top executives in Anglo Irish Bank hit these targets given that the bank is now worth less than 1% of it’s value from mid 2007? One suit justified the money on the basis that he may need it as he might lose his job. Quite a number of building workers on the projects that the bank speculated on may not have a job tomorrow, will Anglo be cutting these workers a few quid? Highly unlikely!

Could it be that when commercial clients completed loans that the exec that did the deal was on a percentage of the deal as a personal bonus? If that was so in the circumstances of these commercial deals being the noose from which Anglo Irish now dangles should the bonuses not be cancelled since it is the tax payer who’s going to have to carry the can for the bad decisions made by the bank? Could the Department of Finance not indicate to the bank that in view of the states decision to rescue it, that any decisions made by the bank that exposes the bank to further liability, the directors would be personally liable for by a surcharge. If I as a councillor was to vote in favour of a proposal knowing that the funds were not there to meet the cost, I would be potentially liable for a surcharge, not so for the master's of the universe!

Now in the reality of the position the bank is in, the “significant end of year bonuses” may not push it over the edge but in a climate where taxpayers are being asked to shoulder an unfair burden of the cost of the cowboy era better known as the Celtic Tiger, a more realistic approach in keeping with prudent money management would be more in keeping with the general mood right now.
Anglo however contracted a London based financial communications firm Tavistock Communications to spin their way through for the moment. One of their former directors acted as adviser to David Cameron and John Major during the 1992 UK General Election, that’s the one that proceeded the recession. Indeed Cameron can be seen in the infamous footage of Norman Lamont on Black Monday 1992 announcing the pound’s withdrawal from the ERM. Their AGM will be held almost 90 years to the day from the calling of the first Dail in Dublin’s Mansion House at the same venue where the democratic programme of that republic was passed by the state after it was proposed by Labour leader Tom Johnson TD. The chairperson and their spin doctors may consider the following extracts at their EGM from that programme“We declare that the Nations sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation but to all its material possessions…., all the wealth and all the wealth producing processes within the Nation", or “In return for the willing service we, in the name of the republic, declare the right of every citizen to an adequate share of the produce of the Nation’s labour”.

Perhaps having reflected on this they may consider forgoing their bonuses, indeed one may wonder why they need to got to the UK for advice when their HQ is round the corner from their new shareholder the Department of Finance and I wonder does the minister approve of this move given his call for patriotic action. Anyhow, there’ll be more than the ghost of zombie banks shuffling around the Mansion House at the EGM, that’s if Anglo as we know it survives that long