ENDA Kenny was probably the toast of Davos last week. His appalling gaffe, blaming Irish people’s “mad borrowing” for the bankers’ orgy, must have given attending foreign financiers and politicians unbridled joy. And if the Taoiseach repeated in Davos some of the lines he spouted in Dublin before his departure, the assembled European oligarchs will …
Category Archive
for: ‘Consumer Affairs’
Troika is Caught on a Hook
DID the troika get it hopelessly wrong? Perhaps our less than welcome visitors have gone native. A delicious thought occurs — that our persecutors will soon have egg all over their faces. All we now need is icing on the cake. What a bonus it would be to see Sarkozy bite the dust in the …
Town held Hostage by Bank
EVERY morning, when I walk to the local Spar in Enniskerry for my news fix, I pass a car park. Nothing remarkable about that. Next I breeze past the adjoining historic Powerscourt Arms Hotel, a listed building with a proud history. Then I glance at the landmark Enniskerry clock tower (1843), buy the papers and …
Flabby CIE Puts Cost On You
So you will be hit by the household tax? Your VHI premiums are about to rocket? You have a child at university? You drive a car? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Worse is to come. And worse could have been prevented.
Kevin Packs His Saddlebags
WHAT a wonderful week for rogues. Anglo Irish, a rogue bank, was rewarded with a gift of €715m from Ireland’s taxpayers. Greece, a rogue nation, was leading European nations on a merry dance. Silvio Berlusconi, the rogue from Rome, was still standing despite the mayhem he was causing in Cannes.
Quango Dodges Lee’s Comeback
GEORGE Lee is back with a bang. Last Monday, the man who might today be Finance Minister — if he had only stayed with Fine Gael — threw down the gauntlet to the new pretender, Michael Noonan. George presented Pensions Shock! — a gem of a programme on RTE.
New Era, Same Old Gang
LET me tell you the story of lucky old Eileen. Lucky Eileen landed a job last week. Not any old job, but a six-figure job. It will carry all the bells and whistles of the financial sector. Her package would not humiliate a banker. Eileen was not interviewed for the appointment. She was, somehow, assumed …
Anglo from the Horse’s Mouth
HAD the Irish Times turned tabloid? Last week, ex-editors of the paper of record turned in their graves. The lead item on a front page that frowns on sensationalism had gone walkabout.
Jobless banker? Apply to CRO
So you thought the bankers were reeling? Far from it. Last week they scored a bullseye. We bank-bashers woke up on Monday morning with a flea in our ears. We had led with our chins, excoriating the bankers for refusing to lend to small businesses. Suddenly, an independent report left us on the canvass. The …
Worth Their Weight in Gold
I WAS never a natural convert to the ranks of the feminists. Certainly not during the time, two decades ago, that I was swallowing all the testosterone-tainted tales of the male-dominated financial world. Yet the recent collapse in stock markets has prompted me to acknowledge that, when it comes to investment, testosterone is a curse.