SHOULD small business take to the streets? As public service unions gear up to damage the economy, small business — the backbone of Ireland — is being bled dry by the banks. Credit is dead. Healthy outfits are being driven to the wall by the bucketful. Public servants have trade unions to bellyache for them. …
Monthly Archive
for: ‘January, 2010’
CIE Could Constipate an Actuary
AS I arrive at RTE’s hospitality room for the Frontline programme, there are only two people present. Pat Kenny offers the usual polite greeting while there is a freeze from the other man in the room. His face, or the small part of it that the world ever sees, looks familiar. Pat’s companion bears a …
Let Patrick Lead the Probe
PATRICK Honohan has made a dream start as governor of the Central Bank. He is already gloriously offside with the Government, his patrons. Brownie points for Patrick. Brian Cowen must be spitting blood at the governor’s call for an inquiry into what went wrong in the banks. Brian Lenihan’s protegee had poked the Taoiseach in …
Taoiseach in all but name
BRIAN Lenihan was born to be Taoiseach. No, nothing to do with his pedigree. Lineage once gave you a leg up in Irish politics, but no more. Of course, the finance minister is blessed with tribal bonds unequalled in Fianna Fail. Of course, his father Brian senior and grandfather Paddy were party icons. Of course, …
We say Goodbye… He finally left the stable — but not without his straw
BRIAN Goggin bade farewell to the marble halls of the Bank of Ireland 18 months early in February last. As Bank of Ireland’s managing director he was the first of the big bankers to depart this year after a series of disastrous media outings. His response in an RTE interview that his pay package would …