A future 'tribunal' on the cause of Ireland's current economic woes

Slideshowbob

OK

If such an examination were to happen what would the findings be:

We were susceptable to worldwide influences but our own lack of regulation increased the problems.

The Financial Regulator was merely a shopfront on College Green.

FF policies such as Section 23 tax breaks etc hyped up and already hyped property market.

The government/regulators did nothing to prevent inflated and false property values at the time.

Alot of blame would end up on the steps of the Government over the last 10-15 years i.e. Ahern, Cowen etc

bamboozle

exactly, that's why if there is an inquiry it will certainly not be done in public as Messers Neary, Ahern, Cowen and McCreevy have too much to lose.

ei.sdraob

i cant believe that there isnt one yet

how is one supposed to learn from mistakes if we don't have it in print what the mistakes are

Liam Byrne

There's no need for an inquiry, lads.....have ye not heard Cowen, Lenihan, Ahern, Martin, etc, etc, etc telling ye what happened.

"It's all dem Lehmen's Brudders fault......we did nuttin rong!"

The chances of a tribunal are about the same as an FF government putting the good of the country ahead of their own interests - i.e. ZERO.

MaceFace

Ah good man, have a "tribunal" and try to discover the causes on boards.ie with input from no one of importance :rolleyes:

I actually favour more that a Senate commitee should be set up and everyone involved has to attend and answer questions and have it broadcast live on TV.
If you look at what happens in the US or even the ongoing enquiry into the Iraq war in the UK.

The problem though is once you want to place blame on individuals, you need to afford them some defence which will end up costing us millions more.
Having a Senate commitee will give our Senators something useful to do for a change as well as costing a lot less.

ei.sdraob

MaceFace wrote: »

Ah good man, have a "tribunal" and try to discover the causes on boards.ie with input from no one of importance :rolleyes:

I actually favour more that a Senate commitee should be set up and everyone involved has to attend and answer questions and have it broadcast live on TV.
If you look at what happens in the US or even the ongoing enquiry into the Iraq war in the UK.

The problem though is once you want to place blame on individuals, you need to afford them some defence which will end up costing us millions more.
Having a Senate commitee will give our Senators something useful to do for a change as well as costing a lot less.

those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them

Sleepy

TBH, I favour a DPP-led prosecution in a court of law.

If there's nothing technically illegal about giving jobs to your friends instead of qualified applicants or any of the two million* other shady activities of the governments of the last 10 years try them for treason instead of the relevant criminal act.


*possible exaggeration

viclemronny

Sleepy wrote: »

TBH, I favour a DPP-led prosecution in a court of law.

If there's nothing technically illegal about giving jobs to your friends instead of qualified applicants or any of the two million* other shady activities of the governments of the last 10 years try them for treason instead of the relevant criminal act.


*possible exaggeration

The main problems weren't caused by giving jobs for the boys. They were caused by poor budgets. budgets which we rewarded FF for by electing them again.

This is the main problem when fiscal policy is decided by elected officials instead of appointed officials.

If we had run large budget surpluses, instead of giving more tax cuts, then we wouldn't be the short sighted Irish who squandered the boom years, we would be the wise Irish who saved their money and used it to make sure that when things went very wrong, it didn't have a large impact on the citizens of the country. Heck, we could have probably still had out nice little housing/construction collapse and been ok-ish if we had run large surpluses.


More on topic: A tribunal will not grant any greater knowledge than we have already. Everyone knows why the problems happened. Everyone knows that we aren't doing anything about preventing them from happening again at some stage in the future, maybe not to the same degree but they will happen. You simply cannot expect someone who's job depends on making short-sighted but popular decisions to make far sighted but unpopular decisions.

Sir Oxman

I'd wager a major part of the problem with how this country was mismanaged over the years is exactly jobs for the unqualified boys.

oppenheimer1

Liam Byrne wrote: »

There's no need for an inquiry, lads.....have ye not heard Cowen, Lenihan, Ahern, Martin, etc, etc, etc telling ye what happened.

"It's all dem Lehmen's Brudders fault......we did nuttin rong!"

The chances of a tribunal are about the same as an FF government putting the good of the country ahead of their own interests - i.e. ZERO.

Although I disagree with your dismissive and mocking statement, I was actually thinking about this issue earlier today. I do think the credit crunch and the fall of Lehman had a lot to do with the timing of the current crisis. It was in effect the pin that burst the bubble. It could just have easily been another sort of economic shock that could have brought the whole house of cards down (like a sudden rise in interest rates). So where does the fault lie. Personally I'd lay the blame in five locations, Poor oversight by the regulator, bad lending practice by the banks, poor policy on behalf of the government, poor prudence by Irish society as a whole and the media for manipulating people to suit their own agenda. I don't really blame developers as I think they were more of a symptom of the bubble rather than causing it.

All in all I guess each group lost sight of reality.

ardmacha

This is the main problem when fiscal policy is decided by elected officials instead of appointed officials.

The banks weren't run by elected officials and they f**ked up even more than fiscal policy.