Brian Cowen lost his marbles?

femur61

Do you trust Brain Cowen to negotiate on behalf of the Irish people. He seems to have his own personal agenda, what that is I don't know. Some of his ministers say they weren't aware there were discussions going on at the weekend. The Eurozone seems to be very nervous because of Ireland. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ I'm very nervous that Brian Cowen is meeting the EU and IMF tomorrow on my and all the citizens of Irelands behalf. He seems to be disregarding all the expert advice, has he lost his marbles? That is a very genuine concern that I have.

Kristopherus

You could be right. His incompetence is beyond belief. He had some of his ministers out over the week-end vehemently denying that Ireland was in discussion with EU/ECB/IMF. Then he rants at Leaders Questions this morning. Truly unbelievable !!! No way could Enda be that bad.

RockinRolla

Hes a loose cannon

RobAMerc

No he hasn't - he knows exactly what he is doing, lying. Cowen is in it up to his neck. He is lying through his teeth in a vain effort to save a) himself and b) "the party", remember everything FF does is in that order of importance. We the people come a very long way down the priorities of this lot of scum.

FF have ran us aground, they failed us terribly and now are trying to spin it anyway possible to make it sound like its not a bail out. I bet they'll spin it to us that its a bank dig out, but not a country bail out.

the game is up - r.i.p. ireland as we know it - the IMF are here, we've joined the banana republic brigade - Argentina, Hungry, Latvia etc
well done Cowen et al.

alang184

His interview on Six-One news was particularly alarming. For once, RTE showed some balls towards the establishment; Brian Dobson was fairly pressing about how the Irish people have been misled.

Cowen kept accusing Dobson/RTE of "playing on words". But this is exactly what the government are doing now - playing on words - by refusing to admit the ongoing "bailout talks". They insist on not calling it a bailout. It's such a disgrace; pathetic. And the cheek of this clown, who is supposed to be our leader, claiming that no bailout talks are on the way, when we all know it's happening.

Succumbing to foreign financial aid would be the ultimate humiliation for Fianna Fail, the "Republican" party. So they will go to great length to prevent it being called a "bailout".

later12

Brian Cowen comes from a republican family.

His constituency is a strong republican constituency.

More than anything, I would imagine he is deeply embarrassed about his own personal failure as finance minister and as taoiseach, about his party's failure, and embarrassed about the inevitable loss of our ability to govern our own affairs under his watch. Enda Kenny's words to him of this effect in Leinster House yesterday when he talked about the loss of our independence under Cowen's watch clearly smarted with the Taoiseach.

I would imagine what you are seeing here is a man whose immense professional failure is just beginning to dawn upon him.

BeeDI

At this stage, Jackie Healy Rea, would be a safer pair of hands, negotiating with the IMF. At the very least, south Kerry might remain independent. With Cowan the whole country is sunk.

femur61

I am seriously worried.

alang184

femur61 wrote: »

I am seriously worried.

Why.

southsiderosie

femur61 wrote: »

Do you trust Brain Cowen to negotiate on behalf of the Irish people. He seems to have his own personal agenda, what that is I don't know. Some of his ministers say they weren't aware there were discussions going on at the weekend. The Eurozone seems to be very nervous because of Ireland. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ I'm very nervous that Brian Cowen is meeting the EU and IMF tomorrow on my and all the citizens of Irelands behalf. He seems to be disregarding all the expert advice, has he lost his marbles? That is a very genuine concern that I have.

I think the problem for the government is that the way they are used to dealing with a crisis is by saying everything is fine, and then having six men make midnight wink-wink-nod-nod decisions that are then imposed on the rest of the country. Well, they can't do that now because they are playing with other people's money.

The foreign press coverage of this has been fascinating: the rest of the world is stunned by the behavior of the Irish government. The headline of the Spanish news tonight was "Ireland Says No" (oh, the irony!). It is patently obvious to everyone else in Europe that Ireland is teetering on the precipice, and the fact that only about 8 FFers could be arsed to shop up to the Dail yesterday afternoon about says it all, really.

irishh_bob

later10 wrote: »

Brian Cowen comes from a republican family.

His constituency is a strong republican constituency.

More than anything, I would imagine he is deeply embarrassed about his own personal failure as finance minister and as taoiseach, about his party's failure, and embarrassed about the inevitable loss of our ability to govern our own affairs under his watch. Enda Kenny's words to him of this effect in Leinster House yesterday when he talked about the loss of our independence under Cowen's watch clearly smarted with the Taoiseach.

I would imagine what you are seeing here is a man whose immense professional failure is just beginning to dawn upon him.

lots of people in ireland are failures , that we had a weak loser at the helm is a big part of our tragedy

BeeDI

Don't any single one of us forget, that we kept putting FF back in power, election after election, for decade now. We are culpable as a nation of people.

touts

femur61 wrote: »

Do you trust Brain Cowen to negotiate on behalf of the Irish people. He seems to have his own personal agenda, what that is I don't know. Some of his ministers say they weren't aware there were discussions going on at the weekend. The Eurozone seems to be very nervous because of Ireland. http://www.spiegel.de/international/ I'm very nervous that Brian Cowen is meeting the EU and IMF tomorrow on my and all the citizens of Irelands behalf. He seems to be disregarding all the expert advice, has he lost his marbles? That is a very genuine concern that I have.

We are witnessing history in the making and the man knows it. He finally recognises that his judgement in history books will be as either a villain or a fool. He was promoted way beyond his ability. He was a broken man when he left the Health department and as his mistakes in finance and the Taoiseach's office demonstrate it is clear now that he neither learned nor recovered from that failure. It would not surprise me if he is the first Taoiseach not to have his portrait hanging in the halls of Leinster house.

He is engaged in a last desperate struggles of a man who refuses to accept his complete and utter defeat. It reminds me of Hitler moving fictional armies around on a map as the red army moved in. The delusional hope of a miracle is all that Cowen has left.

His time in public office is now down to days if not hours. Ireland will survive this crisis. We may even come through this trial stronger. Cowen will not. We are witnessing his downfall.

Liam Byrne

BeeDI wrote: »

Don't any single one of us forget, that we kept putting FF back in power, election after election, for decade now. We are culpable as a nation of people.

I don't know if you're speaking for yourself, but I certainly never put, or even assisted putting, FF in power, ever the original Haughey corruption era.

two wheels good

later10 wrote: »

Brian Cowen comes from a republican family.

His constituency is a strong republican constituency.

More than anything, I would imagine he is deeply embarrassed about his own personal failure as finance minister and as taoiseach, about his party's failure, and embarrassed about the inevitable loss of our ability to govern our own affairs under his watch. Enda Kenny's words to him of this effect in Leinster House yesterday when he talked about the loss of our independence under Cowen's watch clearly smarted with the Taoiseach.

I would imagine what you are seeing here is a man whose immense professional failure is just beginning to dawn upon him.

republican family? republican constituency?
Do you just mean patriotic?

This country is cursed with the mindset of civil war, pro\anti treaty politics. That why we still have blind allegiance to FF or FG.

If what you surmise about Cowen is true the only honourable course of action for him is to resign.

ICE HOUSE

Bailout, What bailout?
I thought they were over here on a stag weekend.

Scofflaw

touts wrote: »

We are witnessing history in the making and the man knows it. He finally recognises that his judgement in history books will be as either a villain or a fool. He was promoted way beyond his ability. He was a broken man when he left the Health department and as his mistakes in finance and the Taoiseach's office demonstrate it is clear now that he neither learned nor recovered from that failure. It would not surprise me if he is the first Taoiseach not to have his portrait hanging in the halls of Leinster house.

He is engaged in a last desperate struggles of a man who refuses to accept his complete and utter defeat. It reminds me of Hitler moving fictional armies around on a map as the red army moved in. The delusional hope of a miracle is all that Cowen has left.

His time in public office is now down to days if not hours. Ireland will survive this crisis. We may even come through this trial stronger. Cowen will not. We are witnessing his downfall.

Interestingly enough, that's not what some people think:

The Irish are a nation of gamblers. ... it would be dangerous to bet against Dublin winning its high-stakes game of poker with the European Union over a possible bailout.

Ireland's aim is to secure a deal on the most favorable terms, including crucially the retention of its ultralow corporate-tax rate, a potent symbol of economic sovereignty that the minority Fianna Fail government is determined to protect at all costs ahead of next year's likely elections.

Dublin still has the strongest hand. The first thing in its favor is that no one can force it to accept a bailout; Ireland has to ask the European Union for help. And given the Irish government is fully funded until the middle of next year, it can in theory drag this situation out for months. If it did that, of course, contagion would likely spread quickly across the euro zone, as Tuesday's stock and bond selloffs showed, threatening the survival of the common currency. In that sense, Ireland is armed with a nuclear weapon.

In response, the EU is armed only with bows and arrows. There is very little it can do to force Dublin to seek an early bailout. The one pressure point is Ireland's banks, now only able to survive thanks to European Central Bank funding. But so long as the banks are still able to post eligible collateral, the ECB has little option but to continue accepting it, even though its lending to Ireland now totals €130 billion, equivalent to 80% of Irish GDP.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704648604575620251565111376.html

I can't help but recall two things - first, this is the same guy who finally got the European Constitution negotiated; and second, that nobody has ever profited by underestimating Fianna Fáil when they think their political survival is at stake.

cordially,
Scofflaw

westtip

two wheels good wrote: »

If what you surmise about Cowen is true the only honourable course of action for him is to resign.

Tonight would be good. He should not only resign but grovel with an apology.

My god did anyone hear Prick Roche on Newstalk today....a real embarrassment to the nation.

BeeDI

BeeDI wrote: »

Don't any single one of us forget, that we kept putting FF back in power, election after election, for decade now. We are culpable as a nation of people.

Many of the "we" you speak of didn't actually, but there was enough fu**tards left over from the Haughey and Aherne eras to keep the f**kers in government.

lmaopml

alang184 wrote: »

His interview on Six-One news was particularly alarming. For once, RTE showed some balls towards the establishment; Brian Dobson was fairly pressing about how the Irish people have been misled.

Cowen kept accusing Dobson/RTE of "playing on words". But this is exactly what the government are doing now - playing on words - by refusing to admit the ongoing "bailout talks". They insist on not calling it a bailout. It's such a disgrace; pathetic. And the cheek of this clown, who is supposed to be our leader, claiming that no bailout talks are on the way, when we all know it's happening.

Succumbing to foreign financial aid would be the ultimate humiliation for Fianna Fail, the "Republican" party. So they will go to great length to prevent it being called a "bailout".

In fairness he couldn't have answered Dobsons question without jeopardising talks. The media know this, it's obvious, but keep asking anyway, and so does Enda and Gilmore....( such concern )

He did say he has been in 'talks' all along but has not made an 'application', this is most likely the truth - In other words Europe came to us.

I'm more worried that there isn't a single one of em worth trusting completely, but at the moment it's best to wait and see what transpires after the budget announcement..

The frenzy is contageous..and there's always the bandwagon brigade.

Whether it's bailout or budget, or the people pulling the strings are our Government or the IMF the figures are all the same. I would have preferred the no bailout option - I'm holding my breath till budget day.

*Keels over*

stepbar

Cowan is clearly leading us up the path of "De Nile".....

themadchef

RoverJames wrote: »

he looks like an alcoholic pastry chef.

On a good day

Back on topic. As much as i disrespect the man i wouldint want to be in his shoes right now. How can he sleep, eat, or rest. The future of many rests in the hands of few. If he's not a little bit crazy by now then he's not human.

peasant

Scofflaw wrote: »

I can't help but recall two things - first, this is the same guy who finally got the European Constitution negotiated; and second, that nobody has ever profited by underestimating Fianna Fáil when they think their political survival is at stake.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Indeed, this might be the one (and pretty much only) time where we could actually use that hard-necked FF gombeenism in the country's favour.

If the governement were to topple tomorrow, Inda or Gilmore would just hand it over to the EU, lock, stock and barrel...with a ribbon and flowers.

Let Cowen do a Healy-Rae style deal with the EU/IMF, sell them a real stinker ...and then he can feck off

EDIT: FF right now certainly are more motivated than anyone else to save even the tiniest shred of advantage out of this whole affair ...they couldn't possibly sink any lower, these negotiations are their last chance for a bit of glory for months (and possibly years) to come

dan_d

Wholeheartedly agree with themadchef.How either of the Brians can have a minute's rest I don't know - if I was Brian Lenihan I'd have thrown in the towel long ago and be spending some time with my family (I'm sorry, the man just looks sick)

Don't underestimate Brian Cowen. They are playing with words, but they are doing it because they've been shoved into a corner by the EU. The rest of the world may be looking on by the way, but a lot of Europeans are supporting us in our "no" response - many seem more worried about Portugal than us. I think there is a feeling that we are being shoved into this and that the Eurozone is not necessarily a good thing (esp after Greece), so they are quite happy to not have to bail us out, regardless of what their leaders want.

A cornered animal is vicious and right now, our 2 leaders (not counting Mary Coughlan, she's a nonentity right now) are, to an extent, cornered. We're playing with the big boys, but we don't play the game the way they do. I know this sounds completely ridiculous, but I think there's a whole lot of people out there looking at this through a "screw FF, they're all dumb" coloured haze, and I'd be careful of that.No matter how you look at it, we have ticked a lot of the EU's boxes - we "saved" our banks, rather than let them go bust, we brought in budget cuts quickly, and we're heading for a whole lot more, we're giving them their 4 year austerity plan in detail and our first budget will frontload a lot of the cuts. Dress it up how you will, call it right or wrong, we've done a lot more than some of the other countries out there - and we're not asking. We're being pushed.

I don't think they're lying. I think they are making their advantage very, very clear....shouting it from the roof tops that if we DO have to take a bailout it will only be because we are being forced into it.And that looks pretty bad for the EU, which is not helped by statements like this....

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/barroso-ireland-making-enormous-efforts-482209.html

And, should we be forced into it, they want to be playing with the upper hand - getting the best deal possible for Ireland's reputation, whatever about it's actual banking system.

Just my 2 cents - I wouldn't write the 2 of them off. There's a lot more going on there than meets the eye.

smokin ace

first of all i dont support any political party and i did not fall into the trap of the trap of the good times because i was listening to the people that knew what was going to happen

i feel a bit sorry for biffo because people is fully pointing the finger for all the countrys mess he was not the only one that ruined this country everybody did as the pure greed in this country was unreal in the good times everyone was greedy pigs and always wanted more and more the banks the government the people of this country everyones to blame and not just biffo alone i know he and his government party created and turned a blind eye to let the mess happen but its not just him alone

would this country be in such a mess if people listened to the economists that were warning of the property crash nobody listened and part of society thought the good times would never end the banks were shovelling money out to everyone and anyone
people lied about there income to get un-believe sums of money for houses cars holidays and still went back to the bank for more not thinking of the future people thought they would have a job for life THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JOB FOR LIFE and people forgot that

if the banks were not falling apart to be honest i dont think the mess would be as bad as what it is now

but back to biffo and the current government they made mistakes and some big ones the likes of anglo-nama(i dont think will make money)-and total waste of tax payers money(not unlike the people who got all the money out of the banks and wasted it)

BUT THE PEOPLE THAT THOUGHT THE PARTY WOULD LAST FOREVER ARE TO SHOULDER SOME OF THE BLAME ASWELL

BRIAN LENIHAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAOISEACH AFTER BERTIE NOT BRIAN COWAN

Kristopherus

RoverJames wrote: »

Slob of a man, disgraceful that he is representing the country in any capacity, he looks like an alcoholic pastry chef.

Hey!Hey!Hey! Don't be insulting the Pastry Chefs :D:D

RealityCheck

Ah don't worry people they are negotiating with the Department of Finance, the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank. Cowen won't be around.

ashleey

Bear in mind that these brilliant negotiators got legged over by the banks so they can't be that proficient

Liam Byrne

smokin ace wrote: »

he was not the only one that ruined this country everybody did as the pure greed in this country was unreal in the good times everyone was greedy pigs and always wanted more and more the banks the government the people of this country everyones to blame

Incorrect.

smokin ace wrote: »

would this country be in such a mess if people listened to the economists that were warning of the property crash nobody listened and part of society thought the good times would never end the banks were shovelling money out to everyone and anyone
people lied about there income to get un-believe sums of money for houses cars holidays and still went back to the bank for more not thinking of the future

Firstly : The then Taoiseach rubbished the warnings, giving less informed people some misdirected peace of mind.

Secondly : Some people did what you said above.

I turned down a loan that was twice the size of what I could afford. I have NEVER lied about my income and have NOT gone back to the bank for more.

smokin ace wrote: »

BUT THE PEOPLE THAT THOUGHT THE PARTY WOULD LAST FOREVER ARE TO SHOULDER SOME OF THE BLAME ASWELL

And what of the people who didn't view it as a party and didn't think it would last forever ? Your phrase blames those who did, which appears fair enough, but since you earlier suggested that this was "everyone" you have negated your point by being incorrect earlier.

two wheels good

dan_d wrote: »

There's a lot more going on there than meets the eye.

I heard that repeatedly around the time of the bank guarantee and then about the bailout and the implication was: .
"Oh, they know what they're doing. Just trust them. How could you or I understand the complexity of the problem".

Come to think of it, I heard it many times in the UK to claim the justify the Iraq invasion in 2003 and hoodwink the public about WMD.

Dyr

later10 wrote: »

Brian Cowen comes from a republican family.

His constituency is a strong republican constituency.

Really? I thought he was fianna fail.