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FINANCE MINISTER MICHAEL Noonan greeted today’s conclusion of the final troika bailout review as a ‘red letter day’ for the country — but the message this afternoon from the IMF’s Ireland Mission Chief was that they’re not going anywhere right away.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call from Washington, Craig Beaumont said that under the terms of the programme, Ireland could be paying money back to the International Monetary Fund until “December 2023,” although he noted that was the “outer limit” agreed.
And asked whether he had a “message for the country” as the 15 December date for Ireland’s exit of the bailout approached, Beaumont took the opportunity to remind everyone that the Fund would still be conducting six monthly ‘visits’ with the Government to discuss policies.
“The only thing that will be different is that there not be an assessment,” Beaumont said.
“We will be here every six months in a completely normal fashion”.
Beaumont stressed that there were no immediate plans to pull officials out of the country after mid-December, saying that in many cases when a country exits a programme, a team remains “for a number of years”.
Assessment
The overall feedback from the Washington-based organisation chimed with the language of the Government here: Ireland remains “on track” and “on profile”.
Beaumont said the Irish programme was one that “will become an example that we learn from in the future” and that the country would be regaining access to the markets “on good terms”.
In terms of the negatives, he said growth was “not what we could call an achievement of the programme,” and that “it has, in fact disappointed original programme projections”.
However he noted: “We have to take into account that the external environment was much worse than anticipated”.
Arrears
Beaumont said more efforts needed to be made to address the mortgages arrears and unemployment crises.
“We flagged before the issue where we would identify that progress hasn’t been quite as fast as we would like is the area of dealing with mortage arrears and dealing with non-performing loans more broadly.
“This is not owing to lack of effort. There was a large investment in time and effort in making the bankruptcy regime more workable, and that’s now up and running.
“There was also effort to remove unintended barriers to repossession of housing — which is a last resort position, but it’s important that households know that there is ultimately a consequence for running prolonged arrears.
He pointed to a “wait and see” attitude from households and from banks and said that could be factor contributing to the problem.
Beaumont said that unemployment was the “main challenge” faced by the Government as the bailout programme came to an end, and said that existing schemes aimed at retraining those who were long-term unemployed should be “implemented vigorously”.
Additional credit
On the subject of whether the country should make use of a precautionary line of credit, the Mission Chief wouldn’t be drawn on a definitive view:
“We did discuss Ireland’s exit strategy during the mission. We’ve expressed our view that it’s not uncommon for a county to have a backstop in place.”
However, he said the decision “remains in the hands of Irish authorities”.
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This is a stitch up, not a “bailout”. What happened was that the National Pension Reserve Fund was raided for €17.5 billion and transferred to the European Financial Stability Facility & Mechanism (EFSF&M) funds. The Troika then generously allowed us to borrow €67.5 billion from the EFSF&M which we are paying back with interest. €64 billion of this has been used directly cover private and illegitimate banking debt. In this way the Troika gets to have the eurozone banking system stabilized at the expense of the Irish people and we get to pay for the privilege via the interest we pay on the debt.
This does not include the €32 billion also borrowed that we have pumped into NAMA to indirectly prop up the banks by taking the bad commercial property loans off their books.Adding the 3 figures together (17.5 + 64 +32) gives a total cost of around €113 billion and counting for the bank bailout so far. Most of this money has been borrowed and the interest payments make up a major component of our annual budget deficit. Whatever this is, it’s not a bailout. Ireland is digging its own economic grave and the Troika are billing us for the shovel.
Repetition is a form of lunacy
Einstein defined insanity as Insanity “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.The troika will still run this country this is all just a smokescreen.Ireland will NOT recover using the mechanisms they are using now.
@tanked I don’t see a problen with the truth being repeated, why does it bother you so much?
Spot on.It was a loan not a bailout. A loan with interest to be repaid by shackled generations to come.
Spot on aireach
Bit like paying for your bank manager to go on holiday and thinking your loan goes with him
We,re screwed
Our children are screwed
Our grandkids are screwed
but at least bellenda gets to read his scripts to a bigger audience.
Coddler who ever red thumbed your comment are sad narrow minded ba——–.the anger and the pure hatred i have for the political class that helped these crowd of bankers destroy my country .
we’re paying a crap rate of interest on something that never actually existed in the first place
- they’re great ‘friends’ to have alright
With FF running at 24% in the polls and FG just ahead of them,with house prices starting to rise again, we need to the IMF to remain here.
Its clear we are not capable of running our own country.
It’s clear the current governments aren’t capable of running the country.Are you saying the irish are completley incompetent?The irish are the victims of a completley corrupt system.
The intelligent people capable of running the country leave and make a life in countries that are run properly. Look at the success a lot of our people have in UK, USA, Australia and a lot of other countries. These are people that know Ireland is a lost cause, and it is a lost cause.
Irish people elected the morons and will vote for the same morons in a different suit .
The experiment continues.
An emergency line of credit is what we will be told to take. Angela’s ever obedient minions here won’t argue.
“emergency line of credit” = bailout part 2. Different words to describe the same stuff. The same way as when Greece defaulted it was not called a default. Its all a scam.
I’m not disagreeing with you because I don’t know…but how and when did Greece default?
When they received a 150 billion euro write down of their debt, that is a default or at least it was before europe decided nobody could default.
In 2011, when a new rescue package was put together.
Stephen, Greece has defaulted a grand total of 5 times in modern financial history. They’ve spent a total of 90 years in a state of default which amounts to basically half of the lifetime of the independent Greek state. That isn’t including the EU debt write-off which is a default in everything but name.
So the IMF are staying, but all the FG fan boys are saying there’re going so who’s lying?
The FG fan boys are like those nodding donkeys Dermot Ahern and Dole Dempsey when they were pretending the IMF were not on their way to Ireland.
Do the IMF require working visas to enter our country?
If yes, who issues the visas?
If we have exited the “bailout” program why would we continue to issue working visas to the IMF?
how does anyone take baldie seriously, hes like an FG version Eamon Ryan , cant help but being condescending despite not having a handle on events.
Outside of the spin and canned soundbites from FG, this is the real story. The IMF are going nowhere. We were not bailed out, and even when they do leave our budgets will still be dictated to us from the fatherland.
Cheers enda, enjoy your 30 pieces of silver.
I always admired the dark humour of our overlords: the Stalinist term “Troika” described a three man committee during the grim times of The Great Purge, authorised to pass sentence without trial in the absence of the accused.
“No one knows for sure how many people were murdered during Stalin’s Great Purge, but estimates put the figure at more than 1 million. During the peak period of 1937-38, Stalin’s secret police executed more than 1,000 people per day, most with a shot to the back of the head.”
http://www.rferl.org/media/photogallery/24903236.html
Sums it up. At least those poor souls got a quick death. Sometimes it seems like Ireland is just being tortured slowly to economic ruin.
Sorry, sorry. Jusy feeling real cynical about this perverse, quasi-celebratory “end of the bailout” stuff.
Get out t’ f**k
For how long must we put up with that idiot minister Noonan rambling on as if somehow the end of all our troubles is upon us.We still have to pay billions and billions.Those that caused the problem are still hiding behind enda and co. and there is no sign of anything changing on that score.Its like a real life muppet show .They did what they were told to do and that is that.Kenny is a disgrace and The fool noonan not too far behind.They make me want to throw up…..IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A former mission chief to Ireland got shot in the face with a bullet ! It’s not a very lucky job is it ?
They’re not leaving because of The Gathering. They’re going to discoverireland.ie
we havent gone away….why dont they just move in and take over running of the country rather than leave kenny gilmore et al turn up in the dail giving the illusion of been in charge
blah, blah………ITS A SCAM PLAIN AND SIMPLE……..LETS STOP BEATING AROUND THE BUSH HERE….
So long and thanks for all the fish!
So were Noonan and Howlin telling lies this morning – that would be strange .??
How they are still robbing us is well nigh beyond comprehension – after five years . Fighting Irish !!
Send them to Leinster house to check out the expenses.
It would be great if they stayed and sorted the Políticans, cut from the top, see how they like it..
Why would they they own us FG seen to that
Why are they leaving? Was it something we said?
I would never be that they found the work too taxing. Would it? Naw. It couldn’t possibly be that.
Could this be a case though of the surgeons leaving the operating theater as the patient bleeds to death?
How better off is our Domestic Economy today than it was on the day they arrived? Seems to me that our Domestic Economy is currently dying on its feet and that our three Troika Departees have simply presided over a financial blood letting.
Where has the money gone from peoples pockets which might have been considered for discretionary spending?
It has been sponged up by various multi tax diktats from our nod departing suited friends.
Come home T.K. Whitaker; all is forgiven.
Get out and stay out you thieving b!!!!!!!
So we’re not a sovereign country that can decide who we want to have “visiting” our country?
They are staying around just to make sure they have taken everything we have!
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