Ireland: ''Income of poorest households fell by more than 18% in one year while the income of richest households rose by 4%''

From Social Justice Ireland

''The income of Ireland’s poorest households fell by more than 18% in a single year while the income of the richest rose by more than 4%.  There is something profoundly wrong with Government decisions that produce this lop-sided distribution of income favouring the richest when Ireland’s poor and middle-income people struggle to make ends meet in these extremely difficult times.

These are some of the key finding contained in Social Justice Ireland’s Policy Briefing published on July 16, 2012 which analyses the related issues of Poverty and Income Distribution and shows how Ireland’s income distribution has changed over the past 30 years.''

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''The ghost houses of Ireland: Foreclosure and eviction''

From The Star

''The roots of Ireland’s rags-to-riches-and-back-again story began more than 20 years ago.

During the early 1990s, with a young, English-speaking, low-cost workforce, low interest rates and government grants, Ireland’s export-oriented economy blossomed, growing by an average 6.5 per cent from 1990 to 2007.

By 2000, unemployment had plunged to 3.8 per cent, the lowest in Europe, from 16 per cent in the mid-1990s. Irish expats and new immigrants alike flocked to the country. In 2005, 100,000 immigrants arrived in Ireland, more than triple the 30,000 who came annually in the mid-1990s.''

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''Irish citizens boycott austerity tax''

From EU Observer

"Almost half of Irish people have refused to pay a household tax imposed as part of promised savings measures, while government pressure to secure the levy risks further angering an austerity-weary public.

By a Saturday (31 March) midnight deadline, around 805,000 of the country's 1.6 million registered households had paid the tax, which has been subject to a high-profile boycott campaign."

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Ireland: 'Reilly says Govt inherited 'absolute mess'

"The Health Minister has said the country is broke and the Coalition inherited "an absolute mess" from the previous government."


from rte news..

''Moody's warns Ireland may need second bailout''

"The agency said it expected Ireland would face challenges regaining market access in 2013 and will likely need to rely on the European Stability Mechanism, at least partially, when the current support programme expires."


from rte....

Ireland: "Figures reveal rise in troubled mortgages"

"New figures from the Central Bank show that the number of people falling behind with their mortgage repayments increased again in the final three months of 2011."


from rte...........

Ireland: "Higher costs if bond holders burned''

read more from rte....


"Householders will be forced to pay much higher utility bills and higher mortgages if the Government defaults on a €1.2bn payment to Anglo Irish Bank bondholders, due next Wednesday according to Minister Varadkar. 


Defending the decision to pay the money, the Minister for Transport and Tourism, Leo Varadkar has said that the Troika had warned the Government that non-payment would be like triggering a financial bomb in Dublin."

'People & Power: Collapse of the Celtic Tiger'

from aljazeera....

'Ireland 'may need new bailout'

from irish times...

"Ireland clearly needs to negotiate a stand-by second bailout, Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter said during a visit to Dublin today.

Mr Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee and respected economist, said the most attractive option from Ireland’s point of view would be a reduction on the interest it pays on an outstanding €30 billion in promissory notes, issued mostly to deal with the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank.

He said Ireland is paying in the region of 6 per cent on this money but it could be refinanced at 3 per cent by the European Financial Stability Facility."

Op-Ed from Ireland: "Leaving the euro may be our least extreme option"

read more from david mcwilliams and independent ie...

"In the year ahead, the exchange rate question will rarely be far from the headlines. If we are to have a referendum -- which, according to the Finance Minister, will be a vote on whether we are in or out of the euro -- we should get our heads around what the exchange rate does, what having your own exchange rate allows you to do and why that might be a valuable alternative for Ireland.

At the moment, the central plank of Irish economic policy, backed by the IMF and the EU, is something called "internal devaluation" and the logic of it goes like this: Ireland is uncompetitive and needs to export its way out of the recession. As we don't have an exchange rate that can fall, we need to grind down wages over a period of years so that Irish industry can be competitive again."

Ireland: "House prices down 15.6% this year"

read more.......from the irish times....

"The price of an average house in Ireland fell by almost 16 per cent in the year up to November, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office.

Residential property prices fell by 1.5 per cent last month, compared to a decline of 1 per cent in November of last year, according to the CSO. The cost of a house in Dublin dipped 2.4 per cent during the month."

''Ireland demands debt relief, warns on EU treaties''

from the telegraph.....

"The Irish government has suddenly complicated the picture by requesting debt relief from as a reward for upholding the integrity of the EU financial system after the Lehman crisis, though there is no explicit linkage between the two issues.

"We carried an undue burden for protecting the European banking system from contagion," said finance minister Michael Noonan.

"We are looking at ways to reduce the debt. We would like to see our European colleagues address this in a positive manner. Wherever there is a reckless borrower, there is also a reckless lender," he said, alluding to German, French, British and Dutch banks".....READ MORE

Ireland: "Fall in house prices accelerates"

from irishtimes........

"Irish house prices continued to fall last month, and at a faster pace than the previous month.

House prices dropped 1.6 per cent in August, compared to a 0.8 per cent fall in July. On an annual basis, house prices were 13.9 per cent lower last month than the previous August. This compares to an annual rate of decline of 12.5 per cent in July.


The latest monthly figures, which were released by the CSO today, mean that residential properties are now 43 per cent lower than in 2007".......READ MORE

"Ireland debates the limits of austerity"

from reuters........

"In an age of austerity, Ireland is struggling to decide what is important. Dublin has pushed through nearly 21 billion euros ($29 billion) in spending cuts and tax increases, equivalent to more than 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Investors have been impressed by the calm in Ireland. In contrast to Greece, Britain and Spain, there has been little social unrest.

But as the cuts continue, it's getting harder to decide what should go next. The seven-month old coalition government, headed by Enda Kenny's center-right Fine Gael party, needs to find another 12 billion euros in savings or increased tax receipts between 2012 and 2015 -- probably more if global economic prospects worsen. The cuts are required by the European Union and International Monetary Fund in exchange for 67.5 billion euros in loans. Outgoing European Central Bank chief Juergen Stark told the Irish Times this week that the country should cut further".............READ MORE

Ireland: 'It will take a decade for the economy to recover from the fallout of the collapse of the property market'

from irish times.......

"Irish property prices have yet to hit bottom and as a result the final bill for bailing out the banks is likely to be in the region of €90 billion to €100 billion, economist Morgan Kelly said last night.

In the Hubert Butler Lecture to the Kilkenny Arts Festival last night, Mr Kelly said: "We are very far from the bottom" of the property market and it will take a decade for the economy to recover from the fallout of the collapse of the property market.

He estimated Irish debt levels will rise to between €240 billion and €250 billion by 2015, far higher than the current Government estimates of €200 billion and said that there was no way the country can repay this level of debt.

The UCD economist said the Irish economy would require a decade to recover.

Mr Kelly said the recent US spending deal that allowed the debt ceiling to be raised, but avoided raising taxes to try and plug the widening deficit, was “catastrophic” and added that "as the US goes under that will hit Ireland very, very badly".

The UCD lecturer said in the past he had believed that Ireland could walk away from the current bailout. However, he said last night he now thinks "we are stuck [with it]".............READ MORE

Ireland: 'Fall in house prices speeding up'

from belfasttelegraph.com.......

"House prices fell at their fastest annual rate for 19 months during May as buyers continued to stay away from the market, figures show.

Homes lost 4.2% of their value during the past year, based on average prices during the three months to the end of May, compared with the same three-month period of the previous year, according to Halifax"...........LINK