Flight of private sector deposits in Irish banks resumes in May 2011 after blip in April

Figures released by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) this morning for the month of May 2011 show that the flight of private sector deposits from domestic Irish banks, which had reversed in April 2011 for the first time since October 2010, has resumed. The flight has resumed at a modest pace. Deposits in the [...]

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Preliminary Irish census results reveal some surprises on housing

This morning the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released its preliminary analysis of the five-year census that was undertaken on 10th April, 2011. In the so-called inter-censal years, we rely on estimates from the CSO and the Economic Social Research Institute, so the actual census results are eagerly awaited. Here are the highlights (1) [...]

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UK House Prices increase 0.6% month on month in June 2011 (no change on seasonally adjusted basis)

The Nationwide Building Society has this morning published its UK House Price data for June 2011. The Nationwide tends to be the first of the two UK building societies (the other being the Halifax) to produce house price data each month, it is one of the information sources referenced by NAMA’s Long Term Economic Value [...]

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Who is the senior Irish government figure that was banking on a Greek default now, so that Ireland could secure a reduction in its own debt?

It looks as if Greece is going to avert a crisis for now by agreeing in its parliament the austerity and privatisation programme agreed with the EU and IMF. And the Greek vote tomorrow should be sufficient to release the next €12bn tranche of the first bailout so that Greece can, for now at least, [...]

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Central Bank of Ireland produces new statistics on mortgages and deposits

The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) initiatives to improve transparency in Irish banking continue with the publication of new quarterly statistics on consumer lending and deposits at Irish banks (that includes the so-called covered institutions or state-guaranteed banks, AIB, Anglo, Bank of Ireland, EBS, INBS and Irish Life and Permanent and also the local branches [...]

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€12m Anglo senior unsecured unguaranteed bond paid in full today. That’s more than the cost of the Jobs Initiative for one week.

The cost of Minister Noonan’s inaction on Anglo Irish Bank (“Anglo”) and Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) is highlighted today as Anglo repays a €12m senior unsecured unguaranteed bond at par, that is without any haircut or discount. The bonds (ISIN ref: XS0306086157, SEDOL ref: B1ZBPV0) were issued in June 2007 – Sinn Fein finance [...]

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Latest EU price survey confirms Irish consumers continue to be scalped

I despair for the future of our society which we know is going to financially suffer in the next four years as the government tries to eliminate the budget deficit – simplistically, the difference between what the government takes in tax and what it pays out for the public sector and welfare. We know that [...]

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Patrick Honohan’s Calculations and Fermat’s Last Theorem; will we have to wait 350 years to understand both?

You might recall from your secondary school days, Pythagoras’ theorem on right angled triangles that the square of the hypotenuse (the longest side) is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. So a^2 + b^2 = c^2 where a and b are the two smaller sides and c is the [...]

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Was Minister Noonan being candid when he suggested that it was this government that won approval from the ECB to burn subordinated bondholders?

On yesterday’s RTE Radio 1 This Week programme, the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan appeared to claim credit for this new government, which only came to power on 9th March, in respect of the ongoing burning of subordinated bondholders that is expected to contribute €4bn to the €24bn of additional capital identified during the March [...]

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Niall Mellon on NAMA – “money is not my god”, “I’m not one of these developers looking for €200k salaries” but he welcomes NAMA’s profit-sharing initiatives

Niall Mellon, the property developer behind Knockrabo Developments and the Niall J Mellon group was a guest on RTE Radio 1 yesterday on the Sunday edition of the Marian Finucane show. The show is available online here and Niall’s contribution kicks in at around 40 minutes and lasts just over 30 minutes. The interview gave [...]

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