“He [Minister for Transport and Tourism, Leo Varadlar] said that the Troika told the Government that “we don’t want you to default on these payments, it is your decision ultimately but a bomb will go off; and the bomb will go off in Dublinand not in Frankfurt.”” RTE reporting Minister Varadkar’s comments 22nd January 2012
The regular audience on here will know that there is generally a lighter tone on the blog at weekends unless there is some major breaking financial news. But the above blog title reflects the very serious comments made by Minister for Transport and Tourism Leo Varadkar today when referring to the €1.25bn bond that falls due at Anglo Irish Bank on Wednesday next 25th January. Minister Varadkar has been accused of being unrestrained in his comments but they have been refreshing in illuminating dealings that other politicians want to remain hidden. The Minister’s comments come a fortnight after the ECB refused to release a letter it had sent to the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan on 19th November 2010, a letter which was understood to have warned the Minister not to default on senior bondholders.
Ironic that bankers from the country that produced the Red Army Faction and Baader Meinhoff should threaten in these terms. When I last examined public safety spending decisions (albeit a decade ago) a human life was worth just over €1m. So perhaps 1,250 lives will be extinguished with the payment of this bond anyway, as a consequence of cutting spending, and the ongoing crisis and austerity is projected to force the emigration of 70,000 this year. Perhaps the bankers inFrankfurtmight want to weigh more carefully the certain consequences that will follow the payment to the bondholders, with what is only a possibility that flows from their threats.
NAMA Wine Lake 
So what’s meant by a “bomb” then? A threat like that is only made if they’re afraid we’d consider doing it, which is a good sign. Cutting off funding to the to our banks, well people have said that’d be suicide and so a non-starter. Still shows the contempt they have for us (as if it wasn’t already overt), shows their bullies and our leaders don’t have the stones to stand up to them. Well done Varakar for speaking up, but he’s a smart lad, knows this mess isn’t sustainable.
Here my response to that ECB statement of intent
http://soundmigration.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/irish-gov-bows-to-bombholder-threats-from-the-ecb-over-anglo-debt/
This kind of stuff, even allowing for Varadkarian hyperbole, and the contempt of the ECB as expressed by the indifference of their mission man to both Greece and Ireland when questioned by Vincent Browne, are beginning to lighten a landscape foreshadowed with an unending scorched earth policy. The wonder isn’t that we have emigration ( to paraphrase Woody Allen), but that we don’t have more of it.
But the juiciest bit is this : Greece is warned , by Angela et al, that if they don’t burn the bondholders – they won’t get the next IMF tranche ! But if we do, we’ll get our financial system obliterated ? And Mr. Masush attends both of these parties – no wonder he needs his supercilous smirk, because no logic is available to square that circle ….
You can only hope for Lima Syndrone the inverse of Stockholm.
Mr. Masuch’s smirk may be caused by his private pleasure at how his career and riches will flourish after helping create an “Atlantic Alscace Lorrainne” of the Irish public’s forest lands, gas infrastructure, airline and other publically owned properties handed down to us from our forebears for safe keeping so that we would in turn have the salt to hand it onwards to our own descendants
@NWL
““we don’t want you to default on these payments, it is your decision ultimately but a bomb will go off; and the bomb will go off in Dublin and not in Frankfurt.”
That statement is blackmail.
Ireland should respond with action.
Close all the banks, burn the bondholders including the ECB and take back the money put into the banks by the State.
We should do an Iceland, even at this late stage.
How dare an unelected institution whose mandate (as they keep reminding us) is price stability, issue such a threat to a sovereign country.
The ECB is a rogue institution.
It is the Panzer division of the German Bundesbank, who are engaged in a Wirtschaftskrieg against the peripheral EU countries and Ireland in particular.
Ah well, when they finally annex us, instead of being the Sudetenland, we could be the Spud’Ating Land !
Still, a Marshall Plan afterwards would be good. Although, apparently building too many houses and having a failed banking sector doesn’t qualify one for this. You need to lay waste to Europe first. After 50 yrs, you can return to lecturing the profiligate as if you were as pure as whited snow yourself.
As I said on another thread – the bomb will go off when we have the referendum on ratifying the EU fiscal agreement. It will be rejected and that’s when all hell will break loose.
This country will not be holding a referendum. In the last country that tried that there was an ECB backed coup d’etat.
Our leaders will not risk such an outcome. They prefer a policy of appeasement towards Frankfurt. They prefer Prime Ministers and Presidents to suffer the fate of Emil Hácha, summoned to Berlin, stricken with a heart attack by threats to bomb Prague unless Czechoslovakia was signed over to the Third Reich that very night. They would rather give in that stand up for their own people.
The German’s will bully, threaten viciously to get what they want, and history shows that appeasement will only make their demands even more outrageous. Events of the last three years have confirmed this. With every concession, with each new transfer of money, power, and industry to Germany, they have demanded more and more concessions, even as those already granted literally decimate whole nations.
Eventually the demand will be “your freedom or your ATMs”. The only way to end this is to say no. This country must default on the ECB. It will be harsh, but it will be less harsh than living any longer under the rule of ex-communists and Stazi-officials. The longer we give in, the longer we put off saying no, the closer we come to the fate of President Hacha and Czechoslovakia.
It took the troika to bring emotional language to the debate, but I’m glad someone did. Strong language indeed, words matter.
Ok, so that’s their threat but what’s our Minister and Government saying to them and us to say we’re not afraid of their threats!! We need varadkar et al to get out of the trenches and start fighting!
Colin ‘bin’ Duffy,is at a lose end…appoint him to negotiate.
Basically,the Anglo bond payment is a declaration of war,its economic terrorism against the weakest members of society,govern yourselfs accordingly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089508/Colin-Duffy-trial-Freed-THIRD-time-20-years-beating-terror-charges.html
Funny that. Elements of the Independent Left, the Occupy people, Sinn Fein and Dublin Council of Trade Unions have all called on people to get on the streets from 8am tomorrow morning to stop IBRC/Anglo from operating in the next few days. I reckon this is a pre-emptive ‘psy-op’ style strike on the possibility of people joining in and mobilising against this in a significant way. I mean why else is Varadkar coming out with this at 6pm on a Sunday evening? Count the threats in that news report. Democracy? It went thataway Bob! These people (I include Varadkar and the ECB in that) should watch out for unintended consequences.
Correction : In interests of accuracy. Sinn Fein calling for people to gather on Tuesday and do an overnight protest leading into Wednesday.
@EC Leo is trying to cover his ass,still has ambitions to be top man one day,FG is going to get anilahated at next election,if current government even survives one term.
Noonan is completly incompetent out his debt,immigration is a lifestyle choice,so is early retirement,take it you won’t be missed.
We all know there bully boy tactics, they bombed Dublin and monaghan to pass a treaty so this is of no surprise at all, but what is the spineless government doing about it, bending over like whipped cowards, talking about honour and good face in europe, good face ? Honour ? These criminals in the IMF/ WORLD BANK / ECB no nothing about these qualitys!
@John. I’d imagine Varadkar might be auditioning for the role of a little Pinochet – delivering messages like that without so much as a hint that there is something pretty sick about the message,
Let the bomb go off in Dublin!!. How long before the aftershock reaches Frankfurt? About 10 mili seconds would be my guess.
Talking Bomb’s to paddies is a dangerous game.
The ECB bomb will do less damage to Ireland than the E1.25 bn payment to insane Anglo investors by inept Irish Govt on behalf of a supine and spineless Irish electorate.
Great (but depressing) work NWL. I was away for the day and scanned the news sites when I came home tonight and saw that comment of Varadakar’s on RTE’s website. I couldn’t believe there was no analysis beside it. As usual, I had to come to NWL where the finger is always on the pulse. If Varadakar has quoted them accurately then this is really a disturbing comment on so many levels. At the very least, it shows that these bureaucrats (undoubtedly with the support of Merkozy) are the new power elite in Europe. We are just a small pawn in the much bigger game of saving German and French banks.
@All
Outraged if true. Email TDs and demand that the bond not be paid. Here were my contributions to the issue: http://www.planware.org/briansblog/
Feel free to copy, modify, whatever. Click on “Continue Reading” at the end of the second entry entitled “Another Message to TDs about Anglo Bonds” and you’ll find a corrected and uptodate emails for all TDs.
I smell EU FEAR here. To use such language to us is really silly. We Irish are not unused to that 4 letter word. That particular form of ordinance is something we are well used to.
If we light the fuse it will blow the s..h…one…tea out of the EU and it’s bye bye EURO! Yet again we have the calling card in our hands but this chicken Government will not use it. This Government should call an emergency EU summit, tell them we want a far better deal or we scuttle the submarine. Angular Murky and Knickers Sarcastic would sink us in a heartbeat. We should give to them wholesale and hard. We have the world by the spuds at this time. We sink the Euro and the world tips over.
Ah what the hell, I say light the damn thing just for the hell of it and damn them all!
The ECB has declared war on Ireland.
This country is now in an economic war with Frankfurt. Luckily, unlike defaulting on another country like we did with the UK in the 1930s, defaulting on the ECB carries less in the way of long term consequences.
Ultimately, the ECB is not a country; it is a paper institution. Once the euro goes, the ECB and any debts owed to it will go the way of the Soviet Union. A perfectly legitimate strategy for the periphery countries at this point is to load all their debts into the ECB, then let the ECB go under and the euro disintegrate. This would be the best long term method of clearing the debt from the system.
Now that the ECB has declared economic war on Ireland, it is not only acceptable for Ireland to peruse such a course of action–it has become neccessary for us to do so.
Ireland should default on the ECB, and the ECB alone. We should not pay back a penny to people threatening to set off economic car bombs.
Totally agree with you. What is the truth here though? Did the Toika actually say that or is our own government preparing the ground for a referendum to be won on the fear they create among their own citizens?
I suggest that the latter may apply.
I’d say by now Noonan has kicked Leo’s ass so hard he’ll be walking tall and stiff for weeks. Collateral damage. Loose lips sink ships…
The ship is about to be torpedoed. Captain’s Noonan and Kenny are driving us into the rocks in the hopes of impressing the ladies of the financial markets. When the ships runs aground, we know that Mr. Noonan with his German government bonds will be first on the lifeboats.
I for one hope Mr. Varadkar is still there to scream at him to get the fuck back on the boat.
Finally, the extent of the duress is emerging and a volatile cocktail is brewing nicely. If Sarkozy, Merkel and tax cheat Timothy Geithner representing the U.S. government, can force us to pay with threats of “financial bombs” going off in Dublin we deserve the contempt they heap upon us.
They will force the sale of the Irish assets. They can’t do it overnight, but we are so supine we are easy prey. We own large national corporations, we own land and property. Watch it all disappear to German and American funds and banks.
Just kiss our masters on all four cheeks, bend over and hand them a large jar of Vaseline.
Talking of that, how about taxing the church once in a while, it should bring in enough money to take care of some of the Anglo bonds.
To me, this smacks of the schoolyard bully more than fear. I think that the fear relates more to the agreement that the members of the euro zone made in December that each country could have a structural deficit of no more than half a percent of GDP. If a deficit goes above 3% of GDP, the country will be sanctioned. This agreement now has to be ratified in all countries. But when you agree to such a prescription and you are uncompetitive, your currency is overvalued and you can’t devalue, that is a recipe for a depression.
That is the pinch point. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas.
Is it not wonderful to know that we have such dedicated and BRAVE warriors to protect and defend Miss Ireland from pillage and rape by invaders?
God Damn it Enda… will you either grow a pair or just sod off!
If we are at financial war with Europe then we need a few financial mercenary’s to fight for us. Our Government have no guts for a fight. They will just try to slither through the game and sink us all, handing over our nation, our children’s future and heritage to the oppressors.
RISE UP IRELAND!!! TIME FOR ……..MAYHEM!
Or of course, Leo could’ve made it all up. Just for the attention.
Could Enda advise the Troika we need a referendum on the Compact, with which he “has difficulties due to the English veto”, and which accordingly he cannot honourably campaign for. In a gesture of magnaminity though, he will invite the people who are most keen on it – Merkozy and the ECB, to open an office here and campaign for its passing. On its merits, like. PIIGS might fly, they certainly won’t return to bond markets though…
Go on then, light the fuse. Here….I’ll strike the match for you. Go on…I dare you! Sink the Euro….Sink the ECB….Sink the EC …Go ahead….make my day!
The best course of action is invoke national security,seize what’s left,shut it down.The Brits controversially did this.
“The Treasury released a document to Parliament yesterday showing it used sections of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to take control of the bank’s assets, saying in the statement the bank’s collapse may harm the U.K. economy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aXjIA5NzyM5c
Sized banks,with national security issues don’t pay bondholders,now if only you had any Investigation,the top man from the Anglo fraud squad just started work at B of I,only in Ireland.
What kind of a bomb?
I think this is just a bit of over the top scaremongering by Leo Varadaker….When asked ,he had to admitt that HE does not even speak directly with the Troika….Also ,he said the Troika “EFFECTIVELY” said a financial bomb would go off in Dublin if we defaulted….He had already threatened the Irish people with higher morgage, esb and gas bills…He just threw in the big bang to shock us all to acquiescence at the end….Booh… Now stop complaining you silly simpletons and pay up…
@Margaret. When and where did he say that?
In the interview,Mary Lou rubbished it too.Its on RTE website.
Asked how directly the ECB warned against a default, he replied:”I don’t have direct contact with the ECB that’s done through Michael Noonan, Brendan Howlin and other Ministers.
Minister Varadkar continued, but what the ECB has said to us, and what the Troika has said to us – because they do speak with one voice on most of these things – and what they said is really, is that, it’s on your head.
The ECB also said “We don’t want you to default on these payments, it is your decision ultimately. But a bomb will go off, a bomb will go off in Dublin, not in Frankfurt, because of the reasons I’ve outlined.”
RTE.
Where is John the optimist?
Yes, where is John The Optimist?, I’m starting to miss him. Maybe he has lost his optimism?
Is it time Ireland left the euro to seek its own path through competitive devaluation? If it happened, would the bomb then go off in Frankfurt and start a contagion leading to the collapse of the euro? Would Ireland benefit from moving to a potentially worthless currency and maybe hyperinflation?
The history of competitive devaluations is not particularly encouraging in that regard especially in South America or in the Europe of the 1930s.
But if we did leave the euro, would it bring down the whole currency?
Such an event would be a first for the euro, but we have precedent in the UK. Sterling survived our secession and even the disintegration in the 1970s of the sterling area – that portion of the British Commonwealth that used the pound. So there’s really nothing for the ECB to fear from us kissing them “goodbye”. We are the ones that fear. We need our German nanny Angela more than we care to admit. So today we will pay, with a little diversion somewhere in the news to take our minds off it. Noonan announcing ongoing negotiations to reduce the Anglo IOUs” perhaps? …… a spoonful of bedtime syrup from Nanny.