In response to e-mails received, a reminder of the article in Village magazine:

Still waiting for the truth from the regulator 

- Village, Dec. 2010

UniCredit breached liquidity requirements in 2007.  Matthew Elderfield nods.  The interconnectedness of banking dysfunctionality.

Michael Smith

There is a general official view that Ireland’s ethical delinquencies are in the past.  Corrupt planning stopped when the tribunals started; and bad bank-regulation stopped with the demise of Pat Neary and the production of two limited and innocuous reports by Patrick Honohan and Klaus Regling. Inconveniently for a country that has started to see regulation in black (then) and white (now) terms, the general view does not reflect the reality. Hold tight for a mind-boggling trip through the complexity of banking dysfunctionality....

http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2010/12/still-waiting-for-the-truth-from-the-regulator/

Matthew Elderfield - the Financial Regulator

whistleblower.irl@gmail.com

Senator David Norris attempts to talk about the Anglo-Irish bondholders in the Seanad (Irish Senate)

In response to queries that I have received over the last few days, I am happy to provide the links below to the protocols of the Irish senate in which Senator David Norris tried desperately to name the Anglo-Irish bond holders. One has to wonder why he was the only one who attempted to do so? Why was he really silenced?


whistleblower.irl@gmail.com     




=============================================================


Seanad Eireann Debate 
Vol. 205 No. 17, 
25 November 2010

Senator David Norris:     Senator Quinn has given me my lead in with his reference to the four-year plan. I propose to speak about a particular form of energy about which I have spoken in this House previously. Members may recall that I defined “money” as “the symbolic representation of energy”. This may or may not be a renewable source in this country but it certainly will not be unless we take a very specific form of action. I am speaking about bondholders. This is renewable energy; this is money, and this is where it is at. I have managed to get a list of the bondholders and propose to place it on the record of the House. It is perfectly in order for me to do so. I have so defined it and will not be stopped.

An Cathaoirleach:     We are dealing with renewable energy.

Senator David Norris:     I know exactly what we are dealing with and I am speaking to it.

An Cathaoirleach:     We are not getting involved in name——

Senator David Norris:     I am talking about renewable energy and have made it perfectly clear, logically and intellectually, how I am doing it.

[1022]An Cathaoirleach:     I want no names of people the Senator says are bondholders——

Senator David Norris:     I am giving the institutions. I am perfectly entitled to name them. We have mentioned repeatedly Bank of Ireland and so on. It is frustrating the democratic wish of this House if the people concerned are not named.

An Cathaoirleach:     We are not dealing with banking; we are dealing with renewable energy.

Senator David Norris:     I am dealing with it because I have given a definition of “money” as including renewable energy.

An Cathaoirleach:     The business ordered is renewable energy.

Senator David Norris:     The business was ordered and I am speaking to it. The names are Aberdeen Asset Management (London) Limited, AGICAM, Aktia Asset Management, Aletti Gestielle SGR, AllianceBernstein (UK) Limited, Allianz Global Investors France, AmpegaGerling Investment, Anima SGR——

An Cathaoirleach:     The Senator is totally out of order. I ask him not to get involved in that aspect. We are taking statements on renewable energy potential.

Senator David Norris:     I am speaking very directly and clearly about renewable energy.

An Cathaoirleach:     No——

Senator David Norris:     I most certainly am.

An Cathaoirleach:     That is not relevant.

Senator David Norris:     It is very relevant.

An Cathaoirleach:     No, it is not.

Senator David Norris:     It is the most relevant issue in this country.

An Cathaoirleach:     It may be to a different debate.

Senator David Norris:     I will outline how relevant it is. Mr. Mohammed El-Erian, director of Pimco, which has $1.35 trillion in assets on its books and advises bondholders, said if——

An Cathaoirleach:     We are sticking to the debate. There may be another forum to discuss that matter.

Senator David Norris:     I do not accept the Chair’s ruling because I have indicated that I am talking about renewable energy. I have given a definition of “money” as including renewable energy. I have defined my terms clearly. The Chair is trying to frustrate me. He is trying to protect the Government and I think that is wrong.

An Cathaoirleach:     I am not trying to frustrate the Senator and will not allow him to continue in this vein.

Senator David Norris:     For what reason?

An Cathaoirleach:     It is not relevant to the debate. The business was ordered.

[1023]Senator David Norris:     It is completely relevant. We are talking about energy. I am talking about the most vital form of energy for this country and calling on the Minister to ensure the Government makes it very clear that the bondholders will be included and that they will be forced to accept their share in terms of assets. It is perfectly legitimate for me to do this.

An Cathaoirleach:     We are not going down that road. I expect the Senator to respect the Chair. As a long-standing Member of the House——

Senator David Norris:     One Swiss bondholder owns 40% of the bonds and will get millions of euro from us.

An Cathaoirleach:     I am suspending the sitting for five minutes.

Sitting suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 1.45 p.m.

An Cathaoirleach:     Senator Norris has five minutes left.

Senator David Norris:     I thank the Cathaoirleach. I would like to make it clear that I did not mean any disrespect to this House, the Cathaoirleach or the Minister. I believed I was pursuing a perfectly logical course of action. The Chair has restricted me on this and, therefore, I will not pursue the matter at this stage. I was at that stage the last speaker and was not keeping anyone else out. I will continue my research in this area and will seek another opportunity when I will ventilate this matter fully because it is in the interests of the people, but I am happy now to yield to my colleague who I now understand wishes to speak.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/seanad/2010/11/25/00005.asp

===============================================================

Seanad Éireann Debate 
Vol. 206 No. 4
7 December 2010

Senator David Norris:     With regard to the bank guarantee, I share my colleagues’ concern. I voted against the guarantee. I also asked several pertinent questions. I asked about the exact amount of the guarantee, which was some €440 billion. Then I asked the Minister and his advisers our gross national product for the previous year. They did not know and had to go out and make a telephone call. Is that not extraordinary? When they came back, it turned out that our gross national product for that year was less than half what we were to guarantee. It was quite extraordinary and one of the principal reasons I voted against it. I am concerned that, not only in this Parliament but across Europe, politicians are playing their own narrow sectional, national and partisan games. There is no doubt the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is making a mistake when she sets her face against the development of euro bonds. This is the weapon about which I was talking last week that might help to rescue the situation and she opposes it for perfectly sound national electoral reasons. If the euro is to survive, there is an inevitability that centrifugal forces will drive it towards such centralisation. If it does not, the euro will fracture.

I believe we are entitled to know various matters about the bank guarantee. Recently I tried to put some bondholders’ names on the record but the Cathaoirleach stopped me. I will now try to do so again and, subsequently, will be looking for the Cathaoirleach to explain why he stopped me. Will the Leader confirm that one of the bondholders is Goldman Sachs? This company has been described as a vampire squid on the face of the public purse and we are entitled to know if it is one of the bondholders. Money has been taken from the people referred to by Senator MacSharry who have had to switch off their electricity supply and live in squalor, fear and the cold to pay these big financial institutions which have gambled. It is wrong, unethical and unjust. We need to know to whom we are giving the money.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/seanad/2010/12/07/00004.asp

==================================================================




Two other articles that have been hotly discussed in the last few days are:

Who bankrupted Ireland? - Golem XIV, Nov. 2010

Now across Europe the great blame game will rumble back into play.  Our banks, your banks, their banks, or is it your feckless householders or ours, certainly can’t be theirs, they’re still doing well in Germany.  Expect lots more national stereotypes to be wheeled out for ritual defamation.

So let’s ask who it was took a dump in Ireland?.....

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/11/who-bankrupted-ireland/

As Honohan’s report emerges, the Dáil is gagged - Vincent Browne


Sunday Business Post, 6 June 2010


Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan’s report on the financial collapse of the banking sector was presented to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan last Monday.

Lenihan read it then, and told his cabinet colleagues about it on Tuesday. The report is to be considered this Tuesday by the cabinet - or at least by those cabinet ministers who have decided not to go off on an unearned holiday.

When the cabinet ministers who are around have decided how to ‘‘spin’’ the report, it will be published - but only then.

.......

...the forum (ie, the Dáil) which, theoretically, is expected to enforce accountability on the executive arm of government has been bullied by the executive arm of government into remaining entirely silent on one of the most pressing issues of our time, precisely when a report on the government’s culpability for the crisis comes into the public domain.

And the sovereign people are denied knowledge of the report until the government has its spin sorted out. This is called democracy, I think. 


http://www.sbpost.ie/commentandanalysis/as-honohans-report-emerges-the-dail-is-gagged-49654.html