Upcoming Events

National | EU

no events match your query!

New Events

National

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Mon Dec 23, 2024 01:12 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row Sun Dec 22, 2024 19:00 | Richard Eldred
Staff at the ?100 million Alan Turing Institute have erupted in protest over a diversity row, accusing leadership of "tokenistic" hiring and sparking fears that the organisation's credibility is at risk.
The post Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? Sun Dec 22, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
Ireland's Chief Rabbi has blasted the country's leaders for fuelling antisemitism, leaving Jewish children hiding their identities and many others afraid to wear symbols of their faith.
The post ?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? Sun Dec 22, 2024 15:00 | Richard Eldred
Labour's "grocery tax" is set to punish British families, slapping an extra ?56 onto their shopping bills and driving up inflation, all in the name of Net Zero.
The post ?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Furious German Protesters Demand Mass Deportations Following Christmas Market Attack by Saudi Doctor... Sun Dec 22, 2024 13:00 | Richard Eldred
Over 1,000 protesters have flooded Magdeburg, demanding mass deportations after a Saudi psychiatrist killed five people and injured over 200 in a Christmas market attack.
The post Furious German Protesters Demand Mass Deportations Following Christmas Market Attack by Saudi Doctor, Leaving Five Dead Including a Nine Year-Old Boy appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

offsite link Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

offsite link Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Wake Up Time for Ireland! Public Enquiry Needed

category national | eu | opinion/analysis author Wednesday December 15, 2010 04:48author by Anthony Coughlan, Emmett O'Connell - National Platform EU Research & Information Centreauthor email info at nationalplatform dot orgauthor phone (01) 830 5792 Report this post to the editors

A public enquiry is needed into how the Irish people have been turned into indentured debtors of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

We need to know this if we are ever to recover. We need to know who was ultimately responsible for the situation we now find ourselves in, trapped inside the Eurozone when we did not need to join it.

EU Member States outside the Eurozone like Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic are not caught up in the current torments of the Euro. They can weather the economic recession better because they have kept their national currencies and with it control of their rate of interest or exchange rate.

Most Irish economists, the National Platform and several non-governmental groups warned at the time of our 1992 Maastrict Treaty referendum that abolishing the Irish pound would be the biggest mistake the Irish State ever made (John FitzGerald’s ESRI was an influential exception). The second biggest mistake – largely a consequence of the first - was the 2008 blanket guarantee of all the debts of our private banks

The period 1993 to 2000 was the only period in the history of the Irish State when it followed an independent exchange rate policy and effectively floated the Irish currency. That gave us a highly competitive exchange rate and with it the “Celtic Tiger” growth rates of over 7% a year.

It is impossible to have a lasting monetary union that is not also a fiscal union, part of one State, with common taxes and a common budget. However Ireland’s Euro-fanatics pushed us into the Eurozone against all the economic arguments. They were impelled by their zeal to help build an EU superstate led by Germany and France, without any national democratic control.

Such a construct would inevitably lack the mutual identification and solidarity between its members which would sustain transfers from the rich countries to the poorer ones sufficient to compensate the latter for loss of their capacity to run independent budgetary policies or restore their economic competitiveness through currency devaluation.

It was profoundly irresponsible to abolish the Irish pound in order to join a monetary union with States with which we did only one-third of our foreign trade, while simultaneously halving interest rates at the height of an economic boom.

That made things “boomier”, as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern put it. It set us on the borrowing binge that followed, and the catastrophic course Ireland’s Government has since taken with its Banks.

It is the grand panjandrums of Irish Euro-fanaticism: Peter Sutherland of Goldman Sachs, Garret FitzGerald, Alan Dukes, Pat Cox, Brigid Laffan, Brendan Halligan, Ruairi Quinn and David Begg, who ultimately impelled us to surrender our political independence and democracy in the Eurozone.

As influential, although their names are unknown to the public, are the “career federalists” of Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Department in Iveagh House, who form the policy and write the speeches of successive Foreign Ministers. They are keeping their heads down these days and are happy to let the Department of Finance take the rap for our current economic debacle.

However it is they more than any other element in Ireland’s civil service who have steered our ship of state on to the rocks. Cheering them on throughout have been uncritical elements in our media, above all in the editorial office of the Irish Times.

There is deep irony in the fact that their zeal for ever more EU integration has turned Ireland into a bomb inside the “infernal machine” of the Euro-currency, hastening its inevitable demise, and in the process possibly plunging much of the world into the second phase of a W-shaped recession.

Henceforth we should be more critical of what these people say when they enthuse for ever “more Europe”.

- Anthony Coughlan

- Emmett O'Connell

Related Link: http://www.nationalplatform.org

http://www.nationalplatform.org/100521_NewsTalk_Dunphy_Coughlan.m4a

Eamon Dunphy ("The Eamon Dunphy Show": NewsTalk106fm) has Anthony Coughlan on with a panel of guests

http://www.nationalplatform.org/The_Consequences_of_Monetary_Union_1972_Emmett-O-Connell.pdf

George Hook ("The Right Hook": NewsTalk106fm) interviews Emmett O’Connell about the Consequences of Monetary Union

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   Why do you call Ireland The Irish Free State     John Mack    Wed Dec 15, 2010 05:27 
   Sorry, I misread, and you are right     John Mack    Wed Dec 15, 2010 05:37 
   Finally an analysis that makes sense, Is it time to Devalue or to leave the Euro?     Labour voter    Wed Dec 15, 2010 10:37 
   Audio files - functioning links     O. O'C.    Wed Dec 15, 2010 13:48 
   Songs that fit the moment.     riannorr    Wed Dec 15, 2010 19:44 
   should we devalue the euro? or should Ireland leave the EU     confused    Sat Dec 18, 2010 22:27 


Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy