Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

The set up…

DUBLIN’S BURLINGTON Hotel, bought by property developer Bernard McNamara at the peak of the property boom in 2007 for €288 million, is back on the market with a guide price of €65-€75 million.

Mr McNamara has been one of the biggest casualties of the property crash with overall debts of €1.5 billion.

And now. The punchline…

Paul Collins, of CBRE Hotels, said yesterday there had been a remarkable recovery in the Dublin hotel market, and city hotels were now among the best-performing in Europe.

Beautiful.

Burlington Hotel on market for one-quarter of 2007 price (Jack Fagan, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

 

A PROPERTY tax based on house valuation is set to be in force by the middle of next year as part of the troika bailout programme.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan yesterday insisted the system had not been finalised, but the Cabinet has agreed the tax will form part of December’s budget.

“It’s very hard on people – there’s no doubt that people are paying the price of what happened at the peak of the Celtic Tiger . . . I’m not making light of it. The issues are very serious and the burden being put on our fellow citizens is a very serious burden and they are having tough times.

“All I can say is if we stick with it, we are going to work our way through it.”

Indeed.

Property tax based on house value to be in force by mid-2013 (Stephen Collins, Kathryn Hayes, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte was responding to comments made on the issue in an RTÉ interview by Cardinal Seán Brady.

When asked how the Church would react if the Government decided to legalise the carrying-out of abortions in this State, the Cardinal said it would launch a “media campaign” and would also be “lobbying public representatives”.

“I don’t have any objection to any of the churches stating its position and making it clear, but I think it would be a retrogressive step if we were to go back to the days of the Catholic Church dictating to elected public representatives how [they] should address an issue that a very large section of our society believes that governments in the past ought to already have done.”

The Minister then returned to his lunch.

Kidding.

Church Warned Against Campaigning On Abortion (Deaglán de Bréadún, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton, Photocall Ireland)

IRISH MOTORISTS will have to spend over €1,400 a year more on fuel than they did just three years ago if current forecourt prices are maintained, the AA has warned.

The average price of a litre of petrol in the Republic has now hit €1.70, according to the fuel price tracking website pumps.ie.

Worse is yet to come for consumers, with prices expected to climb by at least another five cent over the coming days, as international markets remain jittery over conflicts in Syria and Yemen and Iran’s dispute with the US and Europe over its nuclear programme continues.

Yearly petrol cost to rise €1,400 over 2009, says AA (Conor Pope, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

No.

GERMANY HAS said it will oppose any Irish debt-relief proposal it believes sends a negative signal to financial markets.

Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has said Ireland’s “massive” reform progress should not be compromised by anything that would halt the “winning back of trust”.

His doubts pose a challenge to the Government, which expects a political agreement by October on relieving Ireland’s €64 billion bank debt burden.

“We cannot do anything that generates new uncertainty on the financial markets and lose trust, which Ireland is just at the point of winning back,” said Mr Schäuble in an interview with The Irish Times.

Thanks a pantload there, Wolfgang.

Germany expresses doubt over support for Irish bank debt plan (Derek Scally, Irish Times)

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Ah, forget it….

PASSENGERS at Dublin airport will continue to face disruption today as a strike by taxi drivers there enters its second day.

The strike which began yesterday has forced passengers arriving at the airport to rely on public transport and private cars for their onward journeys. August is one of the busiest months at the airport.

The row involves 70 taxi spaces in a holding area of the airport that have been taken back by the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

John Usher, president of the Irish Taxi Federation, said DAA staff had moved in overnight to take the spaces. He said drivers were left with no option but to pull services when they were given parking tickets by gardaí after being forced to stop on the main road.

Airport taxi strike in dispute over spaces to continue today (Joanne Hunt, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

IRISH BANKS reject more business loan applications than any other state in the euro zone except Greece, with small and medium businesses in Ireland twice as likely to have a loan application turned down as the average across the bloc.

The new figures are contained in a study published this morning by the Central Bank of Ireland.

While some teetering businesses which seek credit have little chance of repaying loans – and thus have to be refused them – the new study says that “high rejection rates in Ireland cannot be explained by the quality of the pool of potential borrowers”.

More than one in four businesses seeking a loan or an overdraft were rejected in the six months to March.

 

Irish banks second only to Greece for refusing loans to firms (Dan O’Brien, Irish Times)

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THE TWO biggest organisations representing Garda members have expressed fears the Government may use data indicating low levels of recorded crime at most Garda stations as a charter for further station closures.

The Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents 11,200 rank-and-file gardaí in a force of 13,500, said further closures would damage policing and undermine public confidence in the force. The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), which represents middle-management ranks, expressed its concern no research had been compiled on the impact of station closures.

The comments follow the publication of crime figures in The Irish Times that revealed 80 per cent of Garda stations recorded one crime or less per day last year, with 41 per cent recording one crime or less per week.

See. There’s your problem right there.

Gardaí fear crime rates will be used to justify closures (Conor Lally, Irish Times)

(Pic: Oisin)

Alexander Barankov sits, today, in a Quito jail awaiting extradition to Belarus.

Having angered the Belarussian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko (current darling of the Equadorian economy) the blogger finds himself in a rather worse pickle than Julian Assange.

“Far from the world’s attention, the (Ecuadorian) government is evicting an ex-government worker from Belarus who has enjoyed three years of asylum status in Ecuador. The reason is that six weeks ago, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko was in Quito to sign a number of trade agreements and applied pressure. A short time later the man, Alexander Barankov, was arrested in Quito. Against this background, the flowery words of Ecuador’s foreign minister about the huge importance of political asylum don’t hold much value.”

Assange Case Exposes ‘International Hypocrisy’ (Spiegel Online)

Democratic Underground

(Hat tip @soundmigration)