Here come the good times - for those in power

[Spudulika]

Welcome IMF, if the reports have any veracity about them!

The thought of Ireland becoming another IMF junkie - with nothing left to sell, it's something that continues to slip under the radar - no report on the news at 1, and now Joe's starting off on Biffo and his impersonations, took a caller to raise it.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-2341197.html

[OneRedArmy]

At least 50% chance we'll be singled out like Greece & Iceland & external intervention required over the next fortnight. Seems like an unstoppable wave building in the international markets that we've finally reached the tipping point.

Analogy is that we took a few wrong turns and our canoe is going through some rapids, with either a waterfall or a calm river at the end. Main problem is no matter how hard we paddle, we can't change the outcome..

Buckle up, it's going to be a rough ride.

[Spudulika]

Getting more worrying still, 2 more large "investments" by Irish companies/individuals/banks have gone to the wall, and a 3rd is in "extreme financial distress". I'm going to find the online version of the hard copy I read at the office this morning, the 3rd situation saw a major investment from Anglo Irish and BoI, it was in excess of 100million euros, the money is gone, the local "investors" never materialised and there will be more to come as there were 4 more projects to follow. The worst thing was that they secured 20% funding from a locally based bank, which called in the loan and now it's all stopped. This was deemed a performing loan or asset by NAMA - it never was, it just suited them to say so.

[Fr Damo]

Even in the Irish indo although the front page headline was about IMF intervention, the article finsihed on page 9 or ten! On wednesday we had 10 straight pages of fall out in the same paper!

It's getting to the stage now where the threat of IMF action is more restrictive and prohibitive that if they actually came in for a few months to run the show.

I'd like to ask this, while some of the politicos in Iceland are being questioned about how they went bust, could the same not happen here much in the same way the the Director of corporate informent does with reckless directors? Wasnt economic treasion mentioned after sept 29th 08?

This Country's balance sheet appears to be in tatters and to keep borrowing at the rates being mentioned on the markets is financial suicide. It's time to default.

[Lim till i die]

Can someone on here better up than me give an idea of what this kind of intervention would mean in pounds, shillings and pence??

As in Civil Service Wages, Social Welfare, are they all in trouble like??

[Noelys Guitar]

Can someone on here better up than me give an idea of what this kind of intervention would mean in pounds, shillings and pence??

As in Civil Service Wages, Social Welfare, are they all in trouble like??

This is what the IMF did in Iceland. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/...INT111908A.htm
But our situation in manys ways is much worse so who knows what they will cut.

[Spudulika]

The IMF are a fascists/FF wet dream.

1. They assess a nations assets.
2. They assess a nations revenue streams.
3. They assess a nations spend.

Now, they already know what all the above are, however they do this so as not to leave anything to chance - you can be sure they already have all they need and have their little cubicles set up.

Be prepared for drastic cuts in social welfare spend (child benefits will be first hit - you only have to look at the way it's being introduced through the media, apparently middle class Mommies spend it on coffee with the girls, hair cuts or shoes), infrastructural projects will be downgraded (some rightly so, though what normally happens is new sharks are let in the tank), community projects are classed as "non-priority", hikes will occur in electricty/gas supply for domestic users (especially) and some other little twists in government recruitment where civil servant numbers will be cut - and not from the unnecessary levels.

Privatisation will become a real spectre - one of our last great preserves, the ESB, will go. We'll have to pay for domestic water supplies - the organisation and running of which will be bundles into smaller "efficient" companies and be sold off to commercial interests. Transport will be privatised - railways first hit, then Bus Eireann, then airlines. RTE will be broken up and sold off.

If anyone thinks this is a bad dream, just look at what they did in South America with their short term "aid". These people are only looking at the quickest way for a country to pay back it's debts, not to develop a stable model that can sustain itself long term. It's like letting an LOI Chairman loose on a Fortune 500 company, 15minutes of knocking on the door to the group stages, and 15 years of shame having destroyed all credibility in the club and country.

[mypost]

Transport will be privatised - railways first hit, then Bus Eireann, then airlines. RTE will be broken up and sold off.

That's a good thing.

[Spudulika]

Which part? Transport or RTE?

Transport is the worst of all to be done, what will happen is routes will drop off even more than they have done - ie only profitable routes will be maintained, infrastructure will be dropped to the bottom of the interest file - because it's not so important.

RTE being broken up and sold off will have mixed blessings, though I think that it may well be the last resort.

[OneRedArmy]

These people are only looking at the quickest way for a country to pay back it's debts, not to develop a stable model that can sustain itself long term.

Is that why most of the IMF's staff work in Financial Stability, going round the world reviewing the financial health of every country, year in, year out, issuing country specific and global reports aiming to prevent sovereign default? The point is that they spend much more time and effort on fire prevention than firefighting.

[mypost]

Which part? Transport or RTE?

Transport is the worst of all to be done, what will happen is routes will drop off even more than they have done - ie only profitable routes will be maintained, infrastructure will be dropped to the bottom of the interest file - because it's not so important.

RTE being broken up and sold off will have mixed blessings, though I think that it may well be the last resort.

Both.

Anything that screws up IE's 100% grip on the Irish train service is to be welcomed, and would allow private companies to run existing heritage/tourist lines as passenger services. This evening, the Waterford-Rosslare line shuts. It will never be reopened, unless a private firm can come in and run the service. Private companies may also run an overnight service on longhaul routes, which IR refuse to operate.

RTE are the central player in the Irish tv market. Increased competition will provide greater choice and improve programme content on existing stations. We also need to get rid of the licence fee. It was brought in decades ago when tv's were relatively scarce. That isn't the case now. Even handing RTE the licence fee but no revenue from advertising, as with the BBC, would help rival stations to compete.

[Macy]

Yeah, privatisation worked so well in the UK... Some example to use, as the only reason Waterford - Rosslare survived so long is because of Irish Rails Public Service remit.

Whats the population, and the number of licence payers, in the UK, compared to Ireland? An extra 2 TV3's is exactly what we need, as that's what we'll get. Some venture capitalist will buy RTE, sell off Donnybrook, and then it'll cheapest possible content from then on - the public service remit will be served by rubbish like whatever TV3's lunchtime (Midday?), and expose type programmes, and Ireland AM - cheap crap that somehow meets the news and current affairs requirements! RTE has problems - the only issue that may be solved by privatisation would be star salaries. Everything else would get worse, as the newspaper and radio sectors show that privatisation doesn't equal editorial independence.

btw Greece would be the better example to look at for our case, given the EU and Euro membership

[Eminence Grise]

God forbid we'd end up with more TV3s! There is a case to be made, though, for selling off parts of RTE: selling RTE2 would bring in revenue to help redevelop the Donnybrook site, and, with digital channels, RTE would have still have a strong television core that could be augmented by bought-in productions - and there are a few decent Irish production houses that would welcome new opportunities. Radio na Gaeltacht could be hived off and merged with TG4 (competition rules permitting), in the hope that synergies there would create a slightly stronger Irish language broadcaster.

RTE being state-owned also means that it can't take a particular editorial line. Can you imagine if it were bought by Denis O'Brien, or Tony O'Reilly or any other media tycoon with an agenda, or Berlusconi-type desire to make it big in politics?

Abolishing the licence fee would be disastrous: it would create a race to the bottom, with wall-to-wall English TV rip-offs and repeats. It would also damage the independent production sector, which would have a knock-on effect on Ireland's abilty to attract large-scale film/TV productions. As it currently stands, taking a percentage of the licence fee and making it available to other production companies and broadcasters is a better solution. I'd have no quibble with that percentage being increased, provided tighter quality controls were in place to stop TV3 making drivel like Lawless Ireland, and encourage more of the type of documentary on TG4.

[mypost]

Yeah, privatisation worked so well in the UK... Some example to use, as the only reason Waterford - Rosslare survived so long is because of Irish Rails Public Service remit.

Privatisation has worked in the UK. There are fewer industrial disputes, fewer strikes, increased competition leading to better services. Here, the market in most sectors is centralised to one authority in the sector. So if it works well and good, if it doesn't work, we're all screwed.

Whats the population, and the number of licence payers, in the UK, compared to Ireland?

Does it matter what the population is? The BBC have their licence fee, but no advertising, which allows other stations to compete with them.

RTE being state-owned also means that it can't take a particular editorial line. Can you imagine if it were bought by Denis O'Brien, or Tony O'Reilly or any other media tycoon with an agenda, or Berlusconi-type desire to make it big in politics?

Abolishing the licence fee would be disastrous: it would create a race to the bottom, with wall-to-wall English TV rip-offs and repeats.

RTE have traditionally gone easy on the government. You saw that most recently in their Lisbon coverage, their expressions of frustration at having to give both sides equal airtime, you saw it in years gone by with sketch programmes of politicians clamped down/cut, (e.g. Scrap Saturday, Bull Island) and imo they also go easy on the government in order to aid them gain licence fee increases later on.

The licence fee was brought in when tv's and tv channels were few and far between. Now in the digital age, everyone has a tv, and they have 150 channels. The licence fee is outdated, punitive, unfair on other broadcasters, and should be abolished.

[OneRedArmy]

Got the bonds away at a penal rate of interest. We effectively kicked the ball down the pitch 20 yards. The big question still hasn't been answered (how much will Anglo end up costing?). The problem is, until the economy at least flattens for a period of time (and it hasn't), there's no way of stating this with any certainty. If things keep getting worse, even more loans will go bad.

[Dodge]

Privatisation has worked in the UK. There are fewer industrial disputes, fewer strikes, increased competition leading to better services.

Presumably you've never travelled by rail in the UK.

[mypost]

I have.

Another presumption wrong.

[Eminence Grise]

The TV licence was a form of luxury taxation, in the same way that wireless sets were levied at £1 or 10s, (depending on type) in the 1920s. It was a logical extension of an existing scheme that the taxpayer accepted. The mixed model of licence fee and commercial revenue was commonplace in Europe, and it made sense in a country of 2.9m where a licence fee alone would not pay for the service, and where there was no competition looking for a share of the revenue. The mixed model still holds sway in a lot of European countries, so while it might be outdated in a conjectural sense, in implementation it isn't.

It's not punitive, because you can have the option - admittedly unwieldy - of avoiding paying for it by using a TV converter connected to a computer, digital projector and speaker system.

The unfairness aspect was addressed to some degree by taking a percentage of the fee and using it to fund independent production companies, from whom TV3, TG4 and, which I disagree with, RTE commission programming. I'd rather RTE used their resources more cleverly and produced more in-house, rather than applying for funding that was intended to be taken away from it. But that was a political sop when the decision was made. Abolishing the licence fee means that you're cutting an important revenue stream from other broadcasters. Increasing the percentage and barring RTE from applying would make more sense. But only, as I said in a post above, if controls are in place to stop absolute dross being produced by TV3, who are owned by a media corporation that dwarfs RTE and which could easily stump up a few quid for decent programming rather than repeating rubbish we're already ignored on ITV.

The equal broadcast time during referenda and elections is frustrating for RTE and all broadcasters because it means having to give time to fringe interests with little to contribute to debate and discourse. Any journalist worth their salt wants to be asking questions of the big boys, not the loony fringe. It also means that ratings can suffer. I do agree that RTE is too politically controlled, but that has always been the relationship between the state and the national broadcaster - de Valera even appointed his most trusted propagandist as Deputy Director of 2RN! (And variously Government Press Officer and Irish Press editor!!) Tom Savage, once of Carr Communications is now the chair of the RTE board; with his wife, Terry Prone, and their offspring, the one broadcaster who makes Tubridy look brilliant, Anton Savage for years they have done media training for half the politicians in the country! So, that is an uncomfortably close relationship. And, yes, Scrap Saturday got pulled for being too close to the knuckle. Maybe Bull Island too, but that was an anodyne attempt at satire. Much like Nob Nation, it relied on impersonation and caricature rather than sharp satirical content. But you know, TV3 isn't controlled by the government, and it has never once attempted a satirical programme to have a go at the government. Or, for that matter, ever attempted anything like RTE's current affairs output. And, I'd have to check the ratings on this, but I daresay Primetime gets a higher vieweship than Banged Up Abroad - and viewers equals cash for commercial broadcasters.

[Dodge]

I have.

Another presumption wrong.

Well then I can only assume you're a liar. If you think thatssa good service compared to ireland

[mypost]

I'm not a liar as it is a good service.

Another assumption wrong.