People on both sides of the austerity debate are trying to position Ireland as the poster child for their case. This tug-of-war illustrates the complex range of arguments in play – and highlights why conclusive economic policymaking is proving so elusive.
Ireland on Tuesday said it was not to blame for Apple’s low U.S. tax payments and had no special rate agreement with the company, a day after the a U.S. Senate committee accused the technology giant of shielding at least $74 billion in profits from U.S. tax officials by setting up subsidiaries – which had no employees or physical offices – in Ireland.
The Irish government will no longer provide state guarantees for eligible deposits and liabilities at its three surviving banks, said Finance Minister Michael Noonan on Tuesday, ending a controversial four-year-old scheme, meant to safeguard the nation’s financial system from collapse.
The blanket guarantee, called the Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme (ELGS), was introduced in September 2008 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the U.S. sparked concerns of a similar calamity in Ireland.
Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), the state agency set up in 2009 to purge banks of their most toxic commercial property loans, has decided to demolish, rather than attempt to sell off, nearly 1,850 housing developments left unfinished after the property bubble burst in 2008, reported Bloomberg News on Friday, given that “nobody wants to live in them.”
Business owners from a small border town in Ireland have begun accepting payment for services in punts – the pre-euro Irish currency – in the hopes of improving the local economy, claimed a report by The Guardian on Sunday.
The Republic of Ireland has agreed to help China build a $2 billion national equine centre in the city of Tianjin, said Irish Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney on Sunday, who added that the project would raise over $50 million in exports for the Irish economy over the next three years.
The project, Coveney claimed, would be the centrepiece for China’s ambition to build up a flourishing horse racing industry by 2014; and would see more than 100 Irish broodmares, as well as stallions, shipped to Tianjin for a newly established stud farm.
Ireland, who was among the first few countries to buckle under the weight of its debt, will hold a referendum on a new EU fiscal treaty that includes tougher budget rules for members of the currency bloc.
Irish prime minster Enda Kenny previously said he would sign the treaty at the end of a EU summit meeting this week, but the state’s attorney general stepped in to say a referendum was necessary to ratify the pact.
With the referendum, implementation of the new pact could potentially be delayed.
The Irish government swapped more than 3.5 billion euros ($4.6 billion) worth of government bonds on Wednesday, as the country took advantage of growing investor confidence to reduce the nation’s short-term debt obligations.
Just a few weeks ago, we did a Feature on how “well” – that is, poorly – the austerity program now being prescribed all over the “advanced” world was working out for Ireland.
