A deliberate Government Policy is ripping off Irish Mortgage Holders and Small Businesses.
According a survey of interest rates published by the Central Bank, variable rate new housing loans averaged 4.13%
Typical Eurozone mortgage rates are 2.1%-roughly half the Irish rate.
And interest rates for small businesses have come down everywhere in Europe except Ireland, according to retired governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan .
The excuse given by Government and Central Bank is that they “can’t intervene in the market”
This is pure deception.
They are intervening in the market with the effect of keeping rates artificially high! There is effectively no competition in the Irish Market
Fine Gael Finance Minister Michael Noonan has designated Bank of Ireland(BoI) and Allied Irish Bank (AIB) as “Pillar Banks”. This means that they cannot be allowed to fail and will be subsidised or bailed out again by government if necessary. This has frightened off foreign competition-Danske Bank and Bank of Scotland have already left.
This allows AIB, BoI and Permanent TSB to run a cosy cartel at the expense of householders and small businesses.
The Government is the owner of AIB, Permanent TSB and EBS as it holds the vast majority of the shares. It can call special general meetings of shareholders at any time and it can instruct the banks to lower the rates. All other banks would then have to lower their rates to stay in business
But the government will not do this. Instead it hypocritically calls in the banks from time to time “to express its concern” at the high rates.
The high interest rates are, in effect, a penal tax imposed by the government on householders and small businesses.
The balance sheets of the banks are being repaired by this tax. The banks are being “fattened up for privatisation”. When sold off the money will be used to pay back loans borrowed to bail out huge investors in the banks before they crashed.
There will be no compensation by government for small investors such as investors of pension and redundancy lump sums who were wiped out in the crash of bank shares.
Labour and Fine Gael are deliberately running this scam on the public. Fianna Fáil are just moaning about it rather than exposing this huge scandal.
Candidates of these parties should be forced to explain and to commit to ending the scam
THIS INJUSTICE TO MORTGAGE HOLDERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES MUST END.
Seamus Healy TD
Tel: 087 2802199
15/2/2016
Mattie McGrath TD offers to support a Fine Gael Government in the next Dáil.
Michael Noonan, chief architect of the cuts has approached him!
In his announcement Mattie McGrath T.D. did not set out any of the issues below as “red line issues” for his support
We must therefore assume that Mattie is prepared to support the following policies to which Fine Gael are committed to implement in the next government:
• Water Charges to be continued.
• Family Home Tax to be continued.
• Exorbitant Interest Rates on Mortgage Holders-Twice the European Average, to be continued.
• Eviction of Tipperary families from their homes by government owned banks to be continued.
• Michael Noonan has recently refused the request of Seamus Healy TD, in a parliamentary question in the Dáil, to stop AIB, Permanent TSB and ESB, in which the Minister holds the huge majority of the shares, seeking the eviction of Tipperary families through the courts.
Mattie McGrath has recently expressed concern that home repossessions by banks are pushing people towards suicide. This is a concern that I share.
In the Dáil, just before the dissolution, I appealed to Minister Michael Noonan to order the banks he owns to withdraw repossession proceedings in light of the extreme housing emergency which exists.
The Minister refused.
This means that the government has given the green light to the banks they own, to continue to evict families including up to 100 Tipperary families who are up for repossession before the County Tipperary circuit courts.
Mattie McGrath should clarify his position to the people of Tipperary urgently.
He cannot continue to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
Seamus Healy TD 087 2802199
The most consistent and angriest complaint on the door steps is of broken promises and the resultant targeting of those on low and middle incomes for cuts and new taxes.
When considering promises and announcements by Labour and Fine Gael in this General Election Campaign, voters are considering what happened to the promises they made in the last General Election Campaign.
The Public have been pointing out to me the litany of broken promises which include:
St. Michael’s Unit.
At a local level, Labour Leader Eamonn Gilmore, promised to protect South Tipperary General Hospital. Labour Minister, Kathleen Lynch, in government, closed down St Michael’s Psychiatric Unit in Clonmel and transferred it to Kilkenny.
Hospital Trolleys
We will “end the scandal of Hospital Trolleys” said Enda Kenny. The result is Trolley Chaos in our Emergency Departments, the closure of 2,000 hospital beds, the loss of 11,000 health staff and the loss of 2 million home help hours.
Water Tax
Through the 2011 General Election TESCO AD and in its election manifesto, The Labour Party promised to prevent the introduction of domestic water tax. In government they agreed to introduce this tax and Minister Alan Kelly is now implementing it.
Child Benefit
In the 2011 General Election Tesco AD, the Labour Party said it would prevent Fine Gael reducing Child Benefit. Labour leader Joan Burton, in government, did the opposite and cut Child Benefit.
FAMILY HOME TAX
Fine Gael Leader, Enda Kenny, said “ It Is Morally Wrong, Unjust and Unfair to Tax a Person’s Home”. But in Government, he introduced this unfair tax.
Lone Parents
Speaking in the Dáil on 18th April 2012, Minister Joan Burton said she would only proceed with plans to reform the One Parent Family Payment by 2014/15 if she got a “credible and bankable commitment” by the time of Budget 2013 that the Irish Government would put in place “a system of safe, affordable and accessible child care, similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries to whose systems of social protection we aspire”.
Minister Burton went ahead with the changes without any such child care system being in place.
Crime
Enda Kenny promised to increase the Garda Force by 2,000 Gardaí. The result was 2,000 less Gardaí, 130 Garda Station closed and increased levels of rural crime.
Heating Allowances
Then there was the Labour Manifesto promise to invest in ending fuel poverty which causes unnecessary deaths of older people every winter. “However, Labour will also take immediate action to alleviate the risk of fuel poverty in the short term by reinvesting €40 million from the
carbon tax to alleviate fuel poverty, and by developing a national fuel
poverty strategy as set out in Labour’s Fuel Poverty and Energy
Conservation Bill.” Labour Party Manifesto 2011.
Instead, the heating allowances were cut by the Labour Leader
The Public are fed up of broken promises. They are taking the recent spate of promises from all the political parties with a large dose of salt.
The Door Steps say Don’t Believe Them and Don’t Let It Happen Again!
Seamus Healy TD
Tel : 087-2802199
08/02/2016
Workers & Unemployed Action 