02/11/2011

Default On Bond Payments, Says Unions

The Dáil has again been urged to withhold a major international bond payment.

The $1billion or €700 million bond to the unsecured and un-guaranteed senior Anglo-Irish Bank bondholders, is due today and the Irish Congress of Trade Union has added its voice to the calls for the Irish Government not to repay the cash.

Paul Sweeney, Chief economist of the trade union's congress, said that now as the Greeks got a 50% write down on all their debt, the moral obligation, (just as there is no legal obligation) on Ireland to repay all of this sum is greatly undermined.

"This is a private, not sovereign debt, run up by Irish private sector bankers. The Irish taxpayer gained nothing whatsoever from this loan. A billion dollars makes up a high proportion of Irish public spending in this time of unprecedented austerity," he said, on Monday."

He added that the European Central Bank (ECB) stood by when these bondholders/banks were lending furiously to Ireland’s insolvent banks.

"This vast sum must be negotiating with a view to a massive write down," Sweeney said.

"The ECB, worried primarily about bank solvency (and inflation), will be annoyed, but will not be able to do anything about any Government imitative on negotiation of this 'debt', " he concluded in a report that appeared on the website of the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU).

(BMcC)

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