In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow.
(In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti)Via-Irish Independent
By Lise Hand
Monday November 29 2010
The Arctic air was frozen as a blanket of snow settled over the towns and cities, the meadows and mountains from the Atlantic Ocean to the Irish Sea.
But this was nothing, nothing compared to the ice that entered the soul of the country's men and women last night. The glacial, biting chill that descended at the sight of our Taoiseach, our Head of Government, announcing that the economic sovereignty of Ireland had been exchanged for the modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver, or €85bn.
And the bitterest, coldest fact of all was that €17.5bn of that bailout is to come from the National Pensions Reserve Fund. This was our money under the mattress, the comforting National Nest-Egg that was salted away for a rainy day.
Well, now the hardest of rain has fallen, but is this nest-egg being deployed to help get the country back off its knees, to aid the long march back out of the valley and on to the hilltops?
Is this last legacy of the Celtic Tiger being used to put the unemployed back to work, to build new schools as an investment in the indebted generation to come, to ease the crippling burdens on small businesses struggling to keep afloat?
No. It will rejoin the other lost billions being poured into our banjaxed banks, those shattered receptacles of greed and hubris and treachery which have put this frost on our land.
It was the bitterest of nights for our Taoiseach as he took his seat at the podium in the press centre in Government Buildings. On one side of him was Green Minister Eamon Ryan, on the other sat Kevin Cardiff, the secretary general in the Department of Finance -- that chair had been reserved for Culture Minister Mary Hanafin but she (possibly accidentally, possibly deliberately) sat down one place further away from Brian Cowen.
This was one historic photo-opportunity that nobody wanted to be in.
By the time he delivered the avalanche of bad news, most of the figures were already out, and the scale of the bailout was beginning to sink in.
The Taoiseach looked strained and pale but composed as he tried to put the best possible face on this billion-dollar digout. He stressed that this "final agreed programme represents the best available deal for Ireland".
"It allows us to move forward with secure funding for our essential public services, for our welfare state, for the most vulnerable members of society that depend on them," he said.
"And it provides Ireland with vital time and space to successfully and conclusively address the unprecedented problems we have been dealing with since this global economic crisis began."
The Taoiseach insisted that the Government had "carefully considered all available policy options" before signing on the dotted line.
It's hard to imagine how desperate the horse-trading must have been, how the Taoiseach and the Finance Minister and the governor of the Irish Central Bank and the head of the National Treasury Management Agency at various times faced the flinty row of negotiators and pleaded for leniency, while option after option was dismissed. Senior bondholders must be saved above all -- the Irish people would have to suck it up. What a depressing image to contemplate.
The Taoiseach insisted that this deal gave us "further room to manoeuvre", but it's hard to see how any manoeuvres are possible when your back is right against the wall.
As Cowen left the press centre it was announced that this would shortly be followed by a joint press conference by the IMF, the ECB and the EC. "In other words, the real Taoiseach, Tanaiste and Minister for Finance," one insider grimly muttered. It would've been funny if there hadn't been a horrible grain of truth in it.
And right on time, a quartet of men walked on the podium; two from the IMF, including the team's head Ajai Chopra, a chap from the EC and another from the ECB.
They didn't look like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but it felt a bit like Armageddon all the same. And like our Taoiseach, they strove mightily to put a good slant on this bailout. Chopra was full of praise for the Irish negotiating team, lauding them as "proactive".
But every now and then the steel fist glinted behind the velvet glove.
The National Nest-Egg had been sacrificed because it was felt that "everyone should put in whatever they have".
In fact, according to Chopra, the use of the National Pensions Reserve Fund is "a win-win situation", basically because the country doesn't have to go further into hock.
But it's left the cupboard bare. It was our bit of shelter against the howling wintry storms of the global markets.
Now we're at the mercy of the elements.
- Lise Hand
Irish Independent
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