Here are some snippits from Ronan’s report.
..Only the two outgoing Government parties viewed Ireland’s banking liabilities as an integral part of its sovereign debt. All other parties – and most of the non-party candidates, such as the New Vision electoral alliance – campaigned on a platform of “burden-sharing” and/or renegotiation of the IMF-EU debt, i.e. that the collapse of Ireland’s financial system should have costs for more than just the Irish taxpayer.
The Irish people have overwhelmingly endorsed the latter view, with the outgoing Government parties taking less than one in every five votes cast. In other words, the new Government has been given a mandate based on the belief that tying banking debt to the Irish taxpayer is part of the problem, not part of the solution. With Irish bond yields at record highs, it seems the markets and the Irish electorate are in agreement on this. Only some EU-ECB elites seem out of step…
…Firm statistical evidence of this will be hard to come by, but it is clear that what the Irish electorate is really smarting from is not austerity or the lack of burning bondholders. These have just lit the touchpaper on the two real issues facing Ireland: unemployment and negative equity. According the most recent official figures, 300,000 people are unemployed in Ireland, up from just 100,000 before the current economic crisis. While Ireland’s under-18s are lucky enough to be able to choose skills that are in demand, their older siblings are not so lucky. The burden of unemployment is falling on Ireland’s 20-somethings, with one third of men between 20 and 25 unemployed, and they are set to emigrate.
Things are hardly better for Ireland’s 30-somethings. At least 200,000 households – and maybe as many as 300,000 – are in negative equity. This is out of a total of 800,000 households with a mortgage. Just yesterday, the Central Bank published its latest mortgage arrears figures, including a new series on numbers of mortgages that have been restructured. All in, about 10% of mortgages are already in trouble…
and a great Map showing the Regime Change…
