Madam, – The looming mortgage crisis has been the elephant in the room for the last three years. It’s a pity that we had to wait for Prof Morgan Kelly (Opinion Analysis, November 8th) to spell it out in black and white rather than have our Government openly acknowledge it needs more than the sticking plaster of a 12-month moratorium before bank repossession.
The Government should now consider nationalising mortgage repayments. It could negotiate repayments on mortgages that would be paid as a tax relative to an individual’s income (or social welfare benefit). No one would lose their home and banks and bondholders would still get their money, albeit over a longer period of time. That has got to be better than the abyss into which huge swathes of the population are staring. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – At this stage of the economic cycle (tyres on the rims), is it not about time that you sought contributors who may have a solution, rather than one who admits that he has none? We know that Finland and Sweden have come through similar crises; we also survived the 1980s. It ill-behoves somebody preparing future generations of the dismal science brigade that he can only present them, and us, with a blank wall for the future; somebody has to and will scale it, and many will follow suit! – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I wonder if anyone could explain why Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan choose Alan Ahearne as his economic adviser, rather than Morgan Kelly or Brian Lucey? It would make for an interesting study. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Morgan Kelly has suggested that the Government could have terminated the banking guarantee last September on the grounds that three of the guaranteed banks had withheld material information about their solvency.
They passed up a chance to end the banking crisis “at a stroke”.
Really? Consider an analogy. My daughter persuades me to guarantee a mortgage, by telling me her income is twice what it is.
So when I find her out, I am off the hook? Guarantees don’t work like that.
We owe to the writer AP Herbert the insight that the problem with the 13th stroke of the clock is that, in addition to being wrong in itself, it throws doubt on the preceding 12. Having heard a ding, I am uncomfortable with Prof Kelly’s whole thesis. I think the Irish patient may survive. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Prof Kelly’s prophetic insights into the economic malaise and malfeasance that characterise our little country have already been much commented upon in the past, and many have lamented that we have not heard enough more recently from him. His latest article is a substantial critique, and cries out for rebuttal by Brian Lenihan. If that rebuttal is not forthcoming, then we may assume that the dire scenario outlined by Prof Kelly in his compelling article will surely come to pass. – Yours, etc,