Word: lenihan
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Anyone believing the global economic crisis to be over should have taken a look around Europe this week. Desperate to revive his country's feeble economy, Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan promised $6 billion worth of savings in a budget aimed at taming the country's stubborn deficit. The plan is his second budget this year, and Ireland's harshest in decades. In a mini-budget announced a couple of hours earlier, Britain's Alistair Darling unveiled his government's latest plan to fix the U.K.'s broken economy, including a punitive tax on bankers' bonuses, a rise in social...
...Contrast that with Ireland. Since losing its edge in Europe - rising labor costs helped the country's share of euro-zone exports fall one-fifth between 2001 and 2008 - the Irish haven't shied from cutting their cloth in recent months. In his budget announced Dec. 9, for instance, Lenihan unleashed deeply unpopular cuts in public-sector pay that look set to trigger strike action. But when it comes to a spending squeeze of their own, says Tilford, "the Greeks are a long way from recognizing that they really have no choice." (Read "Ireland's Economy: Celtic Crunch Time...
...unpaid loans left huge holes in the banks' books and the liberal lending of the Celtic Tiger era came to an abrupt halt. To steady the ship, the government placed a blanket guarantee on deposits in six Irish banks last September. At the time, according to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, it was "the cheapest bailout in the world." But that claim soon came back to haunt him. In December it emerged that Sean Fitzpatrick, the chairman of Anglo-Irish, the country's third biggest lender, had concealed from shareholders more than $100 million in personal loans by temporarily transferring...
...Lenihan says housing prices need only appreciate 10% over the next 10 years for NAMA to return a profit on its initial expenditure. But predicting what's around the corner is never easy - as Ireland knows only too well. According to NAMA's draft business plan, a "prolonged property market depression" or "sluggish economic growth" could result in the failure of the scheme. Despite the risks, proponents say it's the only way to ensure that Ireland's banks start lending again. But for residents bearing the brunt of the country's economic slump, NAMA is little more than...
...receipts caused by the housing-market collapse, Ireland's budget deficit is forecast to hit 5.5% of GDP this year - well beyond the 3% limit imposed by Brussels. That has left Dublin little room to spend its way out of trouble, a fact made clear when Finance Minister Lenihan announced a slew of tax hikes and spending cuts...