Cosseted Carroll

Surprise, surprise. Liam Carroll's appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision of the Commercial Court not to entertain his application for protection against his creditors in ACCBank, looks to be paying off. Today they decided to grant him protection until next Tuesday, when his case will be heard in full. With Chief Justice John Murray saying he thought Carroll had a reasonable case to make.

Does anyone doubt that the full weight of the establishment is being brought to bear on the judiciary to play ball with their flavour of the month: NAMA? If not, that in itself would be amazing, seeing as we are constantly being told by our betters in government that there is no other option to save the economy from disaster.

Since the publication of the Heads of the Bill for NAMA, there has been a rising tide of concern from ordinary taxpayers about the horrifying implications of paying off delinquent developers' loans with a valuation system that can only be described as pure fantasy.

The government's determination to bail out the banks by lumbering the taxpayer with the biggest (and most worthless) property portfolio in the world is bad enough. But now that very same taxpayer is getting his head around the prospect of being forced to buy €90 billion worth of bad debt on the basis of some unknown valuer's best guess of what it will be worth five or 10 years from now, when the next property price bubble will be underway.

If an individual and not the Irish State was acting this way, he would be rapidly committed to the nearest institution for the terminally bewildered!

The truth is, we can't afford NAMA. It is as simple and terrifying as that. Added to that is the fact that we are already supporting the banks to the tune of €400 billion, in the shape of the guarantee that Brian Lenihan extended to them last September when they were all on the brink of going bust because of the run on Anglo Irish Bank. Oh! not forgetting that we have already nationalised their losses as well.

So, NAMA is just one favour too far for the banks and developers on the part of us taxpayers. The trouble is, is anyone listening to us? What do you think?