Courts Cosh Carroll

Apologies to Chief Justice Murray and the Supreme Court. In an earlier blog I (and many others) impugned his independence from political pressure in the ongoing Liam Carroll case, expecting that he and his learned friends would cobble together some dirty little decision that would let the banks, Zoe Developments, the Government, and NAMA, off the hook.

Instead, the Court agreed with the admirably independent Mr. Justice Kelly in the commercial court and found the case presented by Carroll et al to be the barrel of tosh that everyone else knew it to be: leaving the Irish banks and Brian Cowen sucking on the cold air of reality that the rest of us have been breathing for the past year.

As the world and his mother knows by now, the Cowen regime hates reality with a grim passion, which is why they have gone to the limits of fiendish complexity to crush the taxpayer with NAMA. This will leave us picking up the tab for the Developer feeding frenzy for the next quarter of a century - just when Cowen, Coughlan and the rest of the Dail, will be enjoying their holiday homes in the South of France, all paid for by the most inflated salaries and pensions in the western world.

Perhaps now that the Courts have blown the whistle on the giant crap game that the banks and the politicians have been running, we can finally have the so-called fire sale that RTE and the Irish Times have been simpering about for so long, ensuring that the market value of this collapsed property bubble is finally established.

This would be a good thing, as only those who were profiting from the bubble will have anything to lose in the process. Instead, people who have a use for the property will be able to get it at a price that they are willing to pay, and will start doing something productive with sites and buildings that, under NAMA, would just be rotting away for years. This is our best chance of clearing the debris of the crash and perhaps even putting some life back into the flatlining construction sector (meaning real, hardworking builders, not the office-boy developers) and letting the market find its own level. If the banks can't cope with that, then tough. New banks will take their place.

All we need now is a Minister for Finance who's willing to admit he was wrong. Is that you Mr. Lenihan?