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The report by the Central Bank Governor, Patrick Honohan, clearly indicates that the Irish banking crisis was caused by excessive land and property lending by the Irish banks themselves and he confirms that the failure of Wall Street’s Lehman Brothers was “not decisive”.
So in brief, although International pressure somewhat contributed to the intensity of our Irish banking crisis, the characteristic of this problem were mostly domestic. Mr Honohan also states that house prices had been dropping for some 18 months prior to the collapse of the now infamous Lehman Brothers, back in September 2008.
 Patrick Honohan Central Bank Governor. Speaking to Thurles.Info this morning, following the publication of the first reports into the causes of our banking crisis, North Tipperary Deputy Noel Coonan stated that independent experts have now confirmed that Brian Cowen and his Government were 100% guilty of gross failures in this country’s economic management and North Tipperary taxpayers are amongst those who have been left to pay the price.
Deputy Coonan stated:
“No matter how much spin Brian Cowen puts on the reports carried out by the Central Bank governor and International Banking experts, it has been affirmatively laid out in black and white that the banking crisis was not caused by Lehman Brothers, but by bad policy making decisions on our own back yard.”
In his report Patrick Holohan, said: “The weaknesses of Irish banks were not caused by the interruption of the flow of cheap money from abroad,” and he also commented: “Fiscal policy and budgetary measures aimed at boosting the construction sector, were significant factors in contributing to the unsustainable structure of spending.”
Continue reading Banking Crisis Reports
A new €3.6 million building was opened this week in the Tipperary Technology Park in Thurles.
This Park is owned and managed by Shannon Development and is promoted in co-operation with IDA Ireland, Thurles Chamber, Thurles Town Council, Tipperary North County Council, Thurles Marketing Group and the private sector.
The new building, ‘Innovation Works 3’, is now the third building in this Technology Park and brings the total investment by Shannon Development in this parkland venture to €7.4 million.
This new building comprises a 21,500 sq/ft two-storey office building and associated site works including an increase to the existing car parking area, bringing a total industrial space in the Park to now over 45,000sq/ft.
Shannon Development has now 57 Business Technology Parks and Industrial Estates right across the Shannon Region which includes counties Clare, North Kerry, Limerick, South Offaly and North Tipperary. These parks feature turn key state of the art Office Accommodation, Distribution Warehousing and Incubation Spaces, to meet the demands of small or large scale businesses with either local or international interests.
Tipperary Technology Park is home to a number of investment projects and it has a core facility for incubating and growing new Irish technology companies. Present clients range from those operating in the cutting edge sphere of nano-biomaterials, to clients in digital cinema, to the international services sector and highlight Thurles as a superb location for entrepreneurship, in both tourism and business.
Businesses requiring further information on Tipperary Technology Park should contact Mr Brian Keating, Development Manager, at Shannon Development Tipperary Technology Park, Thurles, Tel: 086-2843803 or 0504-29300, or email: keatingb@shannondevelopment.ie
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Mr Batt O’Keeffe TD, officially opened the building, against a backdrop of over 7,125 people currently unemployed in North Tipperary and with 196 further persons having just joined the dole queue in May of this year.
The Irish national overall unemployment figures now stand at over 13.7%, registering the highest number of unemployed people ever, in the history of the Irish State, with 439,100 now in receipt of support.
 Mary Hanifin T.D. Thurles born Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sports, Mary Hanafin T.D.has announced the Irish Sports Council’s funding package for the National Network of Sports Partnerships.
The 32 Partnerships have been allocated almost €6.3 million in funding in 2010 and this will be matched by revenues from other sources bringing the total invested in local participation initiatives through these Partnerships, to more than €12.5 million in the current year.
At a meeting of the Sports Partnerships in Tullamore, Co Offaly, Minister Hanafin also launched the 2009 SPEAK (Strategic Planning, Evaluation and Knowledge) Report, the evaluation mechanism that tracks the activities of the Partnerships year on year. Among the many highlights were that 112,000 people participated in 744 directly delivered participation programmes and 3,500 clubs were supported in the delivery of their sports activity targets.
Under this announced funding, in 2010 North Tipperary will receive €178,264, while South Tipperary will receive €146,671. Women’s sports projects will further benefit by €6.500 overall for the county as a whole.
For those of our readers who would like to read the full text of the SPEAK Report, click here.
Note: This report is based on the information provided for the year 2009 by 33 Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs) using the SPEAK self-evaluation system.
 In 2009, nationally, County and City Councils spent in excess of €31 million in payments to their Councillors according to today’s Irish Times Newspaper.
In the two Riding’s of County Tipperary, the overall cost was just short of €2 million, with North Tipperary splitting €890,000 between their 21 Councillors and South Tipperary splitting €1.04 million between 26 Councillors.
According to regulations, gratuity payments, which are taxable, are made to councillors if they are not re-elected. In this regard South Tipperary and North Tipperary paid out in excess of €400,000 to former councillors. Nationally Councillors who retired or who failed to be re-elected in last year’s local elections received more than €4.76 million in gratuity payments last year.
Payments received by elected County and City Councillors include a basic salary, called a Representational Payment, which is subject to PAYE in the normal way and PRSI as appropriate.
Councillors also receive an annual allowance for reasonable expenses incurred in attending meetings associated with their council business and miscellaneous costs such as postage, travel expenses, and can also claim up to €600 in a mobile phone allowance annually.
The overall amount a councillor can spend on expenses was capped by Minister for Local Government John Gormley in February last when the Local Government Act 2001 Regulations 2010 were finalised. This limited councillors’ expenditure on conferences, seminars and other meetings or events.
Many County Councillors additionally receive payments as members of local Urban District Councils also.
The influential and well paid post of County or Local Councillor, peculiarly, remains the only employment currently obtainable within the Irish State where an Interview, IQ Test, C.V. or Educational Qualification is not part of any qualifying process and the only post where work performance is regarded as of little consequence.
 P.Hayes and PJ. Shanahan shake hands with the new Technological VAT Collector It was confirmed to Thurles Chamber of Commerce during a recent Bi-Monthly meeting with Thurles Town Clerk, Mr Michael Ryan and the County Manager, Mr Matt Shortt that VAT at the rate of 21% will officially apply to public parking in Thurles town with effect from the 1st July 2010.
This further imposition of VAT arises from a case referred to the European Court of Justice, by private cark park operators. They maintained that while they needed to charge VAT on their parking spaces, Local Authorities who are in direct competition in some cases, did not.
The European Court heard that under the European Sixth VAT Directive, if a Public Body supplies the same services as a private business then VAT is applicable to the public service. The European Court ruled that Ireland must comply with this Directive.
On 4th February a Government Finance Bill made it incumbent on Local Authorities to charge VAT on many of its services from the 1st July 2010.
Continue reading Parking Charges To Increase In Thurles
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