Finance « Thurles Information

Liam O’Mahony Appointed Chairman IDA Ireland

Former chief executive of CRH (International Building Materials Group) Tipperary born Mr Liam O’Mahony has been appointed as the new Chairman of IDA Ireland. Mr O’Mahony takes over the position of chairman from Mr John Dunne.

Born in 1946, the 63 year old Mr O’Mahony (BE, BL, MBA, FIEI) was born in Tipperary and educated at De La Salle College in Waterford, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin and the Kings Inns, joining CRH in 1971. He has held various senior management positions including Managing Director, Republic of Ireland and UK Group companies and Chief Executive of American operations.

He joined the CRH Board in 1992 and became Group Chief Executive in January 2000, a position he held until the end of 2008.

In 2004, he was Ireland’s best paid chief executive, earning a €3.5m package, made up of basic remuneration €2m with a once off bonus of €1.5 related to the company’s performance over the past five years.

Liam O’Mahony was recognised for excellence when he was awarded the Business and Finance Business Person of the year in 2005.

He is Chairman of Smurfit Kappa Group plc, a director of Project Management Limited and a member of The Irish Management Institute Council.

Established in its current form in 1994, IDA Ireland is the government agency responsible for the establishment and development in the State of industrial undertakings from outside the State. IDA works in partnerships with other organisations to enhance the best of Irish capabilities and talents and match them to the best of global investment.

It is expected that Mr O’Mahony experience and knowledge will contribute greatly to the further development and enhancement of foreign direct investment in Ireland.

Ghost Housing Estates In County Tipperary

Tipperary For Sale

Per figures recently published by the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) based in NUI Maynooth since 2001, there are now no less than 33 “Ghost Housing Estates” vacant in Co.Tipperary. (17 in South Tipp – 16 in North Tipp)

During the period 2006-09, it appears that we have, as a nation, only now woken up to the fact that housing stock became completely devoid from any kind of realistic sensible projected planning and demand. This apparent oversight has now been further aggravated by a diminished market and an ever changing human population profile.

There were 217,101 housing units built in Ireland between April 2006 – Dec 2009. Based on 1996-2006 population growth there was a need for only about 85,446 units countrywide and we now have a potential oversupply of 131,665 units for which the lower paid working members of our Green Island are being asked indirectly to subsidise without ever getting our names on a Title Deed.

So How Did This Housing Surplus Happen?

A census here in Ireland takes place, usually, in every year that ends in a 1 or a 6 except when some national crisis rears its ugly head e.g. Famine, War or Foot and Mouth disease. ‘Census 2006’ took place on the night of Sunday, April 23, 2006. The preliminary results of the 2006 Census were published on 19 July 2006, that is three months following the actual Census Day.

The publication schedule for the Census 2006 reports can be downloaded here.

From these figures the Irish Government knew the population growth and household size for the period 1996-2006 from this 2006 Census and so they knew the number of household units that would have been required for the period 2006-09, if population growth followed this 06-09 trend.

Given this present government knew the number of house units built between April 2006 (date of the census) and 2009, for each county, they could therefore have calculated accurately the projected oversupply of units per county, based on these projected household growth and population figures.

If this data had been examined the following information would surely have been gleaned regarding Co.Tipperary.

Household growth 1996-2006 –5640.
Houses required 2006-2009 based on 1996-2006 growth figures – 2256.

Because of this apparent failure to examine this known collected data, by developers, bankers etc, we now find ourselves in the following position as we go forward.

Houses built in Tipperary County 2006- 2009 – 7211.
Over supply of Building Units –4955.

This situation now leaves Co.Tipperary with a percentage of housing over supplied, amounting to 439.6% and a problem which will haunt us for the next 10 years at least.

This is what happens when no one is ‘minding the shop’ and when greed and looting within our society is routine and allowed to go unrestrained by those we elect, entrust and enhance with large salaries and bonuses, to manage our affairs.

Have you been refused finance by your bank?

John Gormley Limits Excessive Spending By Local Councillors

John Gormley

TD and leader of The Green Party John Gormley showed signs of real leadership today by announcing limits on spending by local councillors.

Under the new regime city and county councillors will be limited to €4,700 per year; borough councillors €3,000; councillors from larger towns €2,000; and councillors from smaller towns to €1,000.

The new limits will not apply to councils which spent less than these amounts last year. In those cases the actual amount spent in 2009 will apply as the limit.

The limits are aimed at achieving better value for money and tackling spending in excess of €13,000 per councillor per year in some cases. They follow on a 25% cut in travel and subsistence allowances applied to councillors earlier this year.

Some councillors were guilty of widespread abuse of the expenses system by signing into conferences and then quickly departing the event in pursuit of personal business.

Announcing the measure Mr. Gormley said the new limits were not spending targets for councillors. He stressed that most councillors behaved responsibly when spending taxpayers’ money but there were concerns about a minority.

“I expect all councillors to uphold the highest standards of behaviour when it comes to paying taxpayers’ money.”

The new limits will be made by ministerial regulation and follow consultation with councillors’ representatives. Mr Gormley met local representatives last September and received a written submission in November.

Good one John, we now wait with bated breath to see if you have the necessary leadership qualities to implement this necessary change.

Schools To Battle For Credit Union Schools Quiz Honours

Thurles Credit Union

Local schools have been invited to participate in the first stage of the nationwide 2010 Credit Union School’s Quiz competition, being run by Thurles Credit Union in the Thurles Sarsfield’s GAA Club Centre on Friday 29th January 2010 at 7.30pm.

Over 25,000 schoolchildren under the age of 13 will compete in over 300 venues throughout the 32 counties of Ireland. The questions, compiled by primary school teachers, will cover such general topics as geography, history, music, literature and sport.

This is the 19th successive year that the Schools Quiz has been organised by the Irish League of Credit Unions. It consists of two ‘knock-out’ stages, which will culminate in a National Final in Dublin in early April, when 100 qualifying teams will compete.

In addition to salvers, certificates and prizes to the winning teams’ members, the winning schools will also receive a welcome cash prize.

Further information is available from Thurles Credit Union (Telephone 0504 91700)

Child Benefits Cuts Come Into Force

According to the latest official figures and on a County level, North Tipperary is 7.5 per cent below the national average with regard to disposable incomes, per capita for 2007.

The figures show that the North of the County is faring worse than the South. In North Tipperary the average is €20,589 per person while in south Tipp the average disposable income is slightly better at €21,148.

According to latest figures from the Central Statistics Office the national average for 2007 is €21,694.

Chief executive of Irish Rural Link (IRL) which is the national network campaigning for sustainable rural communities, Mr Séamus Boland, said that the figures showed spending on rural infrastructure and local services should now not be cut. He further stated that this official bulletin highlighted the need for investment in infrastructure and training.

Welfare

People in Dublin fared best with just over €24 thousand disposable incomes while Donegal had the lowest at just over €18 thousand

This report comes as the recent Child Benefits cuts announced in the budget come into force this month.

Fine Gaels Deputy Noel Coonan said a loss of €16 per month may not mean much to Government Ministers but is a vital lifeline for countless North Tipperary families suffering Child Benefit cutbacks from the beginning of this month.

Deputy Coonan said:

“Families have already seen the loss of the entire Early Childcare Supplement and now more cuts are hitting their pockets from last week in the form of Child Benefit cutbacks. Meanwhile, this Government ensures senior management public sector workers escape the full brunt of pay cuts introduced in December’s budget. Cleaners in Government offices face a larger pay cut than senior civil servants. It is crystal clear this Government is shielding top civil servants while ordinary folk and lower paid public servants suffer. Fine Gael fought tooth and nail against cuts in Child Benefit. This is a vital payment for families and it should not have been targeted. The Government is putting bankers and developers ahead of children. Fine Gael has repeatedly said there are much better ways of making savings across the public finances, and the best way of getting the social welfare budget down was to get people back to work. Yet the Budget did nothing to stimulate job creation and get people off the dole queue. It failed to help unemployed people and Fianna Fail failed to implement our constructive proposals.

The tax take for 2009 was some €10 billion less than projected at the time of the Budget in 2008, and €1.4 billion less than at last April’s Emergency Budget. These figures unfortunately do not indicate a positive turning point in our economy, despite Government assurances that we are turning a corner.

“Fine Gael is committed to this task of transforming public service delivery, which must include, converting public infrastructures into competitive, state-of-the-art networks, fixing a broken political and regulatory model, sweating sectored opportunities that are open to Ireland, getting banks to start lending again to consumers and businesses.” continued Deputy Coonan.