Co. Sligo, Ireland — 15 Jan. 2010 — True nature of Ireland's Mortgage position is still not revealed in Central Bank Statistics. It is too soon to call for an inquiry into the Banking collapse until the true nature of banking liabilities is exposed. John F Higgins, Independent General Election candidate in Sligo North Leitrim called for a “National Emergency Enquiry into impact on Banking of unplanned €37,000,000,000 inward investment in mortgages” in May 2007.

PRESS RELEASE

Fine Gael hopes that the government will adopt their proposal to hold an enquiry into the banking collapse. Labour has a somewhat similar proposal.

Things could be a lot different if they backed my call for a “National Emergency Enquiry into impact on births and banking of unplanned €37,000,000,000 inward investment in mortgages” as published in my manifesto and an advertisement in the Sunday Independent 20th May 2007, when I ran as an Independent General Election Candidate in the Sligo North-Leitrim Constituency. Bank shares were then trading at over €13.00. Readers of the Mayo Association Yearbooks 2000 to 2003 would know about my concerns in connection with the exploitation of our young men and women via ever increasing mortgage lending. This concern was precipitated by the rise in house values between 1995 and 2000. I subsequently became very worried about the stability of the banking industry when I discovered that retail mortgages were being sold off to EU Pension and Hedge Funds through a system called Securitisation.

My writings since the year 2000 via editorials, articles in the Mayo Association Yearbooks; letters to the papers, politicians, bankers etc emphasised that it was important to act before the explosions came e.g. the following quote is taken from my editorial in the Mayo Association Yearbook 2002 which was written in the wake of the 9/11 disaster.

“Children traditionally made up a greater percentage in Ireland and more so in Mayo because of past emigration and migration. Needs of children were the major creator of the demand side of economics in the West of Ireland. The total drop since 1980 is near 30%; this causes a drop in sales of clothes, food, demand for teachers’ etc. The economy of County Mayo will be hit very hard in ten to twenty years.

Only a nation bereft of religious values fails to see the potential dire long-term political and economic consequences of such an exploitative lifestyle. Is it reasonable to expect help/assistance from a Dublin administration that lords over a situation like this? No Explosion, no see! Only a nation with deep religious values will see its way out! The future needs a lot of thinking about and not only by those people who just want to make money! Just and caring leaders are needed! Will those who represent us in Leinster House see yet that we need leadership with a public debate on where we are going as a nation? Get rid of any hang-ups, preconceived ideas. Get real!”

The amount of Securitised Mortgages that I counted in 2007 was €37.5bn. I had a personal as well as a public reason for this investigation. This was the fact that my twenty-one year old daughter was offered a €300,000 mortgage by one of the big two banks; I told her that it would be a tomb that she would buying! I was worried that this financial lunacy was going to wreck the social fabric of our society. I hastily went about digging information on where the banks were getting all the finance from. This information was mainly gathered from websites of Solicitors’ Firms who helped put the asset covered security deals together, and were obviously touting for more business. The Central Bank in an era of lax regularity regimes was then aware of only c. €9bn. I guessed that no influential politician could be briefed as to the full devastating effect that the whole building boom was going to have on Irish life.

Since the year 2000, I, quietly tried to warn our politicians and bankers on this very real live issue. I have now counted c.€80bn in mortgage backed securities (securitisation), but for some reason this figure is continuously held back from the Irish public. The repayments abroad on these deals at over €5bn annually, act like a Vampire in sucking the lifeblood (working capital) out the Irish Economy. Housing should only be financed from internal banking sources in accordance with the strength of the economy. The use of securitisation (asset backed securities) from abroad only fueled a fool’s economy with its associated bubbles etc. The fall in property values means that we have now nothing to represent this annual, private as distinct from public, outflow of funds.

Our visionless politicians only move after an explosion or a collapse of the banking system: either case makes no difference to the young men and women under great financial stress; lost their jobs; or the pensioners who lost their life savings in a bank or stock market collapse! My call for an investigation for the true impact of securitisation on Irish banking is still alive; in my opinion our politicians can not yet know this nations true financial liability. There is no sense in looking for scapegoats. We must be united nationally in fending off our creditors and steadying ourselves with God’s help (whichever one you may worship, if any at all) for the fight for our future survival!

Issued by John F Higgins

http://www.johnfhiggins.eu/National%20Emergency%20Enquiry%20into%20Banking%20called%20for!.html

Former Independent General Election and EURO North West candidate

Tourlestrane

Co Sligo

071 9181865