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Freeze the Anglo Bonds

 

Scenes from the ‘Anglo: Not Our Debt’ campaign launch today at the Central Bank on Dame Street, Dublin.

This event marked the start of a campaign by the Anglo: Not Our Debt group which launched a campaign to freeze the ‘Anglo bonds’ at an examination of a financial ‘crime scene’ outside the Central Bank, Dublin this morning at 11am. ‘Forensic scientists’, dressed in ‘CSI’ style examination suits, cordoned off the Central Bank behind tape that reads “Crime Scene – Do Not Enter” and carried out an inspection of the evidence of financial crimes against the people of Ireland as a result of the socialisation of the Anglo debt.

Nessa Ní Chasaide of the campaign said,

“We are launching our campaign to freeze the remaining €25 billion of ‘Anglo bonds’ at the ‘crime scene’ of the Central Bank as it prepares to sell these ‘Anglo bonds’ to the market. These bonds must not be traded; the people of Ireland must not be held responsible for this criminal debt, and charges must be brought immediately against those who de-frauded the state.”

The campaign to freeze the bonds is launched in the wake of the ‘Anglo tapes’, which revealed how Anglo executives misled the government before the issuing of the 2008 bank guarantee.

Vicky Donnelly of the campaign said,

“The ‘Anglo tapes’ show that the Anglo debts originated on the basis of deliberately misleading information. We question the timing of the release of the tapes and request that the full content of the tapes be publicly disclosed. We want to know who knew of the content of the tapes which, had they been made public earlier, would have led to massive public pressure to write off the Anglo promissory notes last February. This debt is illegitimate and should be written off now, once and for all. “

Ms Donnelly added,

“Over the last 4 years the government has entirely failed to bring the bankers to justice through the existing criminal system, we now encourage the people of Ireland to submit complaints of suspicion of financial crimes in Anglo to the Gardaí, for example under Section 6(1) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.”

The Not Our Debt campaign add the following notes for interested parties:

The Irish government converted the Anglo Irish Bank / Irish Nationwide Building Society ‘promissory notes’ into sovereign bonds with a longer repayment period but with no element of cancellation. €25 billion of these bonds are currently held by the Irish Central Bank and are scheduled to be traded on the markets. This February ‘deal’ was concluded only hours before a legal challenge to the promissory notes was due to be addressed in the Supreme Court. The government earlier chose to vigorously defend the promissory notes arrangement when the case was heard in the High Court. – The Dept of Finance indicates that “The Central Bank of Ireland will sell the bonds but only where such a sale is not disruptive to financial stability. They have however undertaken that minimum of bonds will be sold in accordance with the following schedule: to end 2014 (€0.5bn), 2015-2018 (€0.5bn p.a.), 2019-2023 (€1bn p.a.), 2024 and after (€2bn p.a.)”

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/presentation/2013/newjmpres

p.10 – Section 6(1) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 states “a person who dishonestly, with the intention of making a gain for himself or herself or another, or of causing loss to another, by any deception induces another to do or refrain from doing an act is guilty of an offence”. – The Anglo: Not Our Debt campaign, is a broad-based coalition of trade union, community, faith-based, academic and global justice groups.

http://www.notourdebt.ie

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