“However, it is clear that Sean Quinn cannot be trusted with these jobs. The catastrophic losses suffered by Quinn follow its cavalier attempt to buy Anglo-Irish Bank and what the Regulator describes as management malpractice. Quinn is no victim in this, having pocketed a personal fortune over the years.
“It is clear that Anglo Irish Bank’s proposal will see them dispose of Quinn Insurance soon after they buy it. On the other hand, it is likely that if the Financial Regulator gets his way and installs administrators to the group that it would probably also be sold off. Either option would likely result in large scale job losses.
“The only way to safeguard all of the jobs is for the Quinn Group as a whole to be nationalised. This Group must be brought into public ownership under the democratic control and management of the workers concerned and representatives of customers and the elected government.
“This would offer a real opportunity for the state to develop a more productive economy, with the group’s activities extending from quarrying, to cement production, to glass production to plastics. In addition, the nationalisation of the insurance wing would offer a mechanism to guarantee the provision of low cost insurance for households, small businesses and farmers, who currently face being fleeced by profiteers.”
In the vast acreage of print devoted to last week’s two political retirees, former parliamentarians George Lee and Deirdre de Burca, there was little recognition of the real lessons which are, that personality politics holds nothing in the way of a solution to either our economic or political problems and secondly that ordinary people should not put any faith in establishment political parties or politicians.
Despite being the most unpopular Taoiseach in the history of the state, at the head of the most unpopular government in the history of the state, Brian Cowen has been ranked as the fifth best global leader of the year by the American Newsweek magazine.
Minister for Health Edwin Poots and his partners in the Assembly Executive have received a “warning that if the Executive proceeds to make further cuts to health services, a mighty opposition will be ready in every community affected.”