Year: 2010

Irish economy and climate change

Post author By Richard Tol
Post date July 6, 2010

Climate policy in Ireland and Europe is important to the economy of Ireland, and I will continue to blog on that. I have not posted much lately, which is because nothing much has happened (except for a series of non-conclusive international and European meetings).

Most aspects of climate change are not particularly relevant to the Irish economy. Although some frequent visitors to this site share my interest in these matters, the discussion is better placed elsewhere. My adventures in IPCC land are discussed here, but I’ll also use VOX, Klimazwiebel and Pielke Jr for issues on climate change economics, science, and policy, respectively.

Categories In Environment
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Are One Third of NAMA’s Loans Producing Cash? No.

Post author By Karl Whelan
Post date July 5, 2010

You might remember that a few months ago, NAMA CEO Brendan McDonagh appeared before the Oireachtas Finance Committee and told them that one third of NAMA’s assets are cashflow producing. I noted at the time (based on the information in bank annual reports) that this didn’t seem to me to be correct, with the likely figure being a good bit lower. Now, the media are leaking details of NAMA’s new and improved business plan and we are being told that “only about 20 per cent of the loans are generating any income, that is repayments or interest payments.”

This raises an interesting question: Was Mister McDonagh misinformed in April when he said that one-third of the loans were cashflow producing or have 13 percent of the loans stopped producing income between April and July? Neither answer is particularly palatable.

As for “In a worst-case scenario, Nama could end up losing several hundred million euro” one really has to wonder do the people who put this plan together know what a worst-case scenario means. However, coming from the folks who brought us the 80% full recovery scenario, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.