Sligo Minister is given an AIB loan despite his credit issues
Row over €13k debt no block to Perry getting a mortgage
Small Business Minister and Sligo Fine Gael TDJohn Perry was given a mortgage by State-owned AIB in June despite issues over his credit history. The minister is understood to have loans of up to €5m from a variety of banks related to mortgages on properties around his hometown of Ballymote in Sligo.
Mr Perry’s role in Government is to bat for small businesses as the sector is squeezed by poor consumer confidence and the ongoing difficulties in getting bank financing. A poor credit history is often a block on getting finance, according to brokers.
Land Registry documents show that a mortgage in favour of AIB — which is owned by the State — was registered over one of Mr Perry’s land assets in Stonepark, Co Sligo, on June 13 this year. The charge over the property is held by AIB mortgage bank.
However, on October 4, 2010, electricity supplier Airtricity took Mr Perry, trading as the Coach House Hotel, to Sligo Circuit Court over a disputed debt of €13,386. A credit search of Mr Perry’s name reveals an unregistered judgement related to the Airtricity proceedings.
Thousands of loan applications have requests for finance turned down by the banks. Unregistered judgements can wipe out up to 25 per cent of an individual’s credit rating, according to James Treacy of credit data firm Business Pro. Registered judgements are even more damaging.
“I guess that, in today’s environment, if a bank did see that they’d consider it detrimental,” according to Treacy.
“It’d stop most people getting finance. If you miss even one repayment on term loans, it’d be a block on a mortgage,” Irish Mortgage Adviser Federation’s Michael Dowling said.
“It would require someone at a very senior level in the bank to sign off on a matter like this,” he added.
“We are not commenting on lending decisions regarding specific customers. However, at all times, AIB ensures that its lending decisions are based on our policies and procedures. As per the Relationship Framework Document with the Minister for Finance, AIB operates on a commercial basis and does not make decisions based on any external influences,” according to AIB.
Mr Perry declined to respond to queries from the Sunday Independent last week.
However, details of the action with Airtricity emerged last month as Mr Perry was embroiled in a legal spat over a €1.3m debt related to the lease of a hotel.
“The matter has been resolved, struck out and file closed. As Mr Perry has divested his business interests for a considerable length of time, he had no direct involvement in this matter at any point,” Mr Perry’s office said last month. It added that the matter had been settled.
Last month, Taoiseach Enda Kenny was asked about Mr Perry’s finances. “As I understand it, that matter was dealt with before the court and has been satisfactorily resolved,” he said.
Mr Perry is one of the most prominent players in his political stronghold of Ballymote. The poll-topper owns a hotel, supermarket, a hardware store, a funeral home and an apartment in Ballymote. The 2011 Oireachtas register of members’ interests notes that he also owns 34 acres of woodland in Clooncoose, six acres of woodland in Ballymote, 16 acres of agricultural land and 10 acres of land complete with a derelict house in the area.
Banks have all but cut off credit to home buyers and small business, with mortgage lending this year likely to be the lowest in 40 years. Isme, the small business lobby group, reported 54 per cent of respondents to a survey had finance or loan requests turned down by banks.
Two weeks ago, a Central Bank report found that Ireland was second only to Greece in the amount of small business loan applications rejected by the banks.
Brave father Peter turns the tragedy of his son’s suicide into a chance to help others
Left, grieving father Peter Roche with a photo of his son, Colin. Ray D’Arcy and Mary Kennedy spoke at the suicide conference.
A politician who lost his son to suicide has been inundated with calls from people thinking of taking their own lives.
Peter Roche said that since speaking publicly about the death of 24-year-old Colin, he receives weekly calls from desperate people.
The Fine Gael councillor puts them in touch with counsellors from Console, the suicide bereavement and prevention agency.
He said: “I think a lot of people prefer to make the personal contact because they feel better understood or something.
“Dozens have contacted me, and it’s good to know you can make a difference to people’s lives. Not many weeks go by when I wouldn’t have one or two making direct contact with me.”
The Galway man addressed the World Suicide Prevention Day Conference in Croke Park yesterday, an event that also heard from experts from the US and Australia.
Irish speakers included broadcasters Mary Kennedy and Ray D’Arcy, as well as the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Kathleen Lynch. The conference took place ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day, which is taking place on Monday.
Mr Roche said it was important for him and his family to speak about their own tragic loss.
“It can be pretty difficult to accept that we didn’t take the opportunity to talk to Colin about this, but it’s nice to know we’re making a difference to somebody else. I see it as a tribute to my son,” he said.
“We get inspiration from Colin. I do this because I know it is working. It would be useless and selfish of us to just deal with our own loss. We can help others.”
Colin took his own life in a shed behind the family home in Abbeyknockmoy, Co Galway, in November 2010.
The apprentice plasterer had rung his older brother, Alan, minutes before to say he was sorry for what he was about to do and express his love for his family.
Alan immediately contacted his parents, who were at home at the time.
Sadly, by the time his father had rushed to the shed, Colin was dead.
Struggling
Mr Roche said the scene that met him was one that will haunt him.
“We were a regular family with four sons, all busy and successful. All of a sudden our lives were turned upside down,” he added.
He added that while the family tried to remain positive they were still struggling to come to terms with their terrible loss.
“We have a family wedding this weekend and those occasions are horrendously difficult,” he said. “But the drive to keep going and help others comes from Colin.”
Thousands of Irish household’s get tax levy refund’s
Still 600,000 households remain to be registered.
Thousands of property owners have been refunded by the agency collecting the household charge after paying twice or having been accidentally overcharged.More than 2,800 property owners have to date received refunds from the Local Government Management Agency.
The repayments came as the agency struggles to cope with more than 6,000 complaints from homeowners regarding excessive amounts deducted from bank accounts. This will lead to more refunds being paid to potentially thousands of property owners.
Agency chief executive Paul McSweeney confirmed the figures to the Irish Examiner. He said door-to-door calls from local authority officials demanding payments of the €100 charge from non-payers was still an option.
“We have 6,000 queries and some paid for the same property twice,” said Mr McSweeney. “We have to contact those people and go: ‘You’re due a refund.’ I had to sign a whole load of cheques saying you paid too much. That’s amounted to €28,000.”
Mr McSweeney said in some cases property owners paying online may have pressed the button twice in error, making two payments.
In other cases, however, both spouses or partners paid for the one property without the other knowing.
One property owner told the Irish Examiner he and his wife had paid the charge for their Ballycotton, Co Cork, home but authorities had demanded it be paid again.
Michael Connolly said the couple’s home had been registered for the charge with the agency on Mar 20, before the deadline, and that they had received a receipt for the payment shortly afterwards by email.
“I’m annoyed as we’ve already paid it,” Mr Connolly said. “Everybody we ring is blaming everybody else. We were asked to pay it a second time — and with interest. All this doubling of services is a waste of money, with the council demanding payment and the collection firm saying we paid already.”
Mr McSweeney said talks were held with local authorities about visiting the homes of non-payers and reminding them. He was aware of trade union opposition to this.
“How they decide to enforce it will be up to each local authority manager. If they decide that they need to go door to door, then they will need to get people going door to door. If the manager gives them a legal instruction, then they have to do it,” he said.
As of yesterday, 1,042,161 properties had registered for the charge. Up to 600,000 remain to be registered.
Arctic ice melt ‘like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions’
The loss of Arctic ice is massively compounding the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams stated recently on TV.
White ice reflects more sunlight than open water, acting like a parasol.
Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption.
Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun’s rays is having an effect “the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man”.
The sea ice extent at 26 August (white) is markedly different from the 1979-2000 average (orange line)
The Cambridge University expert says that the Arctic ice cap is “heading for oblivion”.
In 1980, the Arctic ice in summer made up some 2% of the Earth’s surface. But since then the ice has roughly halved in area.
“Thirty years ago there was typically about eight million square kilometres of ice left in the Arctic in the summer, and by 2007 that had halved, it had gone down to about four million, and this year it has gone down below that,” Prof Wadhams said.
And the volume of ice has dropped, with the ice getting thinner:
“The volume of ice in the summer is only a quarter of what it was 30 years ago and that’s really the prelude to this final collapse,” Prof Wadhams said.
Parts of the Arctic Ocean are now as warm in summer as the North Sea is in winter, Prof Wadhams said.
Radiation absorbed
The polar ice cap acts as a giant parasol, reflecting sunlight back into the atmosphere in what is known as the albedo effect.
But white ice and snow reflect far more of the sun’s energy than the open water that is replacing it as the ice melts.
Instead of being reflected away from the Earth, this energy is absorbed, and contributes to warming:
“Over that 1% of the Earth’s surface you are replacing a bright surface which reflects nearly all of the radiation falling on it with a dark surface which absorbs nearly all.
“The difference, the extra radiation that’s absorbed is, from our calculations, the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man,” Prof Wadhams said.
If his calculations are correct then that means that over recent decades the melting of the Arctic ice cap has put as much heat into the system as all the CO2 we have generated in that time.
And if the ice continues to decline at the current rate it could play an even bigger role than greenhouse gases.
UK weather effect
Professor Wadhams stresses that there are uncertainties – cloud cover over the Arctic could change and help reflect back some of the sun’s radiation.
But then another greenhouse gas – methane, currently trapped in the Arctic permafrost – could be released with warming and make matters worse.
The melting ice could have knock-on effects in the UK. Adam Scaife, from the Met Office Hadley Centre told Newsnight it could help explain this year’s miserable wet summer, by altering the course of the jet stream.
“Some studies suggest that there is increased risk of wet, low pressure summers over the UK as the ice melts.”
There may be an effect for our winters too: “Winter weather could become more easterly cold and snowy as the ice declines,” Mr Scaife said.
Opinions vary on the date of the demise of summer sea ice. The Met Office says it is not expecting the Arctic to be completely ice-free in summer until after 2030.
No comments:
Post a Comment