That's when those louses go back to their spouses...

“He’s your guy when stocks are high
But beware when they start to descend.
It's then that those louses go back to their spouses;
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.

These words were immortalised by the great Marilyn Monroe towards the middle of the last century.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as my Francophone friends would say, because there seems recently to have been a rash of property transfers to spouses, for "Estate Planning" purposes, coincident with the economic downturn and with at least the suspicion of attempting to forestall the arrival of agencies such as NAMA and others seeking unencumbered assets. You’d have to stay pretty close to your wife, in every sense of the word, if you had just transferred significant real estate and other property into her name.

As a strategy, though, it’s unlikely to be effective. As Friel Stafford, Corporate Recovery specialists of Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin (Phone 01-661 4066) have pointed out, the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 has provisions that will allow for such transfers to be reversed in cases where they have been carried out for the sole purpose of protecting assets from creditors.

Come and enjoy a wonderful evening with the Chamber Philharmonic Europe

I am absolutely delighted to be able to announce the return to Ireland of the Chamber Philharmonic Europe orchestra. I heard their concert in Dublin last year and it was wonderful - all the better for being performed in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street with its emotive, historic ambiance and its excellent acoustics.

Here are the details:

Click here for Ticketmaster booking for the Dublin Concert

Chamber Philharmonic Europe - Powerful Emotions Tour 2011

The Chamber Philharmonic Europe orchestra is revisiting Ireland along with the award-winning soloists Pawel Zuzanski (Violin) and Kirill Gusarov (Trumpet). You can enjoy an evening of versatile sounds and complex emotions with selected works of J. S. Bach, A. Vivaldi, J. N. Hummel, E. Grieg and G. Faure.

Tour dates May 2011:

4th May 2011 - 8 pm, Friars Gate Theatre Kilmallock http://www.friarsgate.ie/ Phone: 063 98727
5th May 2011 – 8 pm, Waterford Christ Church Cathedral http://www.christchurchwaterford.com/ Phone: 051 858 958
6th May 2011 – 8 pm, Dublin St. Anne's Church Dawson St. Ticketmaster
7th May 2011 – 8 pm, Bray Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre http://www.mermaidartscentre.ie/ Phone: 01 272 4030
8th May 2011 - 8 pm, Naas The Moat Theatre http://www.moattheatre.com/ Phone: 045 883030
9th May 2011 - 8 pm, Kilworth Village Arts Centre. Phone: +353 25 27109
10th May 2011 - 8 pm, Thurles The Source Arts Centre Thurles http://www.thesourceartscentre.ie/ Phone: +353 (0) 504 90340
11th May 2011 – 8 pm, Kenmare Carnegie Arts Centre http://www.carnegieartskenmare.ie/ Phone: 064 6648701
12th May 2011 – 8 pm, Nenagh Arts Centre http://www.nenagharts.com/ Phone: 067 34900
13th May 2011 – 8 pm, Carlow The George Bernard Shaw Theatre http://www.gbshawtheatre.ie/ Phone: 059 917 2400
14th May 2011 – 8 pm, Omagh Strule Arts Centre http://www.struleartscentre.co.uk/ Phone: 028 8224 7831
15th May 2011- 8 pm, Armagh St Patrick's Cathedral http://www.stpatricks-cathedral.org/ Phone: 028 37527359
17th May 2011 – 8 pm, Listowel St. Johns Theatre and Arts Centre http://www.stjohnstheatrelistowel.com/ Tel: 068 22566
18th May 2011 - 8 pm, Macroom The Briery Gap Cultural Centre http://www.brierygap.com/ Phone: 026 41793
19th May2011 – 8 pm, Ballina Arts Centre http://www.ballinaartscentre.com/ Phone: +353 96 73593
20th May 2011 – 8 pm, Londonderry Waterside Theatre http://www.watersidetheatre.com/ Phone: 02871 31 4000
21st May 2011 – 8 pm, Galway Town Hall Theatre http://www.tht.ie/ Phone: 091 569777
22nd – 8 pm, Limerick Belltable http://www.belltable.ie/ Phone: 061 319 866

Tickets in all cases are €18 Adults and €15 seniors, unwaged, students and children. Tickets for the DUBLIN concert can be booked here on Ticketmaster. In all other cases tickets can be obtained from the venue.

The Chamber Philharmonic Europe is a private orchestra initiative founded 2006 in Cologne/Germany, which engages musicians to create a demanding artistic ensemble. It employs over 60 talented professional musicians from 18 nations, a compilation of years of experience on international stages. Since its inception, the Chamber Philharmonic Europe has been built upon a broad range of professional experience. Our musicians have performed in many reputed concert halls and opera houses, including:

Théatre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris
De Munt Opera, Brussels
Koninklijk Theater Carré,
Amsterdam Grand Théatre de la Ville,
Luxemburg Konzerthaus, Berlin

Voting participation in the general election

We’re fully engaged now in the runup to the general election. While the economy and the way it has been handled in recent years dominates matters of debate between the various contenders, there are many other issues being aired. There is a feeling that most voters have already made up their minds on how they will cast their preferences.

Whatever the issues in this election, there is one matter that does not seem to get the attention it perhaps deserves. This is the fact that, for the last thirty years in Ireland, there has been a gradual but significant fall in the number of people who are eligible to vote actually going to the polls in general elections. As the graph above, which is built on data supplied by the Central Statistics Office, shows, while there was a pick up in voter participation between the 2002 election and the one in 2007, nevertheless almost one third of those who were entitled to vote on the later occasion, did not do so.

Given the concern in other parts of the world for democracy and all that goes with it, it is curious that so many Irish citizens do not take a sufficient interest to bother making their way to a polling booth to take part in the process.

Overcharging at AIB: Letters page, Irish Times

My contribution to today's letters page of the Irish Times is about the fine imposed recently by the Financial Regulator on AIB Bank for overcharging:

Madam, – Your headline “Allied Irish Banks fined record €2 million for overcharging customers” (Finance, December 22nd) has to qualify, at least, as joke of the week. The €2 million must be paid from funding that has been made available to the bank by Irish taxpayers. The very same people who were overcharged, joined by those who had nothing at all to do with this particular institution. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,

Give a dog a bad name

Oh dear. I picked up this picture from Marketwatch.com, an online subsidiary of the Wall Street Journal.


The "way out" plate has been on the railings at Bank of Ireland College Green probably since before I was born, but who supplied the exit sign, which would have been a superfluity even in the best of times? Was it put there by the photographer, for extra effect, or did some helpful soul in BoI decide to gild the lily?

AIB bonuses: Irish Times letters page

The Irish Times has been good enough to publish a letter of mine today on the subject of the AIB Bank bonus payment controversy and Minister Brian Lenihan's intervention, as representative of the majority shareholder in AIB, the Irish state, where he caused the payment of any further bonuses to be cancelled.

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The letter is here. The following is the text:

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Madam, – Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan claims that a supervening event is the justification for cancelling the AIB bonuses, which were subject to contract. Surely this is exactly the argument the bank traders would use to have the payments made.
They were not responsible for the recession and, even if the were, it is hardly likely that such a circumstance was the subject of a clause in the contract.
How is it possible, given our property laws, to create legislation that will govern contracts in retrospect? Is it now open to commercial property tenants to claim the supervening event of the recession as a defence when their landlords take them to court to recover unpaid rents? Where will it stop? Is contract law to be thrown out the window?
A question for the bank: if these payments are contractual and definably related to production, why are they called bonuses at all? Does the logic of the Minister’s action mean that piece workers in our few remaining manufacturing facilities are now susceptible to a similar action? Do certain salespeople run the risk of being confined to their meagre basic pay, which in some cases is actually nonexistent? – Yours, etc,

SEAMUS McKENNA,

The market bully

Here's something interesting I came across on the Internet. An analyst at Societe Generale is quoted as saying:

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"The market has moved on from Greece, is beating up Ireland and is looking closely at Portugal now," says Suki Mann at Societe Generale. But "Spain is delivering on reducing the size of its deficit and has a far more diverse economy than the others, supported by a significantly larger tax base. There's no doubt refinancing could become an issue for the sovereign... but there are perhaps easier targets the market bully could attack."

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Hmmm.... Is it possible to place a ban on short selling Government Bonds, in the same way as a ban was placed on short selling bank shares at the start of the current melt-down?