Confidence

It is amazing what confidence can do for a person in any walk of life. It can lead them to incredible achievements and allow them surpass their wildest ambitions. It is also infectious and can lift the spirit of those who are around them.

Translate that confidence into an economy and you have what Ireland has become since the so called “Celtic Tiger” effect commenced in the early nineties. Economists differ as when and why it started. Some say that the devaluation of the Irish pound in 1992 was the kick start; others have radical and far fetched opinions that it was the success of the Irish soccer team in the 1990 and 1994 World Cups that gave Ireland Inc. the confidence to step forward and perform on the world stage.

Whatever the reason, and it is surely a myriad of factors, the Irish economy took off and when it did start to have an effect confidence soared. All the positives kicked in to bring the country onto an economic plateau that heretofore was considered unattainable.

Inflation lowered, interest rates dropped, banks started lending money again and allowed the entrepreneurial flair of the sixties “baby boomer” kids to flourish. Confidence created the property boom and the dot com mania that Ireland was so well placed to take advantage of with an educated workforce and the attraction of Ireland to American multinationals anxious to get a foothold in Europe. Add in the enlightened tax policies of Charlie McCreevy who with the bold stroke of halving the dreaded Capital Gains Tax (CGT) to 20% unleashed a wave of equity release from property owners and you had all the ingredients of the perfect economic storm.

And so it proved to be and even when the dot com crash of 2000 occurred, Ireland just picked itself up, dusted down and carried on. Fuelled by immigration, the property market roared forward and the penal 9% stamp duty on property filled the Government coffers to such an extent that budget surpluses became the norm in successive budgets with estimates always being exceeded. We became the envy of the world. We were in the economic equivalent of what is known in sport as “the zone”. Confidence propelled us up and up into the stratosphere and we could not see the fall ever coming.

This is October 2007. Mark the calendar! For this is the month that the dream starts to die. Confidence is an uneasy mistress, and when love turns to hate, the effect is catastrophic.

This week confidence walked out. Truth is, she was not faithful for the last year and Ireland, loves struck as it was, refused to acknowledge it.

The revelations this week that a number of high profile lawyers cum property developers were hoodwinking the banks by taking multi mortgages out on the same property has caused panic in legal and financial circles. Nobody knows how many more will surface. Added to the sub-prime lending time bomb that started in America, the complete collapse in Irish house sales, the drop in value of foreign holiday homes funded from ghost equity in Irish residential property and a big budget deficit looming together with the banks closing their umbrellas at the first drop of rain and now you have all the ingredients of that other perfect storm – the very nasty one.

George Lee was right after all. He had to be sometime. Leave now or forever perish!

And the last one to leave will not have to put out the lights. There will be no lights!

The FAI - What does it stand for ?

In the week that is in it we at http://www.lookaroundireland.com decided that it was time to take a look at the organization known as the FAI – the Football Association of Ireland.

On Wednesday last all hope of any mathematical miracle happening to help Ireland reach the finals of the European Championship, Euro 2008, in Austria/Switzerland disappeared when Cyprus drew 1-1 with them on home soil in hallowed Croke Park. This was the Cypriot team that hammered Ireland by a freakish score of 5-2 in Nicosia last November, a result that will probably rank as the worst ever in the history of Irish international soccer. Unless, of course, if you take the last minute draw that was achieved against the football giant that is the San Marino, a collection of part-time players that would get hard to beat your average pub team.

At the time of writing, it appears certain that the two year reign of Steve Staunton is about to be terminated by the FAI - his employers and so called custodians of the Irish soccer game. It is right that Staunton should go because he has neither the ability nor, more importantly, the experience to do the job. The fact that he makes a fool of himself and the rest of us, by his downright hysterical media appearances is only incidental to the matter.

Stan was one of the greatest players to lace a boot for Ireland. He has established a record haul of caps that could only ever be overtaken by a goalkeeper with a slow - ageing metabolism. His loyalty to his country as a player is unquestioned and utterly honorable.

He should be remembered as the player, not the incompetent and inarticulate manager that he was fooled into becoming by that same FAI who will now sack him.

Staunton should never have been appointed as manager. His only sideline experience was a short stint as assistant coach at Walsall. To move from that to managing the country he had just stopped playing for was the sporting equivalent of sending a blind man to the Olympic archery competition. And with Bobby Robson as the guide dog.

The saddest part about all of this is that all the good memories of Staunton as a player for his country are tainted by this two year episode. His football future is bleak. The P45 from the FAI will not bring him far, and a reference from them is about as good as a bucket of water to a drowning man.

Not that Staunton will starve though. Like a lot of his fellow Louth men he is a shrewd businessman who has invested the harvest of his playing years wisely and the only injury to him is wounded pride for which a speedy remedy is a hefty financial settlement with our old friends, the FAI.

So who, or what, is the FAI? Certainly, it is not the Football Association of Ireland.

How about Fat Arsed Imbeciles? No, not evocative enough and an insult to the overweight population of the country.

Try Fools And Idiots. That’s a little more accurate alright.

Of all the sporting organizations, professional and amateur in this country, the FAI has the most chequered history of sheer incompetence, waste, infighting, embezzlement, double dealing and lack of vision that there is. The Ballymagash pub darts team is better organized. There is more distrust and subteferge in the FAI than there is in the Kremlin.

In 1988, Ireland reached the finals of their first major competition, the European Championship finals under the leadership of Jack Charlton. Since then it has been a roller coaster ride. Three Worlds Cup finals were reached and the country was on a high never experienced before. Those who knew nothing about soccer became experts overnight. The monies flowed into the coffers at 80, Merrion Square, the headquarters of Farcical Absolute Imbeciles. It flowed in alright but it certainly did not come back out in the shape that it should have, such as improved facilities for youngsters, a home of their own instead of borrowing Landsdowne Stadium, and various other initiatives that would have harnessed the goodwill of the national team’s success.

Instead the goons at headquarters frittered away the money by lining their own pockets, investing in an administration set-up that would govern a small country and having regular legal battles with each other in the public eye over the most petty of internal power struggles. Their incompetence knew no bounds.

They spent all of their measly reserves, accumulated from 15 years of success, on consultant and planning fees for the pipe dream of building a new stadium in west Dublin. Needless to say, the consultants that devoured this reserve were all connected parties to the members of the Feck-It-All committee. To add insult to injury they even named this enterprise in advance as the Eircom Stadium. We all know who suffered when this particular company elephant was floated on the Stock Exchange. In a way the two organizations (a generous title, I know) complimented each other perfectly in a long list of inadequacies that they had in common.

Next week, the Farcical Association of Ireland will have to find a new manager to look after our national team. Last time this happened we were promised by John Delaney, Head Asshole, that we would have a “world class manager” Look what we got!

But then again, who on earth would want to work for the blazers of Merrion Square?

Being manager of the Irish soccer team is not a good career move, even if you are a down and out wino in Temple Bar.

http://www.lookaroundireland.com/ out of patriotic duty mind you, will nominate our very feisty cleaning lady for the role! What’s the salary again?