Inexplicable transactions

Inexplicable transactions

Musings
Sonia Kelly

ONE of the fiscal transactions I find so mysterious is the casual way the Government can borrow millions from an institution called the ‘World Bank’. Where is this entity? Who runs it and where does it get its money? Who is eligible for these loans – can any old country borrow vast amounts and what about paying it back? We never hear anything about repayments, so, on the face of it, there’s no problem if the budget doesn’t balance.
Is this why such a ‘flaithiúil’ attitude is adopted towards funding projects in the Third World – digging wells in Africa, for instance, when half our own citizens have no proper drinking water? And why so much money is flagrantly wasted on unnecessary things, like the electronic voting equipment – not to mention the outrageous salaries enjoyed by some in State employment?
The housing situation poses more baffling questions. For a start, who was supposed to live in the hundreds of apartments and houses that have sprung up like mushrooms in all parts of the country? How can it be so surprising that there are now no buyers for a great many of them? And some of those which were sold were evidently bought by people who couldn‘t afford them – people who, unlike the Government, had to repay the relevant loan. So, while the building boom created a lot of jobs and gave the impression of bustling industry, was it a phoney one? You see, it’s so baffling how banks seem to dish out money indiscriminately when it comes to huge sums, whereas people with modest requirements (me, for instance) were regarded as criminals if they mentioned a loan.
According to statistics, the Irish are among the most enthusiastic borrowers in Europe – and this mainly via credit cards, so in a way, the banks are now financing comparatively minor transactions, and how it will end is anyone’s guess. As shoppers, our race is apparently second to none, as evidenced by the thousands who fly to New York to dispose of their money in American shopping malls (pronounced ‘mawls’ over there).
This is very hard to understand, but then, I speak as one who doesn’t have a credit card and who can’t even be bothered to go as far as Castlebar on the off-chance of finding something that isn’t available nearer to home – even though Castlebar is less dangerous than America, where rampages by suicide gunmen are becoming more and more frequent and now shoppers are being specifically targeted.
But there, spending money outside the State seems the fashionable thing to do, especially if you have a lot of it, in which case, property in some foreign clime has become irresistible. Is it not odd that, whereas once the Irish emigrated because they couldn’t afford to stay at home, now they can afford to stay, but use their money to emigrate?
More strange valuations concern court cases and other State-run operations. The Kieren Fallon case, for instance, which was said to cost £1,000,000 due to the prolonged police investigation. But weren’t the police being paid already – weren’t they just doing what their job entailed? The search that took place for the missing canoeist, John Darwin, was also said to cost an obscene amount of money and, while it’s true that lifeboats and choppers must have used up some fuel, weren’t the crews simply doing what they were paid to do anyhow?
So, I don’t know if you have to be innumerate, as I am, to wonder about a good many fiscal transactions.