New Publication from Afri
PRESS RELEASE, 31 December 2010
A campaigning group is calling for the cancellation of Irish bank debt on the grounds that it is unjust and unsustainable, and for a renegotiation of the EU-IMF ‘bail out’. The call will be made at a press conference (taking place at 12 noon in the Central Hotel, Dublin, on Friday 31st January) to launch an Afri Report entitled ‘The IMF and Ireland: What We Can Learn from the Global South’.
Action from Ireland (Afri) claims the loans from the EU and the IMF will be used to repay the bondholders (mainly European financial institutions) who lent to those Irish banks that have now crashed and burned, and whose liabilities the Irish state has recklessly guaranteed. Afri chairperson Andy Storey said that “these debts were not incurred to run Irish public services but by private speculators chasing a quick buck – why should ordinary Irish citizens now pick up that tab?”
He accused the Irish government of acting as debt collectors for foreign banks. Afri, he said, has extensive experience of the negative impact of the IMF, especially in Developing Countries, and, based on this experience, is well placed to warn of the danger of accepting diktats from such international institutions. Continue reading “What Ireland can learn from the Global South”