New Beginnings: what's their game?

Larry · **Joined:** Jun 28, 2008 **Posts:** 4428

Been trying to get my head around the quantum here...From what I can see, at both AIB and BoI it seems that about 1 in 4 mortgages on their books are BTL:

Quote:

Bank of Ireland has an Irish mortgage book worth €28bn ($37bn), which is split between €21bn residential and €7bn buy-to-let loans.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6070ab36 ... z1thXqjZ6P

Quote:

One in five of its 44,000 Irish buy-to-let mortgages was in arrears or had been restructured to help borrowers at the end of June, compared with one in 12 of the bank’s 126,000 home loans.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/fro ... 84637.html

Almost exactly 1/4 in each instance. So one must suppose that INBS, EBS and PTSB were similar, and perhaps Anglo too if they did any retail BTL'ing.

It appears total Irish mortgage lending is between €115b and €140b depending on the source:

Quote:

total Irish mortgage debts (including landlords’ property loans) of about €140 billion (Feb. 2012)

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/fin ... 18937.html

Quote:

As of June this year (2011), Ireland has 777,000 residential mortgages worth €115bn.

http://www.ronanlyons.com/2011/08/30/to ... t-arrears/

So if we use the 1/4 figure, that would make the book value of BTL in the banks between €28b and €35b.

Open Window · **Joined:** Jan 1, 1970 **Posts:** 18108

JohnnyTheFox wrote:

alejandro wrote:

Debt forgiveness will happen one way or another simply because the old adage of blood from a stone will apply in many cases. Are new beginings suggesting you should be allowed keep your assets or are they saying if you do default that you shouldnt be made bankrupt etc. i.e. they accept you lose the asset but you shouldnt be pursued for 12 years for the shortfall? Gut feeling would be that this is a group of concerned proffessionals who met on the SCD dinner party circuit and realised they are all fcuked and needed to do something about it i.e. change the rules via a lobby group. I cant see any ideological basis for their stance.

Originally it was "How dare the bank presume to discuss our credit card spending or whether we should be paying private school fees ahead of mortgages". The aim was clearly blanket forgiveness with no surrender of assets. The latest position is encouraging people to hand back the keys and force the bank to the table so they seem to have lowered their sights somewhat.

A fatal strategy for the well being of all as this only promotes the population to further inhabit and identify with the roll of "victim" Giving over their power to New Beginnings whose agenda is clearly unclear.

I think people are correct to be weary of self appointed "samartains".

Thing Fish · **Posted:** Wed May 02, 2012 11:42 am

as I said here before, beware of people who think that their charity work is a form of anti-asshole insurance.

Any guess on refunds policy for fitzwilliam casino?

They cant sell all the gaffs in one go and keep a floor on prices, given the grubby nature of the elites ,so my guess is that the debt resolution will involve some lucky people remaining in their homes who effectively buy their gaff at bargain prices while everyone pays the new bubble price to get on the ladder.

A question for New Beginnings, what is in it for those who didnt buy in the boom, who made sacrifices in other ways to avoid the situation the quick-buck merchants now find themselves in.
For we all partied 8DD

, and we all hold a receipt detailing how much each person owes :shock:

. So New Beginnings , the consensus to say "lets split the bill" hasnt been formed (despite testimonies from govt ministers) , therefore what's in it for us?.

Ixelles · **Joined:** Mar 31, 2009 **Posts:** 473

Prayer? New Beginning? David McWilliams? Noooooo! Pray for new beginning to help Pope's Children

To be fair, McWilliams probably had no clue who is behind New Beginning when he wrote that post. Perhaps a bit naive. (Or perhaps not - they could be that rare breed of selfless lawyer, Legalis altruisticus)

That post from DMcW dates from November 2010, very shortly after NB was founded. I see their website (registered to Life Line Ambulance Services) is up for renewal on October 28th, so let's presume that it was created on that day in 2010.

Laura White is said to have faced legal action in 'late 2010' but couldn't afford a lawyer and earned too much to qualify for legal aid :shock:

.

So at what point to NB come to her rescue? Was she one of their first (non-paying) customers? If so, at what juncture did they abandon their keep-everyone-in-their-homes mantra and shift to 'give-back-the-keys'?

As far as I can see, they were still advocating their initial 'forgiveness' line until the White case went public. Since then, of course, they are claiming this quasi jingle-mail strategy to be an ingenius way of seizing the initiative in the battle against the banks.

Ixelles · **Joined:** Mar 31, 2009 **Posts:** 473

Barney Gumble wrote:

This interesting post from Ixelles made me realise that we don't really have a dedicated thread to discus the motives of the good people at New Beginnings/New Beggings. So what is their game exactly? How do they expect to benefit from their campaign?

We can broadly identify two types of motive: selfless motives, and selfish motives.

1. Selfless motives: they are running their campaign for some ideological, social or religious reason. The first seems unlikely. The second is possible, and the third only occurred to me when I heard Laura White give the big man so much credit (no pun etc.) for her debt relief - does anyone know if the people involved are particularly Christian or something?

2. Selfish motives: Ixelles suggests that perhaps they see an opportunity for a lot of work in the coming years -

Ixelles wrote:

Is the angle for New Beginnings that they will now be inundated with phone calls looking for their free service and they'll get some kind of state-sponsored role to help mortgage-holders in distress, making them a kind of MABS-esque mortgage specialist (paid for by the state). They can't just offer free legal services indefinitely.

This sounds plausible. Another motive I'd like to throw into the pot is that - if I'm not mistaken - legal types cannot practice if they are bankrupted, so if you are in the legal business and you have borrowed heavily for property investments you are at risk of losing not only all of your assets but your job too. And I can't help thinking that there are plenty in the legal profession who did just that. So convincing the public (and more importantly, the government) that debt forgiveness/sharing is the 'only game in town', they can handily sidestep losing their careers and possibly hold onto some assets too. Note that they need not be doing this on their own account - I'm sure they could be acting on behalf of legal colleagues. If I were behind this, I certainly wouldn't risk discrediting the campaign by being exposed as a massive debtor myself.

Just got around to listening to the Newstalk interview with Laura White. Eddie Hobbs, who is involved with NB, refers to 'people like me and New Beginnings and MABS and FLAC' as being on the same side in the argument on mortgage restructuring (taking on the 'high priests of moral hazard', as Eddie puts it).

This just makes me even more inclined to wonder whether they are angling to be a part of the newly beefed-up MABS.

alejandro · **Joined:** Jan 26, 2012 **Posts:** 155

Eddie "fucking" Hobbs? surely his involvement is the kiss of death for any organisation. An opportunistic media prostitute who is so see-through he could be mistaken for a jellyfish. John Maguire and O'Kane on this bandwagon yet?

Eddie got things arseways - badly, he has no credibility, he does have a titanium neck though which seems to be all you really need to proffer opinion in the irish media.

BiffBang · **Joined:** Apr 19, 2012 **Posts:** 33

Ross Maguire is a more common name so it is difficult to tell if this is him
This could be the directorships of an entirely unconnected person. And if so, best wishes to them in their business career.

DOB 7 Nov 1968
Directorships
Generode Limited
Lezolo Limited
Sino English Language Institute
Branden Capital Limited (dissolved)
Maredoma Limited (dissolved)

Barney Gumble · **Joined:** Feb 9, 2010 **Posts:** 4725

BiffBang wrote:

Ross Maguire is a more common name so it is difficult to tell if this is him
This could be the directorships of an entirely unconnected person. And if so, best wishes to them in their business career.

DOB 7 Nov 1968
Directorships
Generode Limited
Lezolo Limited
Sino English Language Institute
Branden Capital Limited (dissolved)
Maredoma Limited (dissolved)

The age seems to fit with the info from Linkedin:

Quote:

Trinity College, Dublin
BA (mod), Economics
1987 – 1991

hairy cake · **Joined:** Dec 2, 2009 **Posts:** 463

Barney Gumble wrote:

Vincent P. Martin, a barrister and former Green Party Councillor, also seems to be heavily involved.

David Hall and Vincent Martin go way back to 'student politics' in Maynooth in the late 1980s or early 1990s - Martin was president and Hall was vice-president (FWIW). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynooth_Students'_Union

Barney Gumble · **Joined:** Feb 9, 2010 **Posts:** 4725

hairy cake wrote:

David Hall and Vincent Martin go way back to 'student politics' in Maynooth in the late 1980s or early 1990s - Martin was president and Hall was vice-president (FWIW). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynooth_Students'_Union

Thanks HC. The picture is beginning to develop.

So David Hall was student union welfare officer in Maynooth in 1990/91. And what did he do in 1992?

Quote:

Founder
Make A Wish Foundation Of Ireland
September 1992 – 2001

I wonder what he was doing for a living before setting up his money-spinning ambulance company in 1999?

metalmike · **Joined:** Mar 17, 2008 **Posts:** 414

This is fascinating stuff folks - I tip my hat to all the contributors here. The fact that I am reading this here rather than in the press just reinforces by belief that investigative journalism is dead in the mainstream press.

Thing Fish · **Posted:** Wed May 02, 2012 6:25 pm

Make A Wish!

Free Gaff

hairy cake · **Joined:** Dec 2, 2009 **Posts:** 463

Quote:

Irish Times, 8 March 2001
The Marie Keating Cancer Awareness ambulances promised by pop star Ronan Keating are being kept under wraps at a secret location in the midlands, pending a launch next month. Kildare man Mr David Hall, who is organising the charity...said the vehicles were being fitted out.

Quote:

IT May 12, 2009
Mr Hall, a state-registered paramedic, has 20 years experience working in ambulances...He was appointed by Minister for Health Mary Harney to the pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) in 2000 and completed the maximum eight-year term.

There's also a Me and My Money from January 2011. Family home 'was the most extravagant purchase...it cost over €1 million...However we may be paying the mortgage for most of that time!'

slasher · **Posted:** Wed May 02, 2012 7:25 pm

hairy cake wrote:

Quote:

Irish Times, 8 March 2001
The Marie Keating Cancer Awareness ambulances promised by pop star Ronan Keating are being kept under wraps at a secret location in the midlands, pending a launch next month. Kildare man Mr David Hall, who is organising the charity...said the vehicles were being fitted out.

Interesting. I remember the Phoenix article on the MKF ambulances, bit of a mess. Worthy charity obviously but Ronan was making big talk in the UK media but on closer investigation the ambulances, like Ronan's promises hadn't been delivered

namascama · **Posted:** Wed May 02, 2012 11:25 pm

Barney Gumble wrote:

I wonder what he was doing for a living before setting up his money-spinning ambulance company in 1999?

A money spinning ambulance company? a casino. How apt for a bunch of ambulance chasers.

New Beginnings: what's their game?

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