Gene Kerrigan: Poor always pay in tale of two Irelands - Gene Kerrigan, Columnists - Independent.ie: It was in this newspaper's business section last week. Tom Lyons and Daniel McConnell had a story about how Phil's loans from Irish Nationwide were personally approved by Michael "Mickey Fingers" Fingleton, head honcho at Nationwide and major player in setting the tone of Celtic Tiger Ireland.
Seems that Phil bought "a pied-a-terre house in Dublin 4 and a luxurious penthouse in Portugal". The story went on to explain the details of the "soft loans", but I had to take a break and look up pied-a-terre in Wikipedia. A town house, it means, separate from your main residence. Isn't that nice? Good man, Phil.
Phil got a normal mortgage of €330,000 to buy his family home in Kilkenny. Then, another €450,000 to buy the little place in Haddington Square, Dublin 4. That was, it seems, on a 10-year "interest only" mortgage. As was the next €430,000 borrowed from Mickey Fingers, to buy a luxury apartment in Portugal.
So, at the height of the bubble, as a very wealthy doctor, James Reilly built up a significant property portfolio. And, Phil Hogan ended up with property investments worth €1,210,000, personally approved by Mickey Fingers, who had the run of Nationwide. And Mickey's reign might be jaw-dropping, but it was all sanctioned by the wonderful Nationwide board.
What matters most when such stories emerge is what they tell us about the two Irelands. And the revelations of the finances of James and Phil gave us some details of that other smaller, richer, luckier Ireland, where most of us don't live. We learned, for instance, about "interest only" loans, and "soft" loans and "non-recourse" loans.?
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