Ireland and the shadow Banking System - A Talk by Dr. Conor McCabe

galway | miscellaneous | event notice Saturday August 11, 2012 07:10 by John Coyne

This talk till try to throw a light on the dynamics of the IFSC, in particular the shadow banking system of which the IFSC is a hub, and will discuss the nature of Ireland’s ‘middleman’ capitalism which secures its wealth from its role as an intermediary between international finance and the resources of the Irish State.

There are almost 6,000 companies operating out of Ireland’s financial services centre, and they manage over €2 trillion in assets every year. Most of these companies exist in name only, and are used primarily as tax-avoidance vehicles by international finance. With 25,000 jobs (of which 6,000 are with Irish companies), and a corporation tax amount of less than half a billion euro a year, the IFSC consists of just over one per cent of the entire workforce and less than two per cent of total government income. It is at best a regional economy, an enclave on the Liffey - yet it is continually promoted as the saviour of the Irish economy and ‘the only game in town.’ Its protection by the State, however, has less to do with the national economy, and more to do with the nature of money, finance and power in Ireland today.

Dr. Conor McCabe is a historian and author of Sins of the Father: Tracing the Decisions that Shaped the Irish Economy (Dublin, 2011). The economist and academic Dr. Tom O’Connor said in a review for the Irish Examiner that “the breadth and compass of the book is breath-taking. It is head and shoulders above the other books and is a tour de force as a critical economic history of Ireland.” The broadcaster Vincent Browne described Sins of the Father as ‘a remarkable book.’