Switch your way around the interest rate hikes
AS if we didn’t have enough on our plates, it now looks as if interest rates are going up.
The European Central Bank finally admitted this week that a series of hikes are on the way as inflation spikes.
But mortgage holders are not taking this lying down. They are switching and fixing their mortgages, which will not only spare them from rate increases but also (usually) provide a handy bonus worth thousands.
A 28% increase in mortgage switching was revealed this week, mostly on fixed rates, Martina Hennessy of Doddl.ie tells us.
‘Terms of seven- and 10-year fixed are proving more popular as they have started to be priced more competitively and are offered more widely. There are fixed mortgage terms available up to 30 years,’ she said.
MAKE RUSSIA PAY?
WHO’S going to foot the trillioneuro bill to rebuild Ukraine and another €50bn or so to house millions of Ukrainian refugees across Europe?
Both opposition and Government agree on the answer – make Russia pay. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said this week that €1.2bn in Russian assets frozen by Ireland alone should be tapped to meet our bills if a sound legal footing can be found.
There are also increasing calls to use the $350bn in Russian foreign reserves frozen by
Western banks to (partly) rebuild and compensate Ukraine.
It would be poetic justice to use this money to make Putin pay for shells he fires into Kharkiv or Kyiv – as Poland wants. However, such a move will escalate EU/Russian conflict.
Putin has kept quiet so far about the seizure of half of Russia’s wealth that he left lying
around in Western banks simply because it was such an astonishing and embarrassing blunder. But he is not going to let such a vast sum go easily.
This week, the Russian ambassador to Ireland blamed the foreign reserves issue for Russia cutting off Europe’s gas supplies in a little-noted reference during an RTÉ radio interview.
‘We have been put into the situation where now gold and currency reserves have been essentially stolen,’ he said.
There’s a compelling moral and financial argument to use this money to pay for the horrifying damage done by Russia. But Russia says it has been robbed and will stop at nothing to get it back. Wars have started over less. Gulp!
EVS POWER UP
ELECTRIC cars (EVs) will now get you between major towns and cities in Ireland, you’ll be glad to hear as petrol prices sky-rocket. Ireland’s first widely-available EV, the Nissan Leaf, would barely get from Dublin to Athlone on a single charge when it arrived around a decade ago.
Now the average EV can travel 418km, or the length of Ireland – well, almost. Cork to Donegal town would not be a problem: you’d have 16km to spare, in fact, going by the claimed range. But it’s just six kilometres short of spanning the Belfast to Cork diagonal route.
The study of cars sold in the UK and Ireland was carried out by Britain’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.