Sir, – So, figures released by the Central Statistics Office (Home News, June 28th) show the Irish economy has fallen back into official recession, with the second largest quarterly economic contraction on record occurring in the January-March period. Shock, or should it be mock, horror!
Nobody should be the least surprised at this “revelation” yet, incredibly it gets front-page headlines. Considering that the elements of the so-called troika (who, as recent reports showed, can’t even agree among themselves) have steadfastly continued on their kamikaze austerity experiment and that our puppet Government announced the introduction of its property tax grab during that period, it’s logical that a cash-strapped public would rein in their spending even further.
So, the economy stagnates and the problem self-perpetuates as every independent, impartial economic commentator has pointed out since about 2008 to deaf ears. The past five years have been like living through some terminally depressing “groundhog day” and with our geniuses set to roll out water charges (nothing I can do m’lud, it’s the EU, you see) in about 18 months, and God alone knows whatever other levy occurs to their febrile minds in between, we can expect only further contractions of this nature. – Yours, etc,
JD MANGAN,
Stillorgan Road,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.