Madam, - In the absence of suggestions from the chief executives of the country's leading banks as to how they might repay the generosity of the Government in saving them from extinction, may I propose the following?
The said banks should be obliged to hand over all the landmark buildings in their possession, starting with the old parliament building in College Green, Dublin, and including every other equivalent building in every town and city around the country. Here in Galway I would include on that list the AIB headquarters in Lynch's Castle and the BoI Hibernian House building on Eyre Square. All these fine buildings would become part of the nation's architectural heritage, to be used appropriately (ie, not as banks).
In Dublin the occupants of Leinster House could be relocated to the now vacant premises on College Green, which would then become what it was designed to be: the House of Parliament. Leinster House, in turn, could be given to the National Library and the National Museum, and that entire complex of buildings linked up to the National Gallery to form one all-embracing centrepiece of cultural heritage - a new Temple Bar, but with the emphasis this time on the "temple", not on the "bar". The banks will wail, of course; but so what?
The TDs and Senators, for their part, will whinge that they lack adequate office accommodation in their new location. Simple: turf out the mandarins of the Central Bank (whose shocking dereliction of duty as financial "regulators" did much to land us in our present predicament) and put the politicians into that monstrosity in their stead. It has been done before: when France went through a similar financial crisis in the 1980s President Mitterrand evicted the finance department from the west wing of the Louvre and gave that glorious building back to the people.
There is an elegant symmetry about all of this, I think you will agree. With the banks now offering their services from modest high-street outlets, their former palaces back in the hands of the nation, and our parliamentarians back where they were 200 years ago, this modest proposal might encourage modest behaviour in everyone concerned. - Yours, etc,
DÁIBHÍ Ó CRÓINÍN,
Craughwell,
Co Galway.
Madam, - Those who spend sleepless nights worrying about plummeting shares and insecure deposits would do well to reflect on the salutary tale of the sixth-century hermit Mochua.
His only worldly goods were a cock whose crowing woke him for matins; a mouse which ensured he wouldn't sleep beyond the permitted five hours by nibbling his ear; and a fly, whose task it was to mark the line in the psalm-book where Mochua had momentarily stopped.
Alas, all three creatures died within a short time of one another, and the hermit was devastated. He looked for solace to Columcille in Iona, but he got little comfort there. "My brother," the great saint rebuked Mochua, "you should not be surprised that your flock should have died, for misfortune ever waits upon wealth." - Yours, etc,
JOHN A.MURPHY,
Rosebank,
Douglas Road,
Cork.
Madam, - Tony Allwright's article of October 8th succinctly expresses the simplistic thinking which informs the most influential element of the political consensus in this country. And it is precisely this thinking which may lead us from crisis now to, possibly, disaster later.
Two of the points he makes are directly refutable by reference to recent events. For instance, he argues that in a socialist system "since central planners do not themselves usually suffer directly the effects of poor decisions (as the hoi polloi do), there is little incentive to improve on them". Substitute "bankers" for "central planners" and the point makes itself.
Furthermore, he states that those on the political right "favour minimal state interference in people's pursuit of wealth and contentment". This argument, however, is impossible to reconcile with the evident reality that the state underwrites all economic activity, and that without it meaningful economic life would be impossible. There can be no wealth or contentment without an activist and efficient state.
Our banking crisis, and the necessity of state action to, hopefully, forestall disaster, demonstrates this in the starkest possible terms. - Yours, etc,
CIARAN McKENNA,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.