Madam, – What does it take before the bumbling Brians get it? It is not their harsh or unpopular decisions that have caused the poor showing for Fianna Fáil in the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, but their inability to show competence and confidence – and also their failure to be harsh and unpopular with the banking elite and their fellow travellers who caused this mess.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen is not acting in the “public interest” by holding on to power. The contrary is the case. Both he and his finance minister are destroying the reputation of the Government and Ireland at home and abroad.
This is not the time for macho posturing. It is the time to go. If the Brians had a scintilla of “patriotism” they would, in the interest of the country, resign their respective positions and let the people decide who is best suited to govern the country in the current crisis. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – May I make two points? Firstly, Fianna Fáil emerged as the largest party after the last general election results were in and subsequently formed a Government with the Green Party and the PDs. Surely the Opposition understands that it is not in the national interest to ask the Government to call a general election just because of current sentiment, as reflected in opinion polls.
The Government received its mandate at the last election. It doesn’t need a new mandate just because the Opposition ratings have now improved as the Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government continues to make the difficult but necessary decisions. Surely the Opposition parties quietly believe that if they were in Government they would be in the same situation. Sometimes making the right decisions for the country does not bring you popularity, which brings me to my second point.
The Tallaght strategy of the late 1980s may not have won Fine Gael much credit from the electorate or a return to power in subsequent years, but it was the right approach in the national interest and it worked. It is absurd to think that the current generation of Opposition leaders would not support the Government in the national interest, during possibly our biggest challenge since independence, because some people feel they didn’t get enough mileage out of doing the right thing in the national interest the last time round.
Is the Opposition parties’ yearning for power now their primary focus, rather than doing everything in their capacity to be constructive as the Government continues to deal with the great economic challenges that now confront us? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Sometimes I wonder what passes through the minds of civil and public servants as they read newspapers, or watch the news on television and see and hear the daily litany of job losses (and sometimes house losses) suffered by those employed in the private sector.
I would take a quiet bet that if the sacked employees of Dell, Waterford Glass, or SR Technics were contacted and offered their jobs back, and guaranteed permanency for the rest of their working lives, with a de luxe, bullet-proof pension after that on condition that they took a 10 to 12 per cent cut in salary, their answer would be a resounding “Yes, please”.
And no, the present economic national disaster is not the fault of the Dell or Waterford Glass employees either.
It now appears that the civil and public servants, led by their unions, are thinking of making war on the rest of us in order to defend their privileges. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am appalled and disgusted at the recent revelations regarding the carry-on by various chief executives, executives and directors of Anglo Irish Bank, First National and Irish Life Permanent.
ILP have said they did no wrong. In my view, they colluded in a multi-billion fraud. The Nuremberg defence (“I was only following orders”) is most likely to be trotted out in these cases. We all know that this is a discredited line.
Names will have to be named, and the culprits prosecuted, and shamed, and sued by the shareholders.
I also submit, as a member of the Institute of Bankers, that they should be ejected from that body, whose motto is “Meum dictum pactum” (“My word is my bond”).
If the members of the sports and social clubs of which they are undoubtedly members have any self-respect they will ask for their resignations. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I’ve read an amount of vacuous twaddle from certain Irish Times columnists over the years but John Waters’s latest contribution, “Cowen fills our need for a strong father figure” (Opinion, February 13th), is guff of Oscar-winning proportions.
Mr Waters has a remarkable talent to view the smaller, insignificant picture while the bigger one is staring him starkly in the face. Here we are in the middle of the worst global economic crisis for 70 years, with a Government “led” by Cowen, not just in “turbulent waters” but so woefully out of their depth that they’re in danger of sinking the country, yet Mr Waters still has the luxury of navel gazing and musing upon a risible speech which he declares to have been “one of the most carefully crafted political speeches of recent times” and which he admits to finding “so fundamental, and so unmentionable, that it has taken me a week to understand exactly what”.
Well lucky him that he has a week to ponder such banal trivialities, while the rest of the population back on earth line up to swell the lengthening dole queues and wonder about other “fundamentals” such as how to pay the bills and whether or not they’ll still have a job next week. Never mind, Mr Waters urges us to, believe it or not, “steady yourself and study it line by line” and admire its “de Niroesque” qualities. He goes on to provide a facile analysis of the personalities of past taoisigh, ludicrously comparing the inept Cowen with a statesman like Lemass (something Cowen has had the audacity to do himself) before, mercifully, concluding by telling us Cowen has found his “Daddy mojo” whatever the hell that might be, and that “our father has come home”!
Maybe I’m missing something and Mr Waters is actually being tongue-in-cheek and ironic but, tragically, something tells me this isn’t the case. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The economy is in dire straits, and we are all expected to make sacrifices.
The banking crisis is a major threat to our economic stability and survival, and the IMF may have to be called in yet. The Anglo Irish Bank crisis smells of political cronyism and corruption at the taxpayers’ expense.
Many people have contributed to this situation, including Brian Cowen when he was Minister for Finance, and Patrick Neary, the financial regulator.
I think that it is disgusting and disgraceful that Mr Neary has got a severance payment of nearly €630,000 and a pension of €142,670 a year. This sends completely the wrong message to the public in these very difficult times, when people are asked to tighten their belts and take pay and salary cuts. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As a final-year undergraduate, I have long realised that the events of the past year greatly narrowed my options for the future. In spite of this, I strove to maintain an optimistic outlook. However, events in the past week have destroyed what little basis there was for optimism.
The Government’s failures have created an overwhelming sense of disappointment and disillusion among my peer group. Young people who were once interested in their country and its politics no longer have any sense of loyalty or attachment to Ireland.
In addition to the financial chaos and job losses, the Government must therefore add to its list of failures the great disservice it has done to the country by extinguishing the hopes of my generation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – An intriguing rumour is circulating in pubs in our area, to the effect that the Jesuit Fathers at Milltown Park are planning a special Lenten retreat for top bankers, together with their boards and auditors. The theme of the retreat, it is said, will be limited to non-controversial moral topics to be found in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
Some punters, claiming to be in the know, predict that the retreat talks will centre on what were once known as the Seventh and Eighth Commandments (part of a primitive but enduring Christian code to help realists distinguish right from wrong).
Confessions will be heard after each session. It is likely, however, that penitents will be treated leniently, in accordance with the Jesuit pastoral tradition. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – There are two glaringly obvious things that the Irish Government must now do:
1. Announce it is to wind down Anglo Irish Bank. The organisation is clearly dysfunctional and has no future as a credible financial institution. Any money spent on preserving it is wasted. Redundancies and pay cuts must be announced immediately as part of a wind-down plan.
2. Appoint a new financial regulator from outside the country. Anyone appointed from within Ireland will almost certainly know, have worked with, lunched with, golfed with, or be in some way connected with many of the major players implicated in the current crisis.
Obviously there is very much more to be done, but by taking the above actions urgently the Government would be displaying to the international community its commitment to resolving the situation, rather than shoring up delinquent institutions while it is “looking at various options”. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – Reading Wolfe Tone's letters from Paris (1796) I could not help relating them to our present bankers and friends. Criticising the French Government on his own lack of finance he quotes from Juvenal's satires: Crescit amor nummi, quantum ipsa pecunnia crescit ("The love of money increases as wealth increases").
Poor Wolfe Tone: if he only knew, nothing has changed. – Is mise,
Madam, – Periodically there is a debate about whether or not the Angelus should continue to be played on RTÉ. I suggest it be replaced by the section of the Brian Goggin interview where he talks about the drastic pay cut which will reduce his declared package to under €2 million.
The interview says more about Ireland today than the Angelus does and it would serve to remind us every day of the appalling arrogance of such. people. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Of course we’re a banana republic. Didn’t we fritter it all away? – Yours etc,