Sir, – As a member of the Labour Party I would take issue with those who keep on about broken election promises. The party manifesto was set for a Labour-led government. The citizens decided otherwise, so the party had to trim its sails. One-third Labour would not be allowed to dictate to two-thirds Fine Gael. Of course the party could have refused to enter government, as some members suggested, but that would have left the party open to condemnation of political cowardice.
With the largest contingent of elected TDs in its history, when the scale of the problem was revealed, Labour didn’t have the bottle.
I would agree with those who criticise the mantra “there is no alternative”.
There is an alternative and the party needs to be more in your face with people and spell it out in words of one syllable. At present the Government is borrowing €1 billion per month to help pay their wages, public sector wages, State benefits of which I am a beneficiary, health education, etc. The alternative would be not to borrow and cut State spending by an equivalent amount.
Another criticism being bandied about is that the poor and afflicted are being hardest hit by “the cuts”, which is absolute nonsense. Those least affected by the recession are people living in council accommodation on social benefits, which have hardly been touched.
The economic penny hasn’t yet dropped for many of our citizens, and the Government must bear the blame for that.
A recent example was the ignorant yobbery displayed by the teaching profession. Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn missed a golden opportunity to lay it down on the line. Their fat wages plus all add-ons, allowances for this and that are being paid, to a large extent, with borrowed money. – Yours, etc,
JAMES MORAN,
Knockanure,
Bunclody,
Co Wexford.