Madam, – You are courageous to seek the resignation of politicians in the affair of the e-voting fiasco (Editorial, April 24th). I am sure letters and speeches are being already written accusing you of a “witch-hunt”. It will be said you are “moralising”, and “appeasing the mob”.
Apparently, to seek democratic accountability in the Ireland of 2009 is to be guilty of all these things.
Blowing €55 million of taxpayers’ money on a vanity project is just like leading the country into penury and near-bankruptcy. It could happen to anyone; no one is to blame. The only political mistake is to suggest that Ministers be competent in the running of their departments, as former minister of state, John McGuinness found out.
If our leaders had the gumption, they would be conducting a searching examination of the utter failure of our democratic system to prudently manage the wealth of the “boom” years. It is clear that the nexus of developers, bankers and politicians that grew from the Haughey era, and was given renewed vigour by Bertie Ahern, is largely to blame.
It seems the only way we might get an honest political accounting for the mistakes of those years is through a general election. – Yours, etc.
TOBY JOYCE,
Balreask Manor,
Navan,
Co Meath.