Madam, – “We still believe in and are prepared to invest in our own country.” This is the main problem in Noel Smyth’s naive article (Opinion, October 7th). Any rational person with at least a decade’s experience of living in the Irish Republic or more than a cursory understanding of its economic collapse wouldn’t want to invest in it. Let alone give their life savings to an incompetent government.
This is a country hitherto run by a political/banking nexus steeped in a tribal culture of patronage that’s drawn from a national culture itself incompatible with a rationally organised economy. And that’s the problem: the rottenness of the current elite is replicated in every corner of this Republic. It’s how countless people here approach public office and professional life. If this catastrophe is not to be repeated, that’s what needs to be addressed. – Yours, etc,