Sir, – As someone who was born not too long after the end of the second World War, the development of the EU has easily been the most significant event to have happened in this writer’s lifetime. It has been welcomed on a large number of levels. Early years in the stultifying atmosphere of autocratic, priest-ridden Ireland gave EU anti-discrimination and other, similar, liberal directives the quality of large doses of refreshing, invigorating fresh air. Fiscal and monetary austerity packages have been tolerated and even welcomed as moves to impose required discipline on the irresponsible and ultimately unsustainable economic models that prevailed prior to the great financial crisis.
But now, at last, Homer has well and truly nodded. Gestures of approval while watching Mario Draghi pronouncing that the “Sovereign signature remains a pillar of stability” when explaining that it was impossible to renege on guarantees that had been given to bank bondholders by the Irish government, no matter how unfortunate they have turned out to be in hindsight, have now turned into gasps of dismay at the idea that a collective punishment is to be visited on ordinary Cypriots who believed that their assets were safe in an institution that formed part of the euro zone banking system.
This is indeed a retrograde step. It is the opening of a door that will never be capable of being closed. It is an invitation for all, whether native Europeans or those who are here as our guests, to believe that no bank account, anywhere in the euro zone, is now safe from the depredations of those in authority who would invade their private, up-to-now sacrosanct assets. Contagion is too weak a word to describe the prospects that have now reared their ugly heads.
We have not heard the end of this. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,
Farrenboley Park,
Windy Arbour, Dublin 14.
Sir, – The financial war has taken a new twist. Germany wants to annex the personal bank accounts of citizens in Cyprus. In a similar manner, the Irish Government has passed legislation that forces its citizens to pay new stealth taxes and in addition has placed hard-pushed Irish citizens into a concentration camp of poverty (if they delay in paying) at the behest of the Germans. Will Germany collapse for the third time in 100 years? Should we Irishmen and Irishwomen take to the streets? – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McCULLAGH,
Mountpleasant,
Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
A chara, – In a speech in the northern German city of Demmin recently, chancellor Angela Merkel was adamant that it was “not right that global companies have huge sales here [in Germany], in all of Europe, in the United States and elsewhere and then only pay taxes in a tiny tax haven.
“That is why,” she said, “we are going to fight to finally put an end to tax havens at the G8 meeting this year in Great Britain.”
Previously, in January, Merkel had named Ireland, Malta and Cyprus as low-corporate tax havens and stated she didn’t “wish to make a statement now that my fellow EU leaders will be upset about, but step by step we will need to establish margins and then each country will have to choose how it fits in those margins.”
It would appear that the government in Cyprus is discovering that the German chancellor is resolutely determined to deal with this issue. A cause for concern, surely, for the other nations considered to be facilitating tax-avoidance by global companies in the eyes of Angela Merkel?– Is mise,
DARA MacGABHANN,
Bóthar Weston,
Baile An Teampaill,
Baile Átha Cliath 14.
Sir, – Riddle me this. On the one hand we are told that the protection of private property is so strong in our Constitution that the question of touching the pensions enjoyed by retired politicians and others cannot even be considered.
On the other hand there is, this may be scaremongering, the opinion that the Cyprus situation breaks the link between private property and security to the extent that the Irish Government might now raid our savings. Which is it? If our savings are protected by the Constitution then surely the Government should say so immediately. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN CASSERLY,
Abbeybridge,
Waterfall,
Near Cork.
Sir, – It seems raiding bank accounts in Cyprus is raising more hackles than raiding homes in Ireland. Surely taxing deposit accounts, especially those with over €100,000 in them, has to be fairer than taxing heavily mortgaged homes often in negative equity? Surely a few percentage points off real disposable wealth is fair while taxing the very shelter impoverished people live in is nothing short of reprehensible. Indeed it is obscene, while the billions in genuine wealth here in Ireland remains untouched. Shame on the Government. Shame especially on those in the Labour Party. – Yours, etc,
LIAM O’MAHONY,
Barrow Lane,
Graiguenamanagh,
Co Kilkenny.