Madam, – Prof Ray Kinsella (“Saving economy requires changed political mindset”, Opinion, October 6th) argues that handing over economic control to the IMF would be “a bleak commentary on the capacity of an ancient and cultured people to manage its affairs”.
Given that our current options for taoiseach are Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny, and Eamon Gilmore, perhaps it is time to face the hard truth – we have given the whole self-government thing a go and we can’t do it. This may be a betrayal of Éamon de Valera’s vision, but then Dev also imagined an Ireland where everyone spoke Gaeilge while cailíní danced at the crossroads, so he was a man given to unrealistic ambitions.
Once we accept that we cannot govern ourselves responsibly, we can accept the only viable option left to us: we can auction off the entire country to the highest bidder. As a strategically situated island off the coast of Europe, we may be able to play off superpower interests and raise the price for the whole country to about €4 trillion, which would mean €1,000,000 for every person in the country to move to a much better-run country and start a new life. Those with a particular fondness for the Ould Sod could probably stay on as cleaners or tour guides, giving vibrant accounts of the glories of Irish civilisation to sympathetic tourists.
This may seem a bit drastic, but in the absence of any meaningful desire among the Irish people to change our current political structure so as to find leaders who can actually do the job of running the country, I see no alternative that we could hope to carry out. A public auction of everything we own in order to emigrate is at least well within the Irish experience. – Yours, etc,