Madam, – Things are bad, there’s no doubt about it. But a little perspective can go a long way.
As I left an Italian restaurant the other day, full from a scrumptious meal, I saw an elderly man rooting through a bag of rubbish searching for something to call dinner. This is a tragedy and an indignity most Irish Times letter writers, indeed most Irish people, will never have to face. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The arrival of the IMF in Ireland is a very sad day for our country, a definitive verdict of our failure in properly managing our domestic economic affairs, at least since our entry into the euro in 1999. The symbolism of external intervention in managing our economic affairs creates a stigma around our economy, equivalent to enormous reputational damage and a serious blow to national morale.
However, the commencement of IMF involvement is surely a positive development in terms of the real economics of the current situation. For the short term at least, our economic policies will be designed to state-of-the-art economic principles. The IMF experts involved in crafting future strategy will be unbeholden to vested interests, wafer-thin parliamentary majorities and local political considerations, allowing them to fully pursue strategies for the economic betterment of our country.
Additionally, the terms of any loan facility agreed with the EU/IMF will almost certainly involve credit being extended to Ireland at rates of interest considerably lower than those presently being demanded of us by commercial lenders.
Sad as it is, the intervention of external forces may offer the best opportunity yet for turning the much-fabled corner we have so long awaited over the past two years. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Are we witnessing the transformation of the FF party into the IMFF party? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Many years ago I was asked by a major Irish bank to come over from Manchester Business School and do an analysis of all their bad debts over a period of several years. If the bank lost a million it was obvious (to management) what had gone wrong but what information and lessons could be drawn from all the bad debts in the bank over a low fixed amount? My report to senior executives recommended, among other things, that the bank should adopt differential pricing according to the industry that was being lent to and also according to the State and outlook of the economy.
This was dismissed by a senior executive with the comment “This is Ireland – we all know each other”.
Chickens come home to roost – but it can take a long time.
Incidentally, the indisputably highest risk industry according to actual experience was property development – and the reasons for this were explained in the report. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Rory McDaid (November 17th) would have us drop the síneadh fada from Fianna Fáil. While we are at it, how about saving one more fada by changing the official name of the country from Éire (Ireland) to Eire (a burden)? I think our euro zone colleagues would approve. – Yours, etc,
TIM DELANEY,
Gordon Street,
Ringsend, Dublin 4.
A chara, – In light of recent developments a question comes to mind. What if the United Irishmen had succeeded 212 years ago and formed a secular, independent Ireland, the primary impetus of the independence movement being economic independence? Would we have experienced an industrial revolution in the mid-1800s instead of a famine? Would we display pride in our rich national history and seek to preserve historical sites of national importance such as Tara and Aughrim rather than pave them over with scarcely a thought? Would we have elected representatives who act in the national interest instead of their own and those of their close circle of business associates? Would we prosecute these representatives when they are found to be using their position to sacrifice the national interest for their own personal interest, or would we at least vote them out instead of accepting it as “they way it is” and re-electing them?
Perhaps this is a chance for the nation to ponder and change the way we approach these and other things. Of course we cannot go back to 1798, but perhaps in 2010 coming into 2011, as a nation we can use this humiliating experience to change our attitude and prosecute corruption where it exists, take pride in our history, seek to build a country based on innovation, reward hard work, and hold honesty and integrity in high regard rather than look on them as naive qualities.
Ireland has plenty of intelligent, honest, innovative, hard working people. We can come out of the present crisis, but the reins need to be handed to people of the aforementioned types rather than continuing to hand them to the corrupt, nod-and-wink types who have ruined our national integrity. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am old enough to remember very well those terrible years after the end of the second World War when much of continental Europe but especially Germany suffered serious food shortages verging on starvation.
In those years Ireland responded to this evolving tragedy by sending food parcels to Germany. Later the same people generously presented us with a beautiful bronze which graces our St Stephen’s Green, in gratitude.
In our present serious financial difficulties I hope Germany will remember our help, all those years ago and extend a helping hand to us now as it has done so generously and frequently to other areas of Europe in the last 50 years. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Beyond the outpouring of national scorn at the arrival of the IMF, a second major tragedy has come to light in the past few days. The silent ineptitude of all our elected representatives and appointed members of the Senate, the appointed judiciary and even the President, has proven their complete ignorance of the situation’s gravity and is a breach of the psychological contract with the governed.
As trustees of national sovereignty, each carries both an individual and collective responsibility.
In simple terms, the IMF’s involvement in Ireland is similar to an examiner being appointed to a business. Once appointed, previous authority is set aside; day-to-day financial decisions are at the examiner’s behest, and frivolous expenditure is no longer tolerated.
Both the extravagant and unaccountable structure of our elected and appointed members of governing institutions have brought the State to its knees. Yet not a single public representative has tendered his or her resignation. In the present circumstances remaining in office – void of a platform of sovereign authority – is little more than filling in time and taking pay under false pretences, at the expense of the rest of society. We should at least be thankful to the IMF for proving beyond doubt that our recovery is dependent on an immediate and total clear-out of our out-of-touch establishment. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – With hindsight, Charlie McCreevy’s solution to an over-heating economy was not the act of genius he thought it to be. As an expatriate living in the UK, I find myself a seanchaí – mesmerising friends with fantastical tales of a one-time 25 per cent, government-funded, savings rate. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Please persuade your columnists (in particular Fintan O’Toole) to stop using the word “we”, thereby attributing to us views and opinions which many (if not most) of us never had. These journalists use we for the principal purpose of explaining to us that we are or were naive, stupid or more recently scandalously deceived and let down. (Some of us believe that it is the columnists who are in that situation). – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In Galway, starting this week and for the next month, the City of the Tribes is hosting a Bavarian-style Christmas fair market in Eyre Square, where starving Galwegians and manly Connemara types can taste bratwurst, speck, strong bier and many other examples of German fare. Was this pre-arranged by our FF leaders so that natives could get used to German ways?
Or, are our soon to be German overlords just trying to ready us for a future of Teutonic domination! I reckon Angela Merkel is trying to soften us up for something big – don’t you? – Yours etc,
DERRICK HAMBLETON,
Kingston, Galway.