Real ‘traitors’ are still walking golf courses

Thursday, November 26, 2009

YOUR editorial (November 25) was a sad departure from any standards of objectivity.

Like other public servants in Cork, I am not on strike this week, but I understand fully the anger of those who were on Tuesday. Public servants have served the state and the community in good times and in bad — as can be seen clearly in the magnificent local response of civilian and military personnel in Cork over the past several days.

The real "economic traitors" are those who got planning permission for speculative property development on flood plains, aided and abetted by their political friends and those who bankrolled a runaway Ponzi economy of greed, a false boom and ultimately a spectacular crash.

These people are still walking their golf courses — none of them is in jail. For the Irish Examiner to apply the term "economic treason" to the victims of these individuals is to invert reality.

Piaras MacEinrí
Department of Geography
UCC

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, November 26, 2009