O’Leary’s free market falls to earth

THE comments by Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary (December 18) on the Lisbon Treaty, and in particular his comments in relation to Sinn Féin and his claim that the party are a “bunch of economic illiterates”, made me laugh.

Sadly, if we weren’t in the middle of a national, regional and global economic crisis some people might even have been tempted to take him seriously.

The unfortunate reality is that the recession and credit crisis have been brought about by ‘free market’ economic policies promoted by the likes of Mr O’Leary and the other so-called captains of industry at home and abroad.

The “economic illiterates” of Sinn Féin pointed out long before there was a crisis in the construction industry that we were heading that way and warned the Government that action needed to be taken.

Long before the US and Britain started nationalising banks willy-nilly, Sinn Féin also had said Ireland needed a State bank to secure lines of credit and to act in the interests of the people of the whole country rather than a few shareholders.

And again long before it was recently popular in Britain and the US to do so, Sinn Féin realised the value of State investment in major infrastructural projects to stimulate the economy.

One other point that Sinn Féin has consistently promoted is the idea of a fairer tax system. Maybe this is the real focus of Mr O’Leary’s ire at Sinn Féin’s policies — because yes, Sinn Féin wants to see people like him paying their fair share in tax.

An interesting statistic I recently came across showed how in 1980 America’s top executives on average earned about 40 times as much as the average worker — a significant difference by any standards. However, by the year 2000 that ratio was 400:1.

That massive jump was not, and could not, be attributed to corporate performance. It was primarily down to greed and opportunism on the part of top executives. It’s reasonable to expect Ireland was no different and its executives are equally well remunerated.

In this era of wage restraint and cuts we need to start at the very top. Unless we bring the wages of those at the top end of the payscale back to some reasonable ratio with the rates for workers we will not fix what is clearly a broken economic philosophy.

Mr O’Leary’s comments on economics and in relation to the Lisbon Treaty are about as credible as his airline’s claims that Stansted airport is in London and Charleroi airport is in Brussels.

Mick Nolan

Templeshannon

Enniscorthy

Co Wexford