We had better cut our own cloth or the great bogeyman will do it for us

THE spectre of the bogeyman has re-entered Irish politics. The bogeyman is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with which we were threatened last during the 1980s. The IMF is the lender of last resort, the place where a country goes for money when it can’t get it anywhere else.

The price extracted for this money is huge: it is not merely high interest rates that must be repaid on top of the capital, but what has to be done, under instruction from the IMF, to make sure the flow of repayments is consistent.

The State would be forced to cut its costs dramatically. The Government would have to sack loads of public servants and reduce pay whether it wants to do so or not. This would not happen under the auspices of social partnership. There wouldn’t be the discussion and negotiation that’s going on at present. We would lose the remaining control we have over our own economy.