Why mortgage the State to save failed banks?

IT is surely time to make the obvious point. Too obvious for words, but not too obvious to our reckless and self-interested political leaders.

It is this: we must not mortgage the State to rescue failed banks. The State can survive even if some banks do not. The Government is not responsible to the directors and shareholders of Anglo-Irish Bank, but to Ireland and the people of Ireland.

I say to our benighted politicians: please stop pouring our uncollected taxes into a bottomless pit of banking debt.

Otherwise Ireland will end up like Iceland with debts beyond our capacity ever to repay them. Our Government has reduced the word “profligate” to the level of a compliment. Money has been wasted on useless building projects or on expenses and bonuses and in the mismanagement in general of our financial resources.

The Government seems to have entirely lost sight of the national interest.

As an admirer of most things Irish I hope I am proved wrong in this.

Dr Gerald Morgan

School of English

Trinity College

Dublin 2