Dempsey’s selective approach to ‘traitors’

FULL marks for courage to Transpiort Minister Noel Dempsey. At the Fianna Fáil árd fheis he labelled as economic traitors those banks that have landed us in the present mire.

However, might the same not be said of those politicians who presided over the mess?

They told us it was party time during the 2002 election.

They slashed the tax base, gave a stuffed public service benchmarking, trawled the world looking for people to come here to fuel the squalid building boom which hid the real financial downturn and threw out money like confetti at a wedding.

The same party stuffed bloated quangos with their cronies, heaped on numbers of junior ministers and useless Oireachtas committees so that only two of their TDs (who are in the dog house) do not now have an extra job.

Where is the resolve to address those issues now? That is the test?

The French novelist and critic Julien Benda once spoke of the treason of the intellectuals — “la trahison des clercs”. Were he around now he might speak of “la trahison des politiciens”.

Declan Gilchrist

Trillick

Longford