High price of corruption, greed and incompetence

THE spindoctors timed the publication of the McCarthy report while the Dáil was in recess, hoping that holiday amnesia would lessen the impact on Lisbon II, yet seeking falsely to imply the public service is the cause the economic crisis.

Unlike our politicians, public servants have a remarkable record for honesty and lack of corruption. It was political corruption, greed and incompetence that fuelled the economic crisis.

The unsustainable public service payroll costs were approved and encouraged by profligate and decadent squandering by successive governments led by Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen. Let’s not forget the decades of planning and other corruption involving mainly politicians and their client developers. The €5bn expected to be saved by the public service cuts is probably less than the sum that will be given to just one of our failed banks. The eventual cost of the bailout of Irish financial institutions is likely to be more that ten times €5bn. The two main banks should have been nationalised, giving taxpayers some possibility of recovering their involuntary investment and the others should have been left to succumb to the bankruptcy system.

The Government has bailed out not just the failed banks but also many of the reckless builders and developers at taxpayers’ expense, and in so doing has effectively corrupted the regulatory controls of the bankruptcy system. It provided inadequate protection for the taxpayer from corrupt developers and others who may have transferred assets offshore while abusing the bankruptcy system to evade their liabilities within Ireland.

Those primarily responsible for the Irish financial crisis are, first, the Government and politicians who failed to govern in the peoples’ interests; second, the financial institutions and regulators, and third, the developers and builders. This culpable Government is now in the process of inflicting impoverishment on the most vulnerable sections of society while bailing out their culpable partners, and is seeking to lay the blame on the public service.

Dr Edward Horgan

Castletroy

Co Limerick