Don’t panic – we’re not nearly as badly off as we are led to believe

WE’VE had a few weeks of sheer panic.

Now it’s time, surely, to get a bit of perspective. Or, as David Begg might put it, to allow decency to enter the debate.

All this kite-flying about cuts in social welfare benefits and reductions in the minimum wage, if we allow it to develop into policy, will transform Ireland into a bitter place.