Euro is the poison in our pockets

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan said recently that low euro interest rates and mass immigration from eastern Europe after 2004 were the main reasons for the overheating of the Irish economy which led to the recession.

The Central Bank has told us the economy will shrink by more than 8% this year and unemployment will peak at more than 15%.

On top of that, Taoiseach Brian Cowen tells us that because of our euro membership, we cannot devalue our currency and so Irish workers will have to take a cut in wages in order to become internationally competitive again.

Well, I have news for you, Mr Cowen: it was your party that told us to vote yes to Maastricht and adopt the euro – and look what happened. The reality is that much of Ireland’s increased competitiveness in the late 1990s came from the steady devaluation of the Irish pound. We should never have gone into the euro because membership has delivered, year on year, inappropriate interest rates – too low during the boom years, too high during the dips.

The sad thing is because the Government pushed us into the euro, Irish workers who take a cut in their wages for two or three years can find after all that time that if the euro rises in relation to the dollar and sterling we are back to square one and must continue to cut our wage rates.

The euro is the poison in our pocket which helped overheat our economy, leading to the bust. I will never trust those parties who acted as euro cheerleaders again.

And I won’t copperfasten the straitjacket that our economy is in by voting for the Lisbon Treaty. Because I want our freedom back to achieve economic prosperity again, I will be voting no.

James Reynolds

Laughill

Coolarty

Edgeworthstown

Co Longford