Tiny elite to blame for state of the nation

I COULD not agree more with Declan Doyle (Letters, October 26) when he accuses our political leaders of an absence of “leadership and accountability”.

A small number of powerful people are responsible for the state the country is in. These include members of the cabinet, heads of banks and a small number of their cronies.

Yet all of these people are behaving as if it had nothing to do with them. Ministers are in denial and are lecturing the rest of us on our duty to make sacrifices to repair the damage for which they were responsible.

Taxpayer-funded spindoctors and media cheerleaders are being wheeled out daily to say it was all the fault of some group or other who had nothing to do with the abuse of power of those at the top.

The biased coverage of NAMA, in which critics are either ignored or villified, and the media circus around relatively minor government announcements, like the alcohol limit for drivers, have all the hallmarks of a despotic misuse of power.

Anthony Leavy

1 Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13