A viable alternative to emigration

AS I won’t be able to personally wish you all bon voyage, may I – through the letters page of the Irish Examiner – say goodbye and best of luck to the hundreds of thousands of people who are about to blaze Ireland’s latest emigrant trail.

Your absence from our communities, workplaces, sports clubs, charities and associations will be painfully felt by those of us able to remain in Ireland.

Our sense of loss will be compounded by guilt for having failed to redress the failings of a system that has casually and cruelly discarded you.

It is a system composed of an incompetent government, a hopeless opposition, greedy businessmen, self-serving trade union leaders who continue to sanction job losses, economists who insist there is no other way, and a media that parrots the line.

We’re sorry, too, that those who caused the mess won’t be going anywhere. Their jobs aren’t threatened and their outrageous earnings will continue to bankroll their obscene lifestyles.

Their private healthcare and educational arrangements will protect them from failing services, and – as ever – their children will be shepherded through college and into cushy, well-paid jobs (sorry, professions).

Before you hit the road, I should mention that there is an alternative: production to meet needs not profits, equal incomes, fully-functioning public services, genuine democracy, an international community of caring nations.

You could call it “socialism”. But don’t be put off by the name – it’s still a good idea.

Dominic Carroll

Dunowen

Ardfield

Co Cork