We are always being told there is no alternative. Well, there is one

IN the lead-in to the second Lisbon referendum Foreign Minister Micheál Martin warned us darkly of the unspecified but terrible fate that would befall us if we voted against the treaty.

We were told tighter political integration into a wider Europe was the only way forward. There was simply no alternative.

A year later, there was simply no alternative to NAMA, there was no alternative to a bank bailout and, this year, there is no alternative to severe cutbacks. There is no alternative to citing the new children’s hospital at the Mater site in Dublin either.

There are three local elections long overdue that would most likely cause the Government to fall, but there is no alternative but to defer them.

We were a capitalist democracy, but the ‘no alternative’ line has moved us into quasi-fascist territory and the bank bailouts break every rule of capitalism. The people have had no say in any of this and won’t have as long as the status quo persists.

With the total contempt that our Government shows for us, I suggest we have no alternative but to get rid of them, one way or the other.

John Mallon

Shamrock Lawn

Mayfield

Cork