We have one trump card, but we failed to play it

REMEMBER that moment when you accepted the EU/IMF bailout was an absolute certainty, and only a matter of time?

For me it came at the exact instant I heard Brian Cowen say it was never going to happen. We are so terribly accustomed to our elected officials lying with every breath we now take it for granted the truth is the very opposite to what they say.

But let’s look at this bailout for a second.

It’s being framed as a rescue mission, dragging a besmirched and desperate country back up out of the mess we made for ourselves through the begrudging charity of German taxpayers who will bear the brunt of the cost.

However, the much-lauded German economy is thriving mainly in the export market where the weak euro is allowing them to compete with other countries, such as China, and most of Ireland’s debt is owed to German banks which lent recklessly to us when their own citizens were being cautious and saving too much.

Though bailing out Ireland would be painful for German taxpayers, it is essential for the future stability of the euro and the choice for German banks is to bail us out and eventually get all their money back, or let us sink and lose it all.

When we understand a bailout would benefit both sides, our politicians could start negotiating from a position of relative strength to get the best possible deal for us. Thus far, they have completely failed to do so, which suggests they are either too stupid to realise the truth or are playing a propaganda game in a desperate attempt to preserve the status quo.

Take Dick Roche on Prime Time last week, repeatedly insisting that his party had made all the “tough choices”, had done all the right things and (my personal favourite) that had it not been for the bailout of our banks “we would be in a dire situation now”. As opposed to what, Dick?

Statements like “we did no wrong” are as infuriating as they are frightening.

People with this level of arrogance and lack of self-awareness are capable of terrible things. They put me in mind of a demented World War II general, sending more and more men over the top to their deaths and insisting it was the world, and not he, who was wrong in a desperate attempt to save face. In this case it is our futures and those of our children they are so recklessly destroying. Now a plea to Fianna Fáil. Your Government is dying. It is beyond saving.

The markets don’t believe a word you say. Your own people don’t believe a word you say and the wider world believes that we are a race of idiots for having put you in power in the first place.

Don’t wait for he deadline set by the Greens — go now and let your dying breath be the first honourable one your party has taken in recent memory. Don’t tie us to your sinking ship.

We can’t watch as you try and cut your way out of trouble, taking money from families on the breadline while allowing rich bankers to receive five and six-figure salaries for working in the institutions that broke us and that we now own (that makes high-end bankers our best-paid public servants, but somehow I think they will avoid the budget hairshirt).

We won’t stand by as you tell us again that we must share the pain, but refuse to take any yourselves. This will get ugly if you don’t go quickly and quietly.

Neal Hegarty

Bishopstown Ave

Model Farm Road

Cork