Rebuilding Ireland - We must get new deal on bank debts

EUROPEAN history shows us many examples of countries destroying themselves to deny invaders the resources they needed to continue their aggression.

Russia did it in 1812, in what they called their Great Patriotic War, luring Napoleon far beyond the security of his supply lines ensuring his ultimate destruction.

Much more recently, in 1943, when Germany fled Russia, they destroyed everything they had not destroyed during their advance. The destruction and savagery was biblical in scale but it did not save the eastern half of Germany from a terrible, brutal, decades-long occupation. Nevertheless, Germany has rejuvenated itself morally and economically and is the cornerstone of the EU’s economic security today.

Though we have not destroyed ourselves completely we have come more than close enough. So much so that the next Government may discover its predecessors’ policies unwittingly amounted to a scorched earth policy. Fianna Fáil may buck at that description, and it is terribly sad to have to direct it at any political party, but it so close to the truth as not to make any difference.

It is likely that the next Government will have far fewer options than they or we imagine today. They might modify a measure here, place more emphasis there, but it will all add up to the same frightening bill.

We have made our bed of roses and have little option but to lie in it. As we do it might benefit us to ask ourselves a few hard questions; do a bit of hard thinking.

Each of us should ask ourselves if we played a role in our self-destruction though in the vast majority of cases it won’t even amount to a bit part. More importantly we might also ask ourselves how we inculcate our children with the principles and courage needed to prevent a repeat of the hubris of the last decade.

Of course there are terrible inequities in some of the measures announced on Wednesday and the scores of thousands expected to march in Dublin tomorrow will give vent to righteous anger on those issues. Some of the measures are even immoral.

How can any Government, even this broken collection of old lags, suggest that subsistent levels of welfare or the minimum wage can be cut by a state that pays its politicians and its top-tier public servants multiples of European norms? These are the issues that could turn an angry but realistic public into something far less manageable, something far less easily subdued by IMF ultimatums. Of course, Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his colleagues have, in the national interest naturally, left that thorny issue for their successors. It may not be a scorched earth policy but it is typically dishonest.

Tomorrow’s march will direct its anger at the Government, the banks and the forces that have shown such little regard for ordinary people and their aspirations. That anger is entirely justified, indeed it is a wonder that the demonstration will be the first mass expression of the anger that has animated this country for over two years. The protestors will lose the high ground if the march becomes anything more than the most robust but peaceful demonstration. It must not be hijacked as recent student demonstrations were.

We are in a dark place but despite everything retain the capacity to rebuild this country even if that means reconsidering our obligations to the gamblers and European financiers who funded the casino banks that destroyed this small, naive country.