We should strip the elite of their ill-gotten wealth

THE ECB has announced it is keeping its interest rates at 1%. The same ECB/EU has imposed a so-called bail-out in Ireland at a rate of about 5.8%. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Meanwhile, when Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was challenged on RTÉ TV news on December 2 on the injustice of Justice Minister Dermot Ahern’s lavish pension and gratuity pay-off, he responded that “the [Four Year] Plan provides for a very substantial cut in Dermot Ahern’s pension.” This is contradicted by the following sentence that Mr Lenihan and his cohorts included in page 72 of the same Four Year Plan. “In order to avoid a destabilising rate of retirements in 2011 and to manage the cost in both 2011 and 2012, the Government has decided to extend the ‘grace period’ under which pensions are calculated by reference to the pre-cut rates of public service pay to end February 2012.”

This appears to ensure that pensions will be maximised in the context of the proposed cuts, for all ministers, TDs and senators who jump ship or are fired by the electorate. If our Government can bring in laws to reduce the minimum wage and the old age pension then they can bring in laws to strip the elite of some of their ill-gotten wealth. In there are any constitutional problems, then the plain and impoverished people of Ireland will be delighted to change the Constitution in a referendum to restore some real justice to our people.