Time for radical reform, action and the truth

IT IS fascinating to watch the unfolding of a left/right debate taking centre stage in the earliest stages of the campaign.

It surely marks a watershed in the political life of the country to find that all of the main parties, FF, FG, Lab, along with the Greens, are sounding off in broad harmony against the fiery dialectic of Sinn Féin and Pearse Doherty, in particular.

No doubt, we are seeing something of the political convulsion that led to Leftist takeovers of countries around the globe in the twentieth century where the established political enclaves had become distanced from the needs and wishes of the people they served.

While we are some distance from anything like a revolution in this country, we are nevertheless looking at the extraordinary and very real possibility of Sinn Féin becoming the main voice of opposition in the next Dáil, leaving FF in the back seat.

One would have expected that FG and Labour would be far more exercised in castigating the destructive policies and practices of FF at this point instead of lining up their guns with the outgoing government to demolish the SF arguments.

The debate at this point, though it is early days, seems to be concentrated on seeing off the irritating political bounty hunters before turning to the real battle with the real adversary. This might not be so simple.

Telling SF they are “economically illiterate” and their policies are “daft” are more than a touch ironic. Daft and illiterate are words that come to mind in relation to the management of our economy both during and after the boom.

The government and minister who told us we were having the cheapest bailout in history was the government that went on to tell us we needed first some €3bn or €4bn to plug the leak, and then revised their figures upwards and upwards past €10bn, before settling on some €35bn as the final cost of the bank rescue.

The same government and minister who assured us that the banks would not be nationalised, that it was essential they remain listed on the stock markets, have this week presided over the de-listing of AIB, the country’s largest bank. The same government and minister told us a private niche bank like Anglo Irish was of systemic importance and they were indeed supported in their assertion by many commentators, including some prominent members of other parties. Who now believes this?

We are now being told that burning bondholders would have catastrophic consequences for European countries. It is not just FF that is telling us this.

The political debate so far in this election is an eye-opener for sure and a sort of experiential history lesson where we see what happens in a country where the people are short-changed with policies, answers and accountability.

The mistakes of the outgoing government were radically wrong, daft, economically illiterate and worse.

We certainly could replace them with more of the same from the other end of the political spectrum but the stability the country needs must be based on radical reform, radical action and radical truth-telling here at home, as well as in the councils of Europe and the IMF.

Margaret Hickey

Blarney

Co Cork