We must safeguard our future

IT IS becoming increasingly obvious that all parties will squander the opportunities for change that now abound both here and abroad.

We are living in times of profound global change, but we still engage in a post-independence political divergence that is a distraction from the main issues.

We are now at the end of the line in terms of food and energy imports with scant ability to source these in the wake of future events, whether climatic or political.

We all remember the dwindling exotic vegetable section in our local shops during the volcanic events of 2010. It is now a fact that the average European city will carry less than a week’s food stock — this is due to excellent “just in time” supply logistics on behalf of suppliers actually borrowed from the auto industry.

Our roads are our larders and the next time you drive on them look left and right and observe the 40 shades of green.

There is not a field ploughed, all this from a country that couldn’t keep its roads clear for lack of salt.

A coherent national policy having at least one year’s supply of food is needed urgently. We must be self-sufficient in energy and become a world leader in that field.

To do this, we need to reform our laws and beef up our law reform bodies.

It seems our leaders are top heavy with former members of the legal profession, but it should be a requirement of any citizen standing in an election to have achieved some qualification in governance of our political system.

Before I hear cries of “political elites”, every citizen should have a working knowledge of our political system and it should be a secondary school mandatory subject. Finally, all parties are muttering about renegotiating our bailout.

The spectre of global inflation is almost upon us — look at the figures globally and they are becoming truly alarming. Surely the Franco-German axis is keenly aware of this, but won’t help us until the lion’s share of their money is paid back. Combine this with the inflation timebomb and default is inevitable.

I don’t want to belittle the many issues that make up the daily struggle for a lot of people, but we must focus on the above issues in order to make Ireland secure and to get people back to work and become a global beacon for investment.

B McCabe

Coburg St

Cork