The beginning of radical confrontation

ONE can only hope that the Dame Street protest in Dublin is just the beginning of a radical confrontation of our country’s continued drift into mindless materialism where the rich prosper at the expense of the unemployed and the forgotten poor.

Ireland has more than enough resources to meet the needs of all, but not enough to meet the greed of the few.

We have grown to live with the corruption of politics and the inflated significance attributed to senior bank officials, judges, TDs and ministers of the state, represented by shamefully exorbitant salaries, expense accounts, bonuses and severance awards.

The rescuing of banks from the consequences of reckless gambling with our money has been the ultimate outrage.

We have been seduced into believing that the effective creation of wealth depends on nurturing our worst instincts.

The abiding scandal in Ireland is the extent to which the needs of the poor and the marginalised have been neglected as a result of the institutionalised greed and crass acquisitiveness that has come to define our way of life.

We have on our hands a new fight for Ireland’s freedom — freedom from the abuse of power and wealth and from the continued failure to spell out and commit ourselves to a vision of Ireland’s future that is essentially moral. Otherwise we continue on a steady mindless march to nowhere.

Philip O’Neill

Edith Road

Oxford