We can not pay what we do not have...

Could I offer my support to David Beacon, whose letter you published on Thursday, Jan 26, and to his son who is being forced to emigrate.

He is right, the Messiah is not coming.

I am fed up with the posturing and platitudes of the Government, with their ready answers, their practiced, monotone delivery and non-answers. The mantra is the same, with one intent, to keep the masses in order.

If they would confront the problems, answers would suggest themselves. 1. We cannot continue to borrow to pay off our borrowings. 2. We cannot continue, as a people, to pay off borrowings we never borrowed. 3. We cannot afford the gargantuan, over-paid levels of administration and bureaucracy everywhere; national and local politics, universities, health boards, quangos, ad infinitum. We are nowhere near solving our problems. It’s as if the organisation, the country, is out of control.

We cannot just blame the Germans or the French. They see us as a lunatic state living way beyond our means. Just look at the pay-offs, the pensions, the politicians — their numbers, salaries and expenses, the health boards, consultant salaries, the medical consultants’ special tax concessions, the barristers’ fees, the pomp and ceremony in our courts.

Meanwhile, we will pay off what we owe, says our leader. We will not — roar the children in the audience — because we simply cannot.

Brendan Ronayne

Carrigrohane

Co Cork