Ballyhea protestors arerebalancing equation

Diarmuid O’Flynn and the contingent from Ballyhea are to be commended for their continued protests at the socialisation of private debt resulting from the misguided blanket guarantee of 2008.

Their protest highlights the hypocritical nature of modern capitalism in which we are told that the market will self-regulate, where ordinary punters are warned of the risks of rising and falling markets and government interference is an anathema.

In the past 30 years, successive governments in the West have allowed, through privatisation, increasing dependency on provision of social services on the market, such that when bubbles burst the market has to be bailed out or society will suffer.

The irony is that society suffers anyway through the austerity needed to heal the market, and the majority of this burden is taken on by the most vulnerable in society. So it’s obvious that the market’s primary goal is to serve its masters, not society. Society is just a commodity to be exploited.

We need more people like Mr O’Flynn to try and rebalance the equation.

Barry Walsh

Blackrock

Cork