Committing treason against our grandchildren

Kicking the can down the road sounds like an amusing solution to Ireland’s problems, but the reality is no joke.

The Fianna Fáil/Green government committed acts of economic stupidity, equivalent to treason, by absolving the gambling debts of banks, builders, developers and other scoundrels, and making Irish taxpayers liable.

What the current Fine Gael/Labour Government is doing is even worse. Instead of canceling the crazy bank guarantees and then dealing courageously with the resulting economic crisis, they adopted the cowardly option of just blaming the previous government and then continuing along the same crazy unsustainable road.

Instead of marching a road of solidarity with our supposed EU allies, they are marching down a road, to hell or to the fiscal Cliffs of Moher, doing as much damage along the way as Cromwell did a few centuries ago. Ireland now has the highest rates of emigration and suicide since the Famine. Government ministers are falsely claiming they will save billions of euro by extending the period of repayment into the distant future.

This is simpleton economics, treating the people of Ireland like simpletons hoping they won’t understand that increasing the duration of our debt repayments will greatly increase the long-term Irish debt burden.

However, the reality is even worse than this. Our present generation of mainly older, reckless, spendthrift leaders and gamblers are imposing this unjustified debt burden on our grandchildren and on to generations as yet unborn. Surely this is worse than treason.

Dr Edward Horgan

Newtown

Co Limerick