Austerity was made here

John Leahy’s letter declares that the members of the EU used ‘the jack-boot in 2010’ causing Irish citizens the ‘appalling austerity for the last five years’.

I am afraid he is missing the fact that the austerity is a result of decisions taken in this country during the years of the boom which ended with national bankruptcy in 2010.

The decisions which bankrupted the country were made by some of this country’s most influential citizens in charge of its most powerful institutions. The equivalent decision makers in most of the EU countries, which were members of the same currency, did not bankrupt their countries.

In addition, when we did go broke other EU members contributed to keeping the holes in the wall open here.

The EU is a union of nearly 30 democratic countries agreeing to cooperate in matters of mutual interest. Given what is going on in Ukraine at the moment, we should be especially careful of using words like ‘jack-boot’ in relation to the EU.

A Leavy

Sutton

Dublin 13