Surreal foray into politics

It’s been a surreal three weeks, my first foray into the world of politics and several lessons learned.

Most outstanding of those, how easily the Government parties were allowed bluff and bluster unchallenged on the various debates by so many different presenters.

‘The promissory notes are gone’ only in the way that Windscale is ‘gone’ and we now have Sellafield; the promissory ‘notes’ themselves are ‘gone’, the promissory notes debt remains in its entirety, all €25bn, exchanged for sovereign bonds.

‘We saved the country €20bn’ — no they didn’t. Buy an item reduced from €30 to €10, save €20; buy that same €30 item for €10, pay the remaining €20 over three years with interest such that it will now cost €60, that is not a saving, it’s deferred payment. That’s the Noonan promissory notes deal. Same debt, different payment terms, that’s all, the burden shifted from this generation to the next two generations, the final payment (€5,000,000,000) in 2053.

What happens to the billions raised from those bonds? The question the Fine Gael candidates wouldn’t (couldn’t?) answer — what happens to the €500m when the first of those Noonan sovereign bonds is sold this year? What happens to all €25bn thus raised in the coming years? It’s burned, that’s what happens, destroyed, billions this broke country could sorely use to ease the crushing burden on its people, the bank-debt legacy Michael Noonan refused even to challenge.

‘We created 60,900 new jobs’ — another lie, deliberate misuse of raw CSO data. 33,000 of those jobs were self-employed, the vast majority in the agricultural sector. Did we discover a new county? No — these were jobs already there but hadn’t been noted previously. Private enterprise creates jobs in spite of government policy — rising costs in rent/rates/water/gas/electricity. The only jobs this government ‘created’ are their own overpaid spin-doctors and ‘advisers’.

These and so many other areas the Government line goes unchallenged — it’s been an eye-opener for me. I hope I’ve also opened a few eyes and that those whom we rely on to inform us will now start to ask the hard questions, the right questions.

Diarmuid O’Flynn

Failed MEP candidate

Ireland South