We should be having a wonderful life – not a dark society crippled by austerity

I have come to the view that Enda Kenny is the opposite of the George Bailey character in It’s a Wonderful Life

In the movie, the central character is given a vision of his town without him having ever existed. In that vision, the town scrooge, Mr Potter, destroys Bedford Falls with his greed and heartlessness. In our, not so wonderful life, six years after we were pillaged by an army of “Mr Potters”, in the form of bankers, bond-holders and cynical, so-called EU partners, we have been left with the “Pottersville” nightmare vision of Bailey. How is it that Kenny managed to fool so many into believing that he would do something about the terrible position the last government left us in, only to seamlessly step into the policy shoes left in the Taoiseach’s office by Brian Cowen?

Bailey was tempted at one point to go over to the dark side and work for Mr Potter. He declined, choosing instead to stand by ordinary decent people. Kenny and his government received a similar invitation, to act on behalf of the international financial system and foreign governments, against the interests of ordinary decent Irish people. Kenny didn’t have a crisis of conscience, he took the job with relish. Today, when we could have plotted a path to our Bedford Falls, we instead have to settle for a dark society where we are told to accept crippling austerity.