Media’s hyping of Celtic Tiger contributed to economic collapse

Your columnist Michael Clifford rightly condemns the “same old political promises”, but he ignores the elephant in the room: media hype [Irish Examiner, January 3].

The media narrative against austerity is ignoring the post-boom collapse and the present national over-borrowing.

The national bankruptcy of 2010, from which recovery is still not certain, is highlighted by this country’s €80bn bailout, €65bn of which was funded by foreigners.

The government statement of the time, and quoted in the media, said that “without this external support, the State would not be able to raise the funds required to pay for key public services for our citizens and to provide a functioning banking system to support economic activity”.

The euphoria of the boom-time hype was reflected by the Irish media, which called the German economy “a basket case” while in contrast, “the Irish economy [was] the strongest in Europe”.

Now, the Irish media is complaining about German success.

The fact that “current public spending rose more than 50% over three years” during the boom was labelled as “most responsible”.

Now, minor cuts are declared ruinous.

Back in the boom-time, the media conclusion was that “every day and in every way things [were] getting better and better” and “there [was] virtually no downside”.

Even “the great battles on corruption and taxation [had] been won” said the boom-time media hype.

A. Leavy

Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13