The banks and the politicians have sabotaged a generation

We need to talk about the banks — we really do. And we need to keep talking about them, because everything that is wrong with this country, today, stems from them.

To fix things, we need to treat the cause, not the symptom, and the cause, in this case, is the banks.

The Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan, has told us that guaranteeing the junior bondholders was ‘clearly a mistake’, but we knew this already.

The ESRI’s man, John Fitzgerald, told us that they had made ‘a bad mistake’ — and we already knew this, too. The Finnish banking expert, Peter Nyberg, said that he didn’t think that there was criminality involved; it was more ignorance more than anything else. But aren’t we all told that ignorance of the law is no defence? And, yet, there is no accountability and no responsibility.

We have all these guys in top-paying jobs — still in top-paying jobs, yet, here we still are, still paying a debt we don’t owe. I would love to know who it is that actually works for us, and runs our country, because I don’t see any leadership, from anyone.

All I see is a bunch of people bowing down, as far as they can, to another bunch of people in Europe. If people can’t do the job they are supposed to do, hired to do, contracted to do and elected to do, they should not be in the system, let alone be a part of it.

That only creates more problems and more confusion, and more anger, but back to the cause — the banks. There is a human cost to all this, which our ‘representatives’ lightly gloss over, and barely mention — a human cost that will never, ever be forgiven, or forgotten.

The water protests aren’t just about water — they are well aware of that. The protests are about the hiding, the deceit, the threats, and the treason of this land.

The two most honest people I have seen coming out of the banking Inquiry, so far, have been Bill Black and David McWilliams — they speak of the human cost, of the desolation of people’s lives, but, as far as the bankers and politicians that we elected are concerned, let’s ignore all that — and let’s keep paying a debt we don’t owe.

Cáit O’ Beirne

Cnoc Na Si

Tubbercurry

Co. Sligo