Ireland’s finances are beginning to unravel
But now we know that it was by peddling a set of lies that they got re-elected. The public finances were allegedly in sound condition, free from the threat of deficit and borrowing.
There were record numbers of new jobs. If you read the packaging, we had achieved the pinnacle of our prosperity and now the challenge was to preserve it under a utopia ruled by Bertie Ahern and his team.
No tax hikes, no cutbacks, no problems at all - those were the commitments.
I, as a 24 year olddon’t want to see the horrors of the 1980s let loose upon this island ever again, but there is a danger that we are going down that dark and slippery valley.
Every day brings fresh tales of mismanagement and incompetence in the public finances and the state sector. We seem lost in bad decisions, wasteful short-term expenditure and no respect for value for money.
Now it seems that the weakest in our society must pay the price for this; our young, our sick and our old, in cutbacks and price increases, with no regard whatsoever for long term social, economic or environmental sustainability.
Barriers are springing up preventing more and more Irish people from realising their maximum potential.
On the employment front, an average of 280 people a day have joined the dole queues since the election. The job gains of the last five years and the previous Rainbow Coalition are vanishing like morning dew.
Unreal renewal notices for public liability and other forms of insurance are being issued to small and medium sized business forcing early retirements, closures and creating a disincentive to entrepreneurs.
Job losses will follow on foot of this, and the public finances will take another hit with lower tax takes and higher social welfare costs.
The well-documented motor insurance rip off, particularly for younger drivers, continues to penalise our isolated rural populations and further curtails the quality of life of commuters effectively just sleeping in the counties surrounding our capital city.
Our people, and the generations that came before us and built this state, deserve so much better.
Damien English TD,
16, Bridge Street,
Navan,
Co Meath.
