Whether we get a bailout from the EU/IMF or not there will have to be cuts and emigration. There are no two ways about this. We spend more than we take in. This is the fault of the people who overspent and who voted in those who promised everything and delivered nothing while bankrupting the country.
I don't get all this nationalistic jargon at this point in time. We corrupted ourselves. Nobody else is at fault here. Until we learn to grow up and elect those who will govern properly and not for their own vested interests nothing will change. That won't happen unless we have someone of vision who will change the whole establishment and the way it works, that is parliament, lower and upper house, legal system etc. But for that we need a people that are behind a fundamental change in the structure of Irish society. And if a revolution is needed for that so be it.
Meanwhile, in case there is no revolution, we need to get real and be prepared to deal with spending cuts, higher taxes and emigration. The positives are that we have done it before, we've come through worse recessions and if everyone does their bit there is no reason why we cannot become a stronger better nation. I for one am not proud of the celtic tiger generation and the sooner we leave it behind the better.
Well put, I'd agree with most of that. And overuse of nationalistic jargon is looking at things though rose tinted glasses, as we've long since been trading our sovereignty off as a quid pro quo since joining the eu, and have benefited handsomely from it too. However on the other hand, I wouldn't like to let this gov off the hook in any way by minimizing the significance of what they've brought upon us. Yes, people voted them in, but that didn't give them the right to bankrupt the country after their election by taking one irresponsible decision after another since Sept 08. And although cuts must come, they will almost certainly be even more drastic on the most vulnerable among us under the IMF/EU bailout scheme than the originally planned gov cuts would have been. And we're just going to have to stand by and watch while these faceless & unelected guests which the gov have "invited" into our country go about pursuing their own agenda...Grrr!
Anyway, back to being constructive, you are totally correct that until we as a people have a fundamental change in our attitudes to how politics should function in this country into the future then nothing will change. However, will this really happen?..because history has that bad habit of repeating itself, and how often do you hear people say "yeah, give it a few years and all this will be forgotten and FF will be back in again", and you despair, because you know deep down how plausible that statement is? And look at the "opposition" and tell me the difference between FF & FG, my god they were crying out for even more splurge during the boom, and their proposals for cuts etc going forward are identical to FF. The only thing that's going to be different this time around which might kick-start a new political awareness, is that people should be much less apathetic because EVERYONE is going to bear the brunt of our political mismanagement BIG TIME, for many years to come. And there's nothing better for focusing the mind ..."Floggings shall continue until moral has improved!"
One final point, many people share the positive attitude as yourself, that we've been in recessions before and we've gotten out of them and we'll get out of this one too. But, we never had levels of personal debt back in the 80's as we have now which is really going to stifle consumption going forward, and we rode on the back of a world wide recovery back then too which is not there to help us this time around. Add to this the never ending saga of the ever-increasing bank bail-out costs plus further bail-out fund debt and the question is, how and in what shape will we come out of this one? The total debt (+ interest) will not be humanly possible to pay back, the numbers don't add up, and so it is therefore in Ireland's best interests that debt restructuring with bond-holders & ECB should happen now and not later when we are bled dry. The EU (and our gov) know that this debt is unpayable and that re-structuring must eventually happen at some point in the future. However, to calm other eu members' bond market spreads now, to "safeguard the euro", to get as much money back for other EU banks/bondholders & the ECB first, we are to be the sacrificial lamb on the alter of the greater eu good. The ECB is the lender of last resort to banks and is solely responsible for it's lending practices, and if they irresponsibly lent good eu taxpayers money out to insolvent irish banks, they should be held accountable for same, not the Irish people! It is again so disgustingly sad that our gov appears to be towing the eu line to the detriment of their own people, by accepting even more sovereign debt, which we will then give to our banks, who will then give it back to the ECB. Crazy!
