The people of Ireland need to take to the streets to bring this government down, Eamon Reid writes.
“The men who have led Ireland for twenty-five years have done evil and they are bankrupt. They are bankrupt in policy, bankrupt in credit, bankrupt now even in words. They have nothing to propose to Ireland, no way of wisdom, no counsel of courage. When they speak, they speak only untruth and blasphemy. Their utterances are no longer the utterances of men. They are the mumbling and gibberings of lost souls”. – Patrick Pearse: Ghosts 25/12/1915
We are living in “interesting times”. In China to wish that on someone is considered a curse. This country is committing economic hara-kiri. How did it come to this? The Bertie Bubble has well and truly burst. The collateral damage is everywhere.
His legacy will be with us for generations. Instead of steady economic progress, which the social partnership had helped to bring about, successive Fianna Fail led governments went for the gamblers option; little or no regulation of bank lending; the famous light touch – no touch regulation.
A developer-driven government legislated for its friends from the Galway Tent. Unfortunately some members of
trade unions bought into Bertie’s mirage; paid off with directorships to semi-state companies and agencies, junkets and a place at the top table with the most corrupt and incompetent government in the history of the State – headed by a Taoiseach who had more whip rounds among his “friends” than Frank Sinatra had farewell concerts, who swore on oath that large, unexplained sums of money in his possession were won at the races.
Yet this government still protects the criminal bankers and its own negligent officials who were party to the greatest fraud, theft and economic collapse in our history. This is a watershed moment when the Irish people must step up to be
counted. It’s time we showed the most highly paid, most incompetent government in the democratic world that its time is up. Anew set of values must be set down by which this country is to be governed.
With 500,000 people unemployed, why are there not angry crowds on the streets rattling the gates of Leinster House? Have we become soft and lost our backbone? People are afraid, not just of losing their jobs and homes, but of taking any form of action which might topple this incompetent class of corrupt, overpaid poltroons who run and have wrecked this country.
I have been demonstrating outside the Dáil since January. Why aren’t there thousands out there? It is time we took this country back. In the coming weeks and months join whatever political party or action group that will oppose by ballot or demonstration this government and its lackeys.
There’s nothing like boots on the ground for sending a shiver of fear down the backs of those in power. It is up to us
to demand probity and equity in the governance f this country. Cuts and higher taxes start at the top; on those who can afford it – not at the bottom, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
