Post-boom Ireland 'like a country that's been through war'
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IRELAND is in the gravest danger of economic and social disintegration since the foundation of the State, The MacGill Summer School heard yesterday.
One of the country's most eminent academics, Dr Ed Walsh, also said the country was being run by an undistinguished group of people.
Unless major reforms took place, said the founder of the University of Limerick, the country was at risk of slipping into decay.
"Ireland is in the gravest danger of economic and social disintegration since the foundation of the State. Structural reform of Ireland's antiquated and ineffective legislative executive and public service is no longer optional. It is both urgent and essential to recovery," said Dr Walsh.
He described the Cabinet as well-intentioned and hard-working but an undistinguished group of people who, if they constituted the board of a company, would be unlikely to secure the confidence of potential investors or be taken very seriously.
Dr Walsh called for a national assembly of citizens to be established out of the MacGill School with a mandate to draw up a plan for the fundamental reform of the administration and governance of the republic. "We need a second republic," he said.
Leading consultants at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, concluded that post-boom Ireland was like a country that has been involved in a war.
- Anita Guidera
Irish Independent
