Now is the time to begin fightback
Sir -- On Thursday March 31, 2011, our Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan said "it doesn't score highly on fairness". Well there is a word I have not heard in a long time, fairness, a word that was clearly never in the minds of the previous government and a word that has been quickly forgotten by our new Government.
Fairness in Irish society seems not to exist at the moment. Seventy thousand million euro is the cost of this bank bailout! Remember Brian Lenihan when he said "this will be the cheapest bailout in history? Well, Brian, this has turned out to be one of the most expensive bank bailouts in history.
The burden of this bailout is to be carried on the shoulders of the Irish taxpayer, the ordinary hardworking decent people of our society.
With a cost equating to €34,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country, interest payments alone will cost ten thousand million euro by 2014, or €300 a week for an average family of two adults and two children. The figures are impossible to comprehend. How can we possibly afford such a massive bill?
Ordinary working class people will be hit again and again and again with every stealth tax they can think of from property to water, but still they tell us "burden sharing" is not an option.
They tell us that the faceless bondholders must be protected at all costs.
As mortgages rise along with dole queues, as working class people decide between feeding their children or paying their mortgage, we must ask the question, when is enough enough? We have to ask ourselves, what can we do? We must ask, has the time for passive acceptance passed?
Is it time for the working class to stand up? Is it time to let this Government know "we are here"? Is it time to tell the EU/IMF "this is our country and we want it back"?
People voted on February 25, 2011, for change. Did we get it? I say no.
The continuation of the failed Fianna Fail policies by the new Fine Gael/Labour Government at the expense of working-class people should be the final straw. It is time to stand up, it is time for a mass movement of people, it is time for all working-class people throughout our country to unite, to make our politicians stand up and take notice. Our backs are to the wall! The time has come to fight back. Now is the time for unity. Now is the time for real change.
Ken Mann,
Celbridge, Co Kildare
Originally published in
