The Irish people are going crazy, with the announcement by finance minister Brian Lenihan that the taxpayer will pay out a minimum of €70 billion over the next 10 years to bail out our failed banks. They all failed. They all bought into the property bubble that even children knew was expanding too rapidly to not pop spectacularly.
People want heads to roll, they want bankers shot. Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen should also be on the list of fools to be shot. As ministers for finance through the false boom, they should/must have known what was going on and, if nothing else, they defined the culture that operated in our financial system. In reality, nobody responsible for selling our children's futures can get the chop, as the death penalty is banned by the EU - maybe this is why they were so eager to get Lisbon passed???
Our children will be paying for Fianna Fail crony developers' failings and landowners' profits and crazy NAMA fantasies through poorer public services for many years to come. The Ireland of the future will be a harsher, less social place as we simply cannot afford to be as generous to those who cannot help themselves. As a simple example, the blind pension was recently reduced so that the cash for the bankers and developers can be found.
But I'm convinced that no matter how bad things get, this is still a better place to live than 90% of the planet and, barring a revolution, a digital democracy that involves every citizen in decisionmaking is the system we need to develop so as to govern a free and fair Ireland. To help cheer everyone up, I've released a collection of short stories - The End, My Friend - for free download at www.scribd.com/
