A chara, – Aidan Walsh’s assertion (August 30th) that the policies that laid the ground for Germany’s economic miracle provide a reasonable template for evaluating Ireland’s path to recovery are well founded.
He also rightly asserts that the miracle was achieved through swallowing the unpleasant medicine of austerity and economic reform. This is true, but overlooks an important point. Through the 1953 London Debt Agreement, Germany’s creditors, including the US, UK and France, effectively granted Germany debt forgiveness of more than 50 per cent of the debt burden of war reparations which had crippled the German economy since the end of the first World War. Germany honoured these reduced but significant debt obligations, with the last payment being made in 2010.
Let us hope that the lessons of history are considered in their full context rather than selectively. When this chapter of economic history is written, what concessions will our creditors have bestowed upon us for being a paragon of economic reform? – Is mise,
GAVIN DREDGE,
Violet Hill,
Church Road,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.