Madam, – Good grief, the way Eoin O’Donovan, who emigrated to Australia, was going on (March 29th) about how terrible and corrupt Ireland is and how there wasn’t enough Tiger-era investment in education, health and infrastructure, you’d think he was talking about a third-world nation.
Education remains free in this country and this even includes the majority of post-graduate courses, so no one can say the youth haven’t been invested in. The amount of money poured into educating young minds obviously forms the base of the emerging smart economy and the soon to be reborn “smart tiger”.
Yes, health systems could be improved, but mortality and quality of life standards are classed among the world’s elite. All this from a tiny country with no natural resources.
No infrastructure investment? What about the two Luas lines, the port tunnel or the new space-age airport terminal? Those are just the big ones in Dublin. It’s not like the Ireland of today is remotely similar to Afghanistan, Chile, Haiti or Russia, where there is real corruption, war, natural disasters and no infrastructure of comparable standards.
Yes, there are many currently unemployed, but there is a strong social safety net here, so we don’t get the UN air-dropping food packages if the economy tanks for a season, unlike in the third world.
Certainly there are problems with regulation, but many of those are international concerns, with external governing bodies regulating, not just Ireland. We’re in a global recession and the headlines in the US are but a diluted reflection of those in intense Ireland in terms of the major economic and political issues we have faced in the past two years. At the far side of the bottom of this cycle the improvements in regulations and accountability mechanisms inbuilt in Nama are changes necessary to transcend the previous Tiger-era standards, and kickstart “Smart Tiger, 3.0”.
I certainly don’t think Mr O’Donovan is abandoning his country, he has just gone to Australia! It’s hardly economic treason for talent to migrate to one of the six English-speaking countries in the developed world, particularly when you consider Ireland boasts the highest levels of graduates per capita in Europe. Although I wonder how he is coping with the watered down Aussie beer? – Is Mise,
JOHAN P DE BORST,
Swords,
Dublin.