Sir, – What a pleasure to read the inspiring letter by Diarmuid O'Flynn (February 28th) on the determined and dignified weekly protest by the people of Ballyhea. They continue to highlight how the Irish people were used to prop up an economic system which perpetuates inequality. We were sold a story that reforms would be implemented to mitigate future speculative financial-based bubbles. We were asked to accept that additional tax burdens could not be imposed on the rich as they needed the financial flexibility to invest and create jobs. Since 2008 there have been no reforms of note in the financial markets, inequality has increased, as revealed by the recent Oxfam report, and, as we have seen in the past week with the liquidation of IBRC, the needs of ordinary people are relegated as an inconvenience to expediency. How ironic then that this week the IMF issued a report stating that inequality was detrimental to growth and that wealth redistribution was economically more beneficial. The irony comes from the observation that the IMF was a key early facilitator of the global roll-out of Milton Friedman's free market model, which has produced a system of repeated bubbles of increasing severity and resulted in massive inequity. The people of Ballyhea should stand proud each Sunday as they continue to remind us of the dysfunctional nature of this system and the impotence of our elected elite in confronting this reality. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Linden Avenue,
Blackrock, Cork.