Madam, – John Bruton’s timely letter to the President of the European Commission (Home News, January 27th) seems to have touched a raw nerve in that body! The utterances of Commission officials suggest an air of petty, vindictive triumphalism at the plight of the citizens of this country. José Manuel Barroso’s outburst in the European Parliament, however justified, was far from objective or fair and as such unbecoming his office.
While the Commission may not like to do so, it is right to question the oversight of the regulatory regimes, or lack of it, of all EU member states and of the EU that contributed to this European crisis. It may be over simplistic, but ordinary Irish taxpayers, including the most weak and vulnerable in our society and certainly not those who caused this crisis, are being called upon through the Government’s austerity programme to shoulder the burden of supporting a European banking system that has badly let Europe down.
Incidentally, who will benefit from the difference between the penal interest payments Ireland will be required to make over and above the interest rates at which the bailout funds are being obtained on the market? – Yours, etc,