Sir, – The Labour TDs who wrote to your newspaper (August 2nd) that they were not “austerity junkies”, and the many supportive responses this statement has provoked, raises an interesting question for opponents of “austerity”.
The Government strategy to date has been aimed at not increasing an already catastrophic budget deficit but managing it downwards, preferably with as little damage to social cohesion as possible. Opponents of what is called “austerity” rarely spell out a realistic alternative.
If we discount fantasies of pots of untapped revenue gold out there, the only alternative is increasing the national debt and the budget deficit. There is the much repeated refrain: “Austerity doesn’t work”. But it now seems that the opponents of “austerity” actually don’t believe this themselves. As the Labour TDs put it, they were not “austerity junkies”, but would “do as much austerity as is needed to secure recovery”. Is this an admission that “austerity” – if admittedly only a certain amount of it – does work after all? – Yours, etc,
PHILIP O’CONNOR,
St Peter’s Terrace,
Howth, Dublin 13.