Sir, – Your editorial "Self-interest or something better?" (February 13th) successfully identified the frustrations felt by so many people at the pathetic old-style tone so far of this election campaign.
Many of us crave new thinking for a new world, a world facing huge challenges such as climate change, mass migration, growing inequality, global financial instability and an EU at risk of collapse. Instead we’re subjected to childish squabbling over who’ll do what to ensure a bit of extra cash in the voters’ pockets, assuming that is still all that is required to get elected.
Most people who know and care about the bigger picture could well do with the extra cash but it won’t be much use in the chaotic world we’ll end up with if we don’t wake up to what’s happening all around us. It’s one world, one planet, and it’s all connected.
People are increasingly waking up to this reality. Can we ask our politicians to do likewise – and address the realities of our world and Ireland’s place within it, and appeal not to our narrow self-interest but to the best that’s in us as intelligent, caring human beings?
A better world is possible, a better Ireland is possible. Bottom-up change is already happening but top-down change must happen as well. We need leadership not promises. – Yours, etc,
CLAIRE OAKES,
Navan,
Co Meath.
Sir, – Your editorial “Self-interest or something better” makes a plea for the election debate to be about “the meaning of a 21st-century Irish republic”.
You also blame the politicians for the fact that the debate is about nothing more than having “a few euro more in our pockets”.
Given the media coverage of the Irish political debate over the years, I am afraid that the politicians are only doing what is in their best interest in looking for votes.
During the boom the narrative was that we were awash with cash, everything was getting better and better and there was no downside to the spending spree. The fact that the spending spree involved a tripling of bank lending and a tripling of government spending was pretty well ignored and was virtually unchallenged during the boom.
During the consequent bust, and right up to the present election campaign, the anti-austerity narrative has taken over. That basically amounts to every vested interest being given the unchallenged freedom to demand more and more taxpayers’ money.
The fact that this election is taking place after the biggest calamity to hit this country since independence is being ignored.
The personality-based coverage of the boom-time elections, which distracted us from the reality then, is being repeated.
For example, the fact that the Irish government deficit in 2010 was far worse than it was in Greece has been forgotten. We have just to look at Greece now to see what could have happened to us.
As the world situation is not great, there is indeed a lot more at stake for this 21st-century Irish republic than having a few euro more in our pockets.
You would never know that looking at much of the media coverage of the election debate so far. – Yours, etc,
A LEAVY,
Sutton,
Dublin 13.
Sir, – Political parties, in allocating the billions of euro to the various causes, should also give an undertaking to make the payments in €500 denominations It would make the counting that much easier for the recipients. – Yours, etc,
MICK O’BRIEN,
Springmount,
Kilkenny.
Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter's suggestion that Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin might bat their "fiscal space eyelids" at one another, in order to see if they might make it together as a coalition government, would give entirely the wrong signal and would be doomed to fail ("A game of Mr and Mrs would liven up the election", Opinion & Analysis, February 13th). Flirting involves batting eyelashes, not eyelids. – Your, etc,
EDDIE MOLLOY,
Dublin 6.
A chara, – The polls suggest that Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin could form part of our next government. It’s quite ironic that in the centenary year celebration of the 1916 Rising that Fianna Fáil, which less than six years ago brought this country’s economy to its knees, or Sinn Féin, whose military wing effectively wrought destruction in the North in the not-so-distant past, could be in government. It seems a section of our electorate have a remarkable ability to remember 800 years of external oppression, yet ignore our own relatively recent history. – Is mise,
ERIC CREAN,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – As I drive through the streets of a Dublin wallpapered with benign-looking political aspirants, Shakespeare’s words come to mind, “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain”. Just a thought. – Yours, etc,
NORA SCOTT,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Are the main political parties and the electorate on the same page when it comes to interpreting election slogans? What “recovery” is Fine Gael trying to keep going? Is it the party’s recovery from the devastation of leadership under Michael Noonan? Is it the recovery of real estate and debt by the banks? Is it the recovery of poor building regulations, allowing builders and developers to sell shoebox-style housing at mansion-style prices?
When Sinn Féin refers to Fine Gael being bad for your health, is it talking about good republicans who limit the funds available for health spending by not paying taxes? If it wins more than 20 or 30 seats, will the members believe their law has come?
Fianna Fáil wants an Ireland for all. For all what? All Fianna Fáilers? All vulture capitalists and upward-only rent collectors? All tent-pitchers? All Jean-Claude Trichet enthusiasts?
Labour is standing up for Ireland’s future. Sadly, last time around, it told the electorate it was standing up for Ireland’s present. That doesn’t seem to have worked out too well. The advantage of standing up for the future is that you can do it forever and there are no consequences.
Spin. Is that what the parties are taking the electorate for? – Yours, etc,
DERMOT
SHINNERS-KENNEDY,
Ballysimon,
Limerick.
Sir, – As we have so many citizens, groups, political entities and the general media being so vociferous about what certain people should get as an entitlement, perhaps we should declare the dawn of a new age, “The age of entitlement”?
People somehow believe that the answer to their wants should appear out of thin air, without any financial or other input, apart from their outrage. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FOX,
Galway.
Sir, – The latest opinion polls may be an indication of a gravitational wave in the government’s fiscal space! – Yours, etc,
ANNE O’REILLY,
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.
A chara, – Having been generally seen as the clear winner of the leaders’ TV3 debate, Micheál Martin found himself the subject of attacks from Fine Gael and Labour. Now with the news that Sinn Féin has risen by 3 per cent in the latest poll, no doubt the two government parties will focus their energies on attacking that party. And of course the smaller parties and Independents are arrogantly dismissed, probably because that is easier than having to face some of the real and crucial issues that they raise.
This sort of campaigning is nothing short of pathetic. After five years of Fine Gael/Labour government, income inequality is more pronounced than ever, our hospitals are overcrowded and under-resourced and there is a crisis of homelessness. Yet both Fine Gael and Labour apparently want us to forget that they have been in government since 2011. The simple fact is that the society we have now is a result of their governance and their decisions.
The government chose to have one of the shortest election campaigns in recent history. No doubt this tactic is meant to limit the amount of time that the electorate has to ask questions regarding the past five years of medical card cuts, Garda controversies and broken promises.
And also to reduce the risk of the empty mantra of “recovery” becoming tiresome.
I hope, however, that when it comes to voting time that people recognise the fact that we do not live in an economy, we live in a society, and this government has spent the last five years dismantling the society we live in. – Is mise,
SIMON O’CONNOR,
Crumlin,
Dublin 12.