Sir, – I am glad that Colm Keena (Business, March 20th) has started the debate regarding money flow out of PLCs and into offshore accounts through legitimate transactions, which is probably the most serious aspect of the global economic crisis. What is of even greater significance is that this money is no longer being used within businesses to create growth and employment, but is often landing back as loans to governments through which the taxpayer is seriously abused.
We know that the trend within the Western world is to create social cleansing through austerity, which in turn gives rise to an additional problem that will be brought about by the new farm payments agreed by EU agricultural ministers.
The Western world is awash with offshore money which is resulting in some hedge funds returning money to their clients as they have run out of products in which to invest. The new CAP payments will now provide an investment in Irish land, without need to produce anything from it, which will give the investor a greater interest rate from the EU than could be obtained through a financial institution at present, and provide him/her with a far safer asset.
This has reminded me that when I emigrated in the 1950s I spent a decade in the largest fresh food company in the world and in the 1960s it was hoping to buy very large areas of land in the south east, which I thought was very naive of it considering our history. We have forgotten a lot, so perhaps we will some day once again see a social structure of large foreign landowners and very poor people available to attend to their needs.
It need not be this way, as there are alternative structures available to governments. – Yours, etc,
MONICA MOLLOY,
Carysfort Avenue,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.