Sir, – Noel Whelan is right when he highlights the fact that decisions made by powerful foreigners such as British chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, US treasury secretary Jack Lew, president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and US federal reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen have a big influence on how the Irish economy performs ("Fine Gael's new mantra is built on a false premise", Opinion and Analysis, January 15th).
He, however, overstates his case.
Ireland went bust despite being in the same currency union as many other countries that did not go bust. In addition, Ireland and Greece had to be bailed out at about the same time, but Ireland is now in a different place to Greece .
As we have seen prior to the bust and since, our own democratic and financial institutions do have a lot of control, despite the powerful influence of foreign markets and institutions. – Yours, etc,
A LEAVY,
Sutton,
Dublin 13.