Sir, – Too late to be any use, Prof Ashoka Mody, one of the key figures in Ireland's IMF bailout, now admits that we should have burned the bondholders (Report on Morning Ireland RTÉ interview, Home News, April 11th).
At the relevant time, too many voters bought into the gospel that imposing even a partial haircut on bondholders would usher in the end of the financial world, no less; or "contagion", whatever that meant. "We don't know what might happen if we shared losses with bondholders", I was told time and time again in heated conversations with well-educated friends and acquaintances, "but it will be bad, very baa-a-d ". It was like being trapped in a closed-loop episode of Dad's Army with that doomsday Scottish bloke.
The need for logic and reasoning to be taught in schools was never more urgent, and never less likely to happen. – Yours, etc,
SEAN Mac CANN,
Trillick,
Co Tyrone.