Sir, – Your Editorial (May 29th) could only make sense to someone wilfully viewing the world, not as it is, but as they would like it to be. All European countries have had to endure austerity; indeed the citizens of Ireland have endured it more than most and have endured it with such fortitude that our media, political class and EU partners have all highly praised us for our commendable meekness.
If austerity and balancing the books are so good and necessary, why should Northern Ireland be exempt? If austerity is not so good or necessary, then why have we had to suffer so much? If, as you write, devolution is “simply the freedom to implement someone else’s budget”, do you not think that, with Frankfurt and Berlin overseeing our budgets, that under your criterion we are also running a devolved parliament in Dublin? Sinn Féin, you write, will have to decide, “which is more important to them, the veneer of self-rule, or trying to protect welfare recipients”. It might help Sinn Féin to remember that when we were faced with the same choice, we chose with an unedifying enthusiasm the “veneer of self-rule”.
In order to save Northern Ireland’s devolved institutions from collapse and to show a southern willingness to put our hands deep into our pockets, could the Taoiseach not make a trip to Stormont and offer to make up any shortfall in the budget, so welfare recipients in Northern Ireland won’t have to suffer Tory cuts, or would that gesture first have to be approved by Frankfurt? – Yours, etc,
KEVIN RYAN,
London.