Sir, – From what I can see, the President is challenging the prevailing narrative, that our economic "success" is a result of the extreme austerity policies implemented in this country since 2010. This is a view that the establishment and, it seems, Cliff Taylor are happy to espouse ("Mr President, is economic recovery not a good thing?", Opinion & Analysis, October 31st). We've swallowed the bitter medicine and now we are to be rewarded for our "sacrifice". However, only last month Colm McCarthy suggested that our recovery is not, in fact, based on austerity policies, but rather on a combination of a weakened euro and our traditional close trading ties with Britain and the US, economies showing real recovery. In effect, we seem to be "piggybacking" on the genuine success of their recoveries which, notably, were based mainly on stimulus rather than austerity. Recently Patrick Honohan suggested something similar, saying that our recovery was being exaggerated and was based on the strong growth figures of multinational companies.
It would be very convenient for the Government to have us believe that you can cut your way out of a recession, even one as deep and prolonged as ours.
If you want to see the real effects of Europe’s austerity programme, you only have to look at the other euro zone countries and their moribund economies to see that it doesn’t work. Or maybe, as we like to believe, we are a special case. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN DOHERTY,
Wicklow.