Madam, – Victoria White (Opinion, March 17th) is wrong when she argues that Irish people have a hatred for those with power. The electorate have contempt for the abuse of power and the issue of ministerial cars is but a small manifestation of this. While Eamon Ryan may not have abused his power, he sat in Cabinet for two years with a political party which has done so for more than a decade.
Regardless of the success of his particular ministerial policies, he was party to a whole series of collective choices in Cabinet that will have a long and detrimental impact on Irish society. The decision to socialise all private bank debt and subsequently defend the decision for two years is but one of these.
It is rational to be outraged at those in political power when they make decisions that will strangle generations of Irish people with debt, unemployment and years of emigration. Those in elected office take most of the flak because they are democratically accountable. Perhaps it is time for Irish people to focus their anger on the two remaining actors that have escaped relatively unscathed from public criticism: our elite business class who wasted years of capital and our media who for the most part acted as an uncritical cheerleader to successive Fianna Fáil/PD public policies. – Yours, etc,