Sir, – Full credit to Derek Scally on his excellent critique of Irish economic punditry (“How clueless Irish pundits misrepresented Germany”, Opinion & Analysis, September 16th).
Furthermore, on the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, which accelerated the collapse of an already terminal Irish economy, it is worth considering a couple of counterfactuals.
Should a more prudently managed Irish economy have successfully weathered the financial and euro zone crises, what would have been our collective reaction to Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bailout requests?
Would Irish taxpayers have happily opened the national cheque book, or might we in fact have behaved in a similar vein to current euro zone creditor countries, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland? Food for thought. – Yours, etc,
MARK WILLIS,
Sanderstrasse,
Berlin.