Labour totally out of touch
Madam — I read with interest Minister Rabbitte’s article, ( Sunday Independent, December 16, 2012). By the time I finished reading it, my interest had turned to disappointment and anger. The content is typical government spindoctoring and clearly written by an individual or group of individuals utterly disconnected from the reality of life in Ireland today.
He began: “How quickly we forget.” I would suggest the only people who quickly forget what has happened in this country are those on inflated, undeserved and outrageous salaries, pensions and expenses, a category to which ministers and politicians clearly belong. Those not in that category — the vast majority of Irish people — have not only not forgotten what happened, but continue to experience the devastating impact of what happened on a daily basis.
The Labour Party, in implementing and overseeing highly regressive and blatantly unfair decisions since coming to power, has demonstrated a frightening willingness to abandon everything it stands for.
Pat Rabbitte makes reference in a negative manner to a Labour TD walking off the battlefield while arguing that praise should be heaped on those who remain. Sticking with the current flawed approach is the equivalent of First World War generals insisting that sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers over the trenches to a certain death was a sound military strategy.
Minister Rabbitte seems to believe that the only reason the NTMA has recently been able to sell Irish bonds on the open market is the restoration of confidence in the country. There is an element of truth in this but the primary reason the bond issues were oversubscribed is because the NTMA has offered the subscribers one of the highest interest rates to be found anywhere in the world.
In saying that the big disappointment so far is jobs, he has the nerve to quote a tiny reduction in the official Irish unemployment figures as if this somehow validates current Government policy.
The only reason Irish unemployment is not up towards 20 per cent is because of the scale of emigration.
He bemoans the fact that Labour has provided the media with “internal dramas”. His own unbecoming and undignified comments about Colm Keaveney proved to be particularly unhelpful in this regard.
And he is wholly incorrect when he states that, “we have managed, on balance, to make the adjustment in a fair manner”. The fact that the 2012 and 2013 Budgets have been regressive in nature completely disproves his earlier comment that “what Labour is doing in Government is working to shape a national recovery strategy grounded on our values, so that we do get a recovery and that we get it in a way which is as fair as possible”.
Noel Wardick, Clontarf Branch Labour Party