Brian Cowen - Can someone fill that hole please?
I am so angry this morning.
Yesterday I drove through Bandon in West Cork on the way to a client meeting and watched a long queue of men (one woman) outside a Post Office waiting to collect their dole money. Depressing sight.
I watched Alan Dukes of Anglo Irish Bank this morning on Ireland AM in mono tone explaining how the hole gets bigger because the “property” assets keep reducing in value: “we have to protect the depositors!” – who are they, please tell me?
I heard 47yr old Declan Murphy, 4th generation menswear store from Newcastlewest in Co.Limerick passionately talk on Newstalk this morning about how he is taking his wife and 3 kids to Australia because he can’t provide for them here. He is a proud Limerick man but can’t see himself coming back to Ireland.
He made a very simple point, which I believe in strongly ..
Unless we do positive things to generate employment and get things going in this country instead of pumping money into a bottomless pit we will never recover. A “win-win” he called it.
The hole will get bigger unless we treat the symptoms.
We need positive activity (People are more positive but outside of that I see absolutely none, not with banks or government) – that does not mean decisions to pump more money into NAMA and Anglo. It means generating employment, more income for people which will in time generate demand for some of those ghost properties – maybe the hole will get smaller?
Maybe it’s being very simplistic but it does seem very obvious – I wonder what our old friend Willie Sutton would say about it?
Best of luck in Australia Declan, come back and visit your folks sometime.
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications
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