Austerity’s failure finally acknowledged

THOSE people who have been running the show in the IMF and the European Commission have some cheek. They tell us now, when it is too late, that austerity has not worked and they say it as if it was somebody else that was running the show.

The rest of us, whom they look down on as ordinary dumb folks, have been questioning their grand austerity plans for several years. However, the people who are running the show have not been listening.

You didn’t need a masters in economics or a doctorate in fiscal affairs to know what was clear to the dogs on the street from the start. I barely passed my Leaving Cert in maths and never formally studied economics but I have been pointing out what austerity was doing to the Irish and European economies for the past half-decade.

It has driven thousands of our youngest and brightest out of Ireland and across the seas to Australia, Canada and the United States. It has pushed thousands of others out of their jobs and onto the dole queues up and down the land. It has left others with huge mortgages they cannot afford to pay. It has frightened the old and the most vulnerable out of their wits, as they worry about what else is coming down the tracks.

It has deprived needy families of State allowances and benefits that helped them make ends meet. It has driven others to suicide. I could go on and on ad infinitum about the misery that austerity has caused throughout Europe and especially in countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Ireland.

Now, the authors of our misfortune are at last beginning to own up. Austerity has been the only show in town over the past number of years but it is only in the past week or so that the people who have been running the show have copped onto the situation.

Are they all living in ivory towers or what? Have they not got eyes in their heads? Why could they not see what the rest of us have been seeing? You need only ramble down a town or village street in Ireland or Spain to see all the shops that have been boarded up because they lost all their customers. Why did they lose their customers – because of austerity. Austerity left their customers without a spare euro in their pockets. Have those people in their ivory towers not seen all the dole queues or the anti-austerity protests from Madrid to Athens? Have they not seen all the ghost estates throughout the continent?

This week, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said the European Union should place a greater emphasis on policies that stimulate growth and less on austerity measures like cutting government spending.

What do you think of that now? That’s from the top dog himself. I don’t mean to boast here – I am sure the bulk of my readers have been saying the same for the past four or five years – but how could we all know what Mr Barroso and his colleagues have only discovered now? It baffles and it beats me.

Wouldn’t you think that having made such a dog’s dinner out of the economy that Mr Barroso would now fold his tent and silently steal away? You can bet your last euro that he won’t. Don’t expect to read of any resignations by any of those people who are now admitting that their policies have been an abject failure. They will continue in office, draw their fat salaries that have left them immune to all the rigours of austerity and look forward to their huge pensions when they eventually call it a day.

What kind of a world are we living in that we allow such absurdities to continue? It’s a pity we don’t live in the times of the Old Testament, when fire and brimstone would be dumped on them from on high. Why are we not beating down the doors of the offices that these people occupy and at least demand that they explain themselves?

Their admission has come too late for too many people. It has certainly come too late for those among us who were unable to bear any more and ended it all by taking their own lives. Their families will continue to grieve. Will the ending of austerity now bring back many of those who have settled into new lives in foreign lands? Will the ending of austerity restore what was taken off people in child benefits or carers’ allowances?

Let us see. I would also like to hear the leaders of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour apologise for having blindly followed the orders of their heartless masters in Europe. They were the people who poured austerity down on our heads over the past five years and expected us to be thankful to them for that.

Meanwhile, to local matters, I was somewhat disappointed to read that Brian Meaney had resigned from the Green Party to join Fianna Fáil but I could hardly blame him. The Green Party doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, whereas Fianna Fáil seems to be on the rise once again.

My initial disappointment was centred around the fact that Mr Meaney had spent much of his political life fighting against Fianna Fáil skullduggery and cronyism. Now he has joined the ranks of those he once opposed. Perhaps it is for the best. Perhaps he will be able to convert those in Fianna Fáil who think they can ignore good planning laws when it suits them. They haven’t all gone away, you know.