“We share the same concerns as the ordinary members of the public. We see a few people who are in receipt of huge salaries who have mismanaged and driven our economy and our country almost to the edge of bankruptcy and they seem to be getting off scot-free.
Our colleagues and the ordinary workers out there will for years have to pay for this incompetence through pay cuts and levies and we can’t understand how these people have been allowed to get away scot-free
They receive huge salaries that you couldn’t even dream about and huge bonuses and they are motivated by one thing – greed. And we feel this should be dealt with.”
(Morning Ireland, 3rd report).
Is this Joe Higgins talking, is it a radical union leader, is it a revolutionary student?
No, it’s Joe Dirwan, General Secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors talking about his members participation in the anti government protest march at the weekend and expressing his deep anger towards that same government for allowing greedy bankers to walk away with the loot.
The message? Politicians, watch your backs.
I think its already started. See:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0224/breaking39.htm
Also: excellent letter in today’s Irish Times
Madam, – Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan says he has no wish to follow Labour and “mire us all in mediocrity” (Dáil Report, February 18th). He clearly does not read your Letter columns or he would realise that many of us would view the mire of mediocrity as a great leap forward.
Your correspondents are not railing against mediocrity. They are railing against: the mire of floundering leadership; the mire of ignorance; the mire of profligate waste; the mire of “pulling strokes”; the mire of Government dithering; the mire of cronyism; the mire of cynicism and embitterment; the mire of denial and delusion, of blather and “tough decisions”; the mire of pessimism; the mire of hubris; the mire of injustice; the mire of incompetence; the mire of despondency and dejection; the mire of social unrest.
Then there is the inability to make a moral judgment, the alarming and reckless exposure to endless debt, the lack of “regulation”, the loss of trust, the fears of the vulnerable, the hopelessness of the unemployed, the lost opportunities.
Some are born mediocre, some achieve mediocrity and for some, at best, mediocrity remains just an aspiration. – Yours, etc,
PAT MURPHY,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.