Committing treason against our grandchildren

An excellent letter published recently in the Irish Independent newspaper. Treason is a very accurate word.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/committing-treason-against-our-grandchildren-3364324.html

• Kicking the can down the road sounds like an amusing solution to Ireland's problems, but the reality is no joke.

The Fianna Fail/Green government committed acts of economic stupidity equivalent to treason by absolving the gambling debts of banks, builders, developers and other scoundrels, and making Irish taxpayers liable for these debts.

What the current Fine Gael/Labour Government is doing is even worse.

Instead of cancelling the crazy bank guarantees and then dealing courageously with the resulting economic crisis, it has adopted the cowardly option of just blaming the previous government and then continuing along the same crazy, unsustainable road.

Instead of marching a road of solidarity with our supposed European Union allies, it is marching down a road to Hell or to the fiscal Cliffs of Moher, doing as much damage along the way as Cromwell did a few centuries ago.

Ireland now has the highest rates of emigration and suicide since the Famine times.

Government ministers are falsely claiming that they will save billions of euro by extending the period of repayment into the distant future.

This is simpleton economics – treating the people of Ireland like simpletons hoping that they won't understand that increasing the duration of our debt repayments will greatly increase the long-term Irish debt burden.

However, the reality is even worse than this.

Our present generation of mainly older, reckless spendthrift leaders and gamblers are imposing this unjustified debt burden on our grandchildren and on to generations as yet unborn.

Surely, this is worse than treason.

Dr Edward Horgan
Castletroy, Co Limerick