NAMA

The IrTimes has a good article on NAMA that seems right “on the money” about this scheme. (And I use the word ‘scheme’ advisedly.)

My biggest worry in all of this is not the sucess or failure of the scheme. It is not whether we are set for 10 years stagnation or 18 months of radical surgery. It is not about the inequity of the proposed solutions.

It is that democracy and peoples faith in the State will be eroded, regardless of the outcome, by a process that was imposed on them. The second biggest financial decision ever made it this State (after the Bk G’tee) will have huge consequences for the people for the next 15-20 years (especially if it goes wrong).

Yes, the Govt. has every legal right to govern and to take this course of action. However, morally and politically, it would be better to consult the people, if only to copperfasten their commitment to it.

For a long while, the Irish people had an ambivalent attitude to their new self-governing status. Putting one over on the authorities was culturally legitmate, as anything coming from the ‘big house’ was regarded as an imposition. The recent tribunals, our EU membership and prosperity had eroded but not killed this tendency.

The perception that the Govt. is taxing the  public heavily in order to rescue the insiders friends in the banks and developer clique is a hugely retrograde step in the cultural and political growth of this post colonial society.

What was the point in fighting for our freedom if we do not get an opportunity to make these decisions for ourselves.

Good luck to us all – we are going to need it.