Stephen Donnelly, the TD for Wicklow and EastCarlow, has an interesting article on the debt issue in today's Sunday Independent. In it he quotes Michael Noonan whilst in opposition addressing the then finance minister Brian Lenihan: "The Minister for Finance (Brian Lenihan) reduced social welfare payments, punished the blind, disabled, widows, carers and the unemployed and he taxed the poorest at work, and for what? It was so that the taxpayer can take on liability for debts the country never incurred and arose from private arrangements between private institutions. What a disaster and an obscenity."
Michael Noonan was right first time around. Taking on the debts of wealthy financial institutions abroad at the expense of poor and vulnerable people in our own country is a disaster and an obsenity and it needs to stop. Not only because of the human misery entailed in denying support to those who need it but also because of the built-in incentivisation in such a policy for these same large financial institutions to do exactly the same thing again in the future. And why wouldn't they? They can't loose. The poor and vulnerable have so far always be there to pick up the tab for them.