Madam, – I am an engineer living in Australia for the past three years. Like most ex-pats I dream about some day maybe making that trip back home. When recently accused by a close friend of abandoning my country when it needs its youngest and brightest the most, I was outraged. I think I heard that line about my country needing me before, at an ardfheis, only I can’t remember if it was Bertie Ahern or Willie O’Dea who was saying it.
Is this the same country that refused to invest in health, education, infrastructure or its youth during its greatest economic decade in history that I have abandoned? Or the one that gave funny money to the masses so they could buy houses and more houses? Or the one that insulates those who reduced us to economic rubble? Ah yes, it’s the same country, all right, that elects 166 TDs every five years to shake hands at funerals, do favours for publicans and rezone land for “social development” reasons.
The same country where most manual labourers are now idle, its white-collar crooks sipping champagne in Marbella or evading taxes in Portugal. A few “hangers- on” are devising new “regulations” to “make sure this never happens again”.
The people get what they deserve, like the government they elect. Those unwilling to accept a duff, crooked system have opted out. – Yours, etc,