Madam, – Maureen Gaffney’s excellent article (“A historic opportunity for historic leadership”, Opinion, April 24th) cites the dangers of the population as a whole entering a vicious cycle of negativity. The best antidote to this national malaise must be to hold a general election. A government with a current mandate to rule may be the catalyst to turn the national psyche around. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Maureen Gaffney fondly imagines that Ireland’s problems are about “confidence” and can be solved by “leadership”. But where exactly is this to come from when the country’s political, financial and “spiritual” elites have all displayed such unqualified moral bankruptcy? The real problem facing Irish society is a vacuum of values, only thinly papered over by rampant materialism.
Ms Gaffney’s use of “we” is distorting and offensive in the light of the glaring lack of “social solidarity”, as highlighted by Stephen Collins in his excellent Inside Politics piece (also Opinion, April 24th). Her article, by contrast, is the purest psychobabble – and I say this as a psychotherapist myself – which sentimentalises Ireland as a client who just needs a bit of support to regain belief in himself. It all sounds like some management motivational seminar, with the Taoiseach himself babbling, “If we all pull together . . .” Except that “we” are now waking up to the fact that we are in a them versus us situation, where “they” constitute the corrupt, cynical and wholly unrepentant cabal that have gleefully screwed the rest of us over for decades and are now asking us to pay a second time for the privilege.
The cosy myth of national consensus has broken down: at long last Ireland is being forced to face up to the underlying realities of class division and inequality.
With this, hopefully, will come grown-up politics, which entails conflict. Instead of premature psychologisation, the focus must be on objective issues such as power, abuse (in all its forms), greed, injustice, accountability and, yes, even retribution: all the criminals must be made to pay. Truth and justice need to come before reconciliation.
As Ms Gaffney herself should know, it is axiomatic in deep clinical work that underlying conflicts in the client need to be acknowledged, expressed and worked through before healing and integration can take place, otherwise one is just covering up the cracks – in this case with atavistic fairytales of national unity. It’s not confidence “we” need but real class politics: therapy must wait. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It seems to me that the reason why we are obsessing about the fiscal crises is that the Government is approaching its resolution in a fundamentally unfair manner, and that affronts our innate sense of equity. – Yours, etc,