Madam, - The value of the proposed bail-out in the US is equivalent to $2,000 per US citizen. The Irish bail-out could be worth up to €125,000 per man, woman and child. If US citizens won't accept their bail-out, why should we accept something a hundred times larger?
The Government's action is nothing more or less than a huge reward, underwritten by taxpayers, to banks for foolish lending, to the Financial Regulator for failing to regulate, and to its beloved construction industry.
It does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problems which the banks, Government and construction industry jointly created over the last five years by building, selling and financing grossly over-priced houses and commercial property.
This is the AIB and ICI rescue repeating itself. Where are the restrictions on bankers' remuneration? Where are the equity stakes? Why should Irish taxpayers guarantee to bail out a bank that stupidly financed an overpriced property development in Dublin, London or Germany or made billions by conspiring with house builders to lock hundreds of thousands of young purchasers into huge mortgages for the rest of their working lives?
Irish households are among the most heavily borrowed in the world but, instead of helping them, the Government is giving guarantees worth a multiple of the Irish economy's annual output to the Irish banks. This, on top of the hammering that households can expect in the coming budget. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Ardmeen Park,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
***
Madam, - I am shocked that this State is now exposed to more than €400 billion in bank liabilities - which the bank's themselves chose to undertake. I am shocked that this has been done with no democratic debate and without the terms and conditions being settled and made public.
Why do we not know these terms? Are we going to be guaranteeing the banks' outrageous profits too? Will bank executives still get their bonuses and perks? - Yours, etc,
TOM CONROY,
Maxwell Road,
Dublin 6.
***
Madam, - I heard with amazement that the Government is going to help the banks survive their own mismanagement to the tune off €400 billion. The people who run these banks receive massive salaries and bonuses and yet they are still rewarded when things go wrong.
Our local school in Clondalkin, Gaelscoil na Camóige, where 225 children study in second-hand huts which are over 18 years old, has just failed yet again to make the schools building programme. Imagine what a new school would do for the long-term future of the children of Clondalkin.
It's pretty clear where Government interests lie. - Yours, etc,
PAUL DORAN,
Monastery Walk,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.
***
Madam, - I find it barely credible that the Minister for Finance can give our ailing banks a guarantee worth 10 times the national debt before having a debate or a vote in Dáil Éireann.
Whatever Mr Lenihan says, this guarantee is real and the state of the market would suggest that the probability of it being invoked is significant. How will the Government explain to my children that they mortgaged their future to prop up institutions that have been gambling in the global banking casino for the past 10 years and are now turning to the poor taxpayer as their gambling debts become due?
It would be far better to let the market decide who survives and to hope for a return to real banking, where institutions actually hold reserves sufficient to tide them through difficult times. - Yours, etc,
DENIS BEARY,
Naas,
Co Kildare.