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We need to take the financial pain sooner not later. Our own greed and apathy created this crisis. If we delay or are slow (already we are slow) correcting the public finances, we're just building up debt for our children to deal with.
HardWorkingEejit
annonomus : Undoubtedly there are people who cannot carry much of this burden, myself included, but passing it onto our children is not the answer. If we let the politicians off the hook now, they will pass it onto the shoulders of our children.
Make the big earners take the hit now (as well as fighting to have some of it cancelled anyway) like Noel Thomas Martin said.
HardWorkingEejit
Errror111 : We the people of Ireland continually re-elected FF governments and so WE (the people of Ireland collectively) are responsible for the mess.
Certainly not our children.
errror111
Your obviously a FF voter. Maybe you deserve to take the financial pain but I don’t.
Please refrain from saying “we” in your posts, if your greed and apathy caused this crisis then say so but we did not as I did not get greedy
annonomus
We've been taking the pain for the last 3 years. I don't know how much more pain YOU are able to take but my family, including myself, really can't take anymore and we shouldn't have to!
HardWorkingEejit
Our national debt has (at least) 2 elements. The scandalous (without our permission) Banking Debt & the ongoing 'living beyond our means' (still 20 billion per year ?) - government overspending.
The banking debt, I would have no problem taking a tough stance on, and agree we should.
Perhaps, any new government should consider a referendum - revoking the actions of the current government over the past few years because they had no mandate for the decisions they took - and anyone who loans money to ... more
Our national debt has (at least) 2 elements. The scandalous (without our permission) Banking Debt & the ongoing 'living beyond our means' (still 20 billion per year ?) - government overspending.
The banking debt, I would have no problem taking a tough stance on, and agree we should.
Perhaps, any new government should consider a referendum - revoking the actions of the current government over the past few years because they had no mandate for the decisions they took - and anyone who loans money to someone who's been ripping us off can hardly expect us to honour those debts.
The rest of the debt should not, in my opinion, be dis-honoured. We are taking this money and spending it, and we have no justification for asking the lenders to take a hit on that.
Either way, None of this debt should fall to our children, it isn't nonsense, its perfectly good sense. Our mess. Our job to clean it up, and the sooner the better.
Noel Thomas Martin
Nonsense. Certainly the debt incurred by our government without seeking the permission of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland, should not be passed on to our children. There are other options such as was taken by Argentina some years ago when they defaulted and offered to pay 25 cents to the Dollar which was accepted. Brazil and Mexico also defaulted and the IMF had to negotiate with them on terms that was acceptable to those countries.
Robert Browne
Try explaining to your children that the reason their lives are going to be tarnished before they even begin is because nasty people in the country constantly believe that the must be paid the biggest salaries in the world. Include this line when you are telling them stories about Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Explain to him that the 40 theives divide their time between Liberty Hall and Government Buildings.