The Celtic Tiger

The Celtic Tiger has turned into a Celtic kitten. Over the last 3 years The Irish economy has imploded. The growth in the boom years was based on the property market but this has subsequently collapsed. Property prices in Ireland have fallen by around 50%. This has left the Irish banks with a problem as they lent huge sums to property developers and to the public in the form of unaffordable mortgages. As a result of this the banks needed a bail out by the Irish government of £39bn. This has subsequently resulted in an Irish budget deficit equal to 32% of its GDP.

So why has the UK agreed to ‘loan’ Ireland £7bn at a time that our economy is a mess and we are making huge cuts to our public services?

RBS has loaned £53bn to Northern Ireland. As RBS is a semi-nationalised bank the loan is insured by UK tax payers. If the economy of the Republic of Ireland goes under it’ll end up costing the UK a lot more than the £7bn we’re ‘loaning’ them. This is all due to the fact that the Northern Ireland economy is so heavily reliant on trade with the Republic.

So we are bailing out badly run banks using tax payer’s money at the expense of public services again. This time it isn’t even our own banks! I don’t want us to ‘loan’ Ireland more money than the entire amount Osborne wants to save by destroying the benefits system but we haven’t got much choice. We can’t afford to let Ireland go under but we can’t afford to save it either.

This is just another example in a long line of Capitalist created economic disasters. Our democracy has yet again been hijacked by a small group of highly influential bankers. They have a power over their fellow men and women that few governments have yet they are unelected and unrepresentative.

We need a voice again. It’s time for people to stand up and demand some self control over their own economic futures. The economy should be run by the people for the people.