I see that the Minister for Public Expenditure (sic) and Reform Brendan Howlin has asked the public to send him their ideas on how to make €5 billion in public spending cuts over the next three years. Mr. Howlin is a member of the Labour Party, Ireland’s sister party of thePASOK party of Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou who is looking for even bigger cuts in Greek public spending. Like Papandreou, Howlin is touting the line that “things are much worse than we thought” which is the excuse given to people in both Ireland and Greece who thought they were voting for change from a deeply unpopular government which was inflicting vicious hardship upon the people.
Minister Howlin isnt’ interested in hearing from people who are opposed to cuts. He isn’t interested in listening to anyone who suggests that Ireland should stand up to the EU and IMF even though that’s what his party said that they do once they were elected into government. He isn’t interested in hearing from anyone who says that we should cut the banks loose and let them solve the problems they created from himself. No, Brendan Howlin wants the people to tell him how to cut their own living standards even more.
Howlin says that the best suggestions will be published on his departmental website. What he means is that the “right” suggestions will be published. No doubt these will be the type of suggestions already made in abundance by the well-heeled economists, businessmen and by the likes of IBEC, the CIF and the Irish Hotels Federation.
The Daily Staple 