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Hey, this is the archive section. Pick a year, pick a month, have a nosey.

Shortie

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Has the Emerald Isle lost it's sparkle?

22-11-2010
So unless you have been living in a bubble this weekend you are bound to have heard the news about the Irish government applying for assistance from Europe and the IMF. As well as this I am pretty sure almost everyone in the country has watched one of the political shows debating the issues for most of yesterday. They dominated most of the Irish channels and at least all of the British news channels so it was pretty hard to miss.

I won't get into the in's and out's of it all as I am sure everyone is sick of hearing about it, listening to it, watching it and reading about it. It is after all, everywhere you look at the minute. The whole country has been swallowed up in a huge cloud of doom and gloom.

The pessimistic attitude is unfortunately probably the right one to have. After all we have been lead up the garden path one to many times with promises of 'we are turning a corner', 'we have weathered the worst of it', and even as recently as Thursday, 'we are not applying for assistance from Europe or the IMF'. Really? So that visit to Dublin from the IMF during the week was what exactly? A pop over for a wee cup of tea and a pat on the back for how well you have royally screwed up this country? I doubt it.

I am not taking political sides on this either - each party is as bad as the other when it comes to being more interested in trying to get the top honchos job than actually coming up with viable policies and solutions to get us out of this mess. If all the parties spent less time involved in school yard bickering and more time studying the economic crisis and how to cut our insane deficit then perhaps we wouldn't be in such a huge hole.

The reality is everyone, and I mean everyone, was happy to turn a blind eye to the wrong doings when the country was swimming in money. Every single political knew the bubble had to burst at some point but did that mean anyone ever uttered the phrase 'perhaps we should safe guard ourselves against a looming recession'? You can bet that last few euro in your pocket that they didn't. And now look at us. We are the laughing stock of Europe and possibly the world at this very moment in time. Somehow we have ended up in a worse situation than Greece - a country that could not pay off their deficit - we are actually in a worse position now. Pitiful.

For all this and so much more, the Irish people have the right to take a stand. The French people were practically able to bring the country to a halt when they decided they didnt want the pension age raised. Just imagine what we are able to do given the hurt and humiliation we have incurred. And yet a mere 50 people stood outside government buildings last night to voice their anger. 50 people.

Not that I can sit here and criticize those who didn't bother to do anything because I am the very same. I was tucked up in bed watching one of those many political shows and tut tut tutting at the severity of the situation. But like so many others I am just tired of it all. Tired of the constant dire news, tired of the political lies and tired of dreading each December when budget time comes. We should have taken a stand a long time ago, before it got to this stage. Before we lost the will to care anymore. The Emerald Isle has lost it's sparkle and I think it will take a long long time to get it back again.

As I said last night, the country is a lost cause for the foreseeable future, the last one to leave, please turn out the lights.

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