This Is Not About The Water Charges

The last street protest about water rates may be dwarfed by the planned one for this Saturday, but it is not about the water charges. It is about something deeper and the beginning of that sense of outrage that had been missing in this country since the obese Cowen and the crafty Bertie retired from the public stage while pocketing over €300,000 of a send off along with a €3000 a week pension each as a reward for the biggest failure of economics that was intertwined with corruption in the history of this country as a banana republic. Bananas is maybe all we will have in the end.

Fianna Fail, the party that these two dangerous idiots belonged to and headed, had started the tradition of corruption in this country and it has never abated since for it is now so deeply ingrained that it is institutional. The people, as in the taxpayer and the unemployed, cannot take it anymore for there is nothing to take for that was sold off one way or another in the bank bail out. We truly now are an autocracy whether we believe it or not for it is either the IMF or the EU who calls the shots, whatever way it is dressed up or presented by the weak one that rules today, Enda Kenny.

It is the stealth taxes of a thousand cuts and more that is killing this country; it is also the patronizing way this Government tells us how good we are at taking it all, as if it was some patriotic duty to do so. It is more but it is not about the water charges, never was or will be. The sense of outrage has at last, even if curiously belated, has arrived.

The quangos rule, the charities steal, and all in the name of government. Cronyism is in but it was never out. And still, the risk was how much can the Irish take. As I write, the only conviction for corruption in this country by one county councilor is on appeal which, if it is successful, then it is official  that no corruption exists here, move on, nothing to see.

The Police force is also a law unto itself, accountable to no one and the points system is proof of that, and the courts are such a joke that if you want justice you had better look to the EU because that is exactly where these courts look to as well. It is also politically convenient that it was never the government’s fault in any case but EU interference. No point, after 700 years of being ruled by others, including the EU, in getting a backbone now as it would be as pointless as a full ground troop invasion of England itself.

The banksters still rule, Enda for another while and ‘democracy’ a little longer as the people of this land suffer under a private debt without accountability for the corruption that caused it, which has killed a lot of hope in this country and is eroding what is left. We are good little leprechauns indeed.

Barry Clifford