LETTER: Enda's ‘never had it so good' fantasy

SIR – It always appears to me that Gene Kerrigan (Sunday Independent, February 7th) is probably the only commentator who consistently realises and refers to the spin that Enda Kenny puts on his fantasy notion of we never having had it so good since he and the other geniuses took over the reins of government. The opposite is the case and we, as citizens and taxpayers, are struggling to survive after we have paid the electric bill. 

Enda is adamant that we are ‘the best little country in the universe to do business in.’ If he means that multi-nationals can name their price to their own advantage, then he is right on that score.

But we’re not flying it, are we? Just take into account the rubbish of us heading for ‘full employment’ and all of the great jobs created in the past five years. Where the hell are these well-paying permanent jobs and the people who can attest to this boom? 

Nowhere – because between the juggling of unemployment figures and the shoving of people into dead-end minimum-paid part-time zero hours contract jobs and State schemes which take the numbers off the live register, life in Ireland is every bit as tough as it was when Enda said they were going ‘to hit the ground running.’ Ground to a halt before falling flat, more like.

Nothing much has changed since the Fianna Fáil days of incompetence and, for Enda to say the bad old days are behind us, is like Sinn Fein saying the IRA and their guns have gone away. Both statements are totally at variance with reality. 

The banks and Brussels-Berlin are our rulers. We have their puppets in the Dail, who never represent us; rather they deliver dictatorial messages for the EU, eagerly implemented.

It’s not the false economy, stupid (?); it’s the lack of respect for the naked truth and consequently the people of this so-called republic who know even that at surface level, such talk of joyous recovery is nonsense. Enda and his government see the passage of time as excuse enough to change the narrative rather than admit the ongoing major crisis in the finances of the Irish people. 

Thanks to the dying breed of real reporters like Mr Kerrigan, who abhor the political correctness of hyping up the status quo as something dynamic and new in our dire situation, we can be sure of the truth, no matter how often Enda and his cohorts continue gilding the silly. Shouldn’t those emigrants who are ill advised by Kenny to return to his land of hope and glory to take up wonderful employment, be warned to think again, because if they were on the dole when they left, they won’t even get that if they return to non-existent jobs suitable to their skills and qualifications?

Sorry, but living in Ireland, if searching for real work, is just not that great – it is the very opposite to success. We’re a great little country all right, but only if we can afford to live here and not have to depend on crumbs from the tables of our masters.

Robert Sullivan,

Bantry.