Brian Cowen: “I can’t sleep because of the state of the country”

BRIAN COWEN WRITES: “Dear Brian Barrington, I’m having difficulty sleeping at night. I just don’t know what to do about the state of the country. That fecker Eamon Gilmore is having a field day. Even gormless Enda Kenny is making the most of it. I read your frightening post about Ireland’s external debt ( http://brianbarrington.blogspot.com/2009/02/ireland-and-debt_03.html ). The interest rates we need to pay on debt are going through the roof. I sometimes fear that anti-European Anglo-Saxon speculators are targeting Ireland, and trying to drive us out of the Eurozone. But what can I do?”

BRIAN BARRINGTON, PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELLOR TO THE STARS, REPLIES: You can’t do anything. You can look like you are doing something. But actually you can’t do anything. However, don’t worry. I predict that, just at the moment when it seems that all is lost, and the country has gone irrevocably bankrupt, a hero will come blazing across the sky and save us all. That hero will go by the name of … Germany. Ireland will be bailed out, possibly along with the other basket-case euro economies (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) by the European Central Bank and the Germans, along with a token contribution from the other 10 or so decent eurozone economies. But this bailout will come at an enormous price – we will need to more-or-less surrender control over our economy and our country to Berlin, Brussels and Frankfurt. The price of the bailout will involve:

• A dramatic increase in Irish taxes, to put us in line with other eurozone countries. Including an end to our low corporation tax. This will put an end to Ireland’s tax-haven status. Henceforth we will actually have to earn money by hard-work, productivity and other traditional methods.

• We will have to hand over control of all our banks to the Germans, and slash the pay of top bankers. There is a danger that our top bankers will respond to these cuts in pay by “taking their talent elsewhere”. For example, for destroying Anglo-Irish Bank, Sean Fitzpatrick got paid millions euro a year, and now he gets a pension of 550,000 euro a year (personally, I would have been prepared to destroy the bank for a mere 200,000 euro a year myself). But there is a danger that people like Sean Fitzpatrick will take their entrepreneurial zeal elsewhere. That will be one of the sacrifices we will have to make for handing over control of our banks to the Germans.

• We will have to decrease public spending. The pay of public servants (as well as professionals like lawyers and doctors) will need to be brought in line with that of other eurozone economies. By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, that will mean a pay-reduction of about 35%.

• We will have to vote Yes to Lisbon. You may recall that last year, in a fit of astounding collective national stupidity, we Irish voted No to Lisbon in order to “teach our European colleagues a lesson” or something of that sort. This kind of adolescent hubris and self-delusion will now become a thing of the past.

Should we be worried about handing over control of our economy to the Germans? Given the mess that we have made of it ourselves, I can personally face this eventuality with equanimity.