Sean Fitzpatrick: Loveable Rogue

SEAN FITZPATRICK WRITES: “Dearest Brian, thank you so much for your kind words of support. In these dark times, I need all the allies I can find. But Brian, I still can’t work out what went wrong. Who is responsible for the current mess that the country finds itself in?”

BB SAYS: Ah Sean, thank you for your lovely letter. You belong to a long tradition of charming Irish scoundrels.

I’m surprised that you haven’t yet worked out who is responsible for the current mess. Especially since you are on the record identifying the cancer that is destroying Irish society: children. Not just children but old people and sick people, particularly the over seventies. You will recall that you recently instructed the Irish government to “tackle the sacred cows of universal child benefit, state pensions and medical cards for the over-70s”. So you spotted who was responsible a long time ago. Of course now that Anglo-Irish Bank is state-owned, your half-a- million Euro a year pension will be, in effect, a state pension. So I think we should limit the focus of our attack on “sacred cows” to children and medical cards for the over seventies. That way we will still be able to afford paying your pension. I’m disappointed that you have declined the opportunity today to bring this message to the special Dail hearing into your dealings.

These are, indeed, dark times. But amongst all the bad news on RTE last night, I noted one glimmer of hope: the station ran a piece telling potential “first-time buyers” (i.e. young people) that “now is the time to buy” because B of I has a scheme to “help first-time buyers to get on the property ladder”. A real estate agent identified the problem very clearly “If we don’t have first-time buyers, it blocks up the whole property market”. As you know only too well Sean, any pyramid scheme is only as good as the people at the bottom of it. “First-time buyers” (i.e. young people) have been at the bottom of this particular pyramid scheme. And there is a danger that young people will work out that if they don’t buy now, property prices will fall even further. Thus, by refusing to buy houses, young people are saving themselves vast quantities of money, which could instead be going to people like you and me. So we need to scare them. It’s heartening to see that RTE is taking its responsibilities as a state broadcaster seriously, and that it is playing its part in trying to scare young Irish people into buying houses. Far too many young people appear to be considering leaving the country – they seem to think that it would be more fun to wait out this recession lying on a beach in Australia. Apparently the new government scheme to help “first-time buyers” get on to the “property ladder” only had four applications, even though the administration costs of the scheme were 290,000 Euro. That’s nearly 75,000 Euro per application. What is wrong with young people these days? Why don’t they want to get on the property ladder?

PS: I see that doom-monger Morgan Kelly has now lost the plot completely http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0217/1224241278003.html