John
Fitzpatrick
Doon
Heights
Ballyconnell
Co
Cavan
4th
July 2014
Dear
Editor,
Peter
McConnell (Letters 03/07/14) shares his “humble opinion” that the Quinn family
have no moral right to take their case against the Irish State. He further opines that if they win “it will
be the greatest travesty of justice that the world has ever witnessed”. This is not only nonsense, it is nonsense on
stilts. Perhaps Mr McConnell would like
to reflect on some of the happenings in the world in his own life time; the
Guilford Four, the Birmingham Six were real travesties of justice. A good dose of proportion and reality would
seem to be needed in by this man from Bailieborough.
To
start with I, along with many others in this part of the county would regard it
as a vindication of the Quinn family’s rights legally and morally if and when they win their case. Again Mr McConnell’s hyperbole outruns the
facts when he says that had Sean Quinn’s investment in Anglo worked out Quinn
would be “by a long stretch, the richest man in the world.” Really,
Mr. McConnell? Richer than Donald
Trump, richer than Warren Buffet? Yes he
would have gotten richer and probably also been hailed as the wisest man since
King Solomon. Or as your scribe from
Baileborough put it he would have been proved to be “the shrewdest, cutest, and
best informed businessman this country has ever produced.” Unfortunately that is not what happened and
your letter writer’s capacity for swallowing one narrative for the reasons why
displays a worrying tendency to seek an easy scapegoat in the form of Sean
Quinn and his family.
Mr.
McConnell does return from the edge of reason when he lays most of the blame at
the door of the Financial Regulator (and we might add the politicians who
allowed the light touch regime to operate).
Unfortunately he quickly topples over the edge of reason when he begins
to question the jobs created in Ireland as a whole. Is west Cavan, south Fermanagh and south
Leitrim not worthy to be counted as part of Ireland as a whole? Sean Quinn took on the vested interests in
cement, insurance and glass and turned a forgotten part of Ireland into an
industrial hub. Does Mr McConnell forget
that it was Sean Quinn who saved the health insurance jobs in Clonmel when Bupa
was about to pull out of the Irish market?
Did he never hear of the quarry in Williamstown in Galway which provided
employment in the west of Ireland and has since been closed down by the
enlightened geniuses of the present management team? What of the pubs, hotels and sundry other
businesses all over the country which provided gainful employment for hundreds
if not thousands of people, obviating the need for the plane or the boat?
As
for Mr McConnell’s risible claim that Ireland’s woes, including our loss of
economic sovereignty, are all down to Sean Quinn, well it is precisely that,
risible. I need hardly remind him that
we do still live in a parliamentary democracy governed by the rule of law. In that context it was the elected government
of this country who chose to place such a smothering burden of debt on the
shoulders of Irish men and Irish women.
Sean Quinn said if he was given seven years he would repay every last
penny he owed. He would have been well
on the way to doing that if he had been given the chance. The State, through its various organs, said
no and will have to live with the consequences.
No,
Mr McConnell, your easy scapegoating of one man and his family does not wash
with me, and I believe as the truth comes dropping slow from the courts and
from other sources it will not wash with the majority of fair mined Irish
people.
As
for Sean Quinn and his family still having a roof over their heads and a few
bob in their trousers, well this just smacks of that all too familiar and ugly
Irish trait of begrudgery. In this case
as in all cases, Mr McConnell only one dictum need apply: “Fiat iustitia ruat caelum” – Let justice be done though the heavens
fall!
Yours
sincerely,
John
Fitzpatrick
No comments:
Post a Comment