Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When we told Bundestag finance committee members that, if the scale equivalent of the losses in our system put on the Irish people was actually put on the German people, it would have come to €1.3 trillion and their eyes were like saucers. It was not the established members of our finance committee who made this point but some of us outliers who had paid our own way to the meeting. When we made these points, the Chairman asked us to keep it down because he did not want to upset their view of us as the best boy in the class. The Irish people would have been gobsmacked if they had seen it.

It is not right. The lives of 1.5 million people have been turned inside out as a result of a credit-pyramid bubble leading to an asset-price bubble that has collapsed. Last Saturday’s marches were not just about water rates but also about household mortgages. It is like the gathering on a boil before it bursts. We are at that point.

This is the narrative that has to be told. The press has not done us proud. It has been busy chasing the bones of what story can grab a headline, instead of sitting down in a disciplined way to measure stuff. With the authority of correct measurement and causality, accountability and responsibility, one then begins to see one’s way out of the dark blizzard in the forest.

In the meantime, however, too many people are hurting, which is plainly and simply wrong. We have got to stop.

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