Letter: How Ireland's debt punishes her people

The people of Ireland will be struggling against subjugation as never before. People on the dole, assets such as homes devalued, if not repossessed, and a loss of sovereignty which their forefathers struggled so hard to obtain for them. All totally unnecessary, because they are not allowed even to think of the other options which are available to them.

Where will the so-called "money" for the bail-out come from? No matter which postman delivers it, it is the financiers who write the cheques. These invisible masters of the universe do not have real money to give; they give debt on which they collect the cream called interest.

We do not know, at the time of writing, what interest rates will be charged over what periods on what slices of debt. However, I would like to illustrate the seriousness of the situation, by taking a purposely undervalued, simplistic situation of a debt of €85 billion lasting for only one year at 5 per cent interest. The interest alone, in this example, would be €4.25bn.

Now, I admit that my eyes also glaze over in trying to differentiate millions, billions, and trillions; so here is what I do for my own simple mind.

Even with these simplest of figures, if one euro coin were thrown every second of every 24 hours into large tankers moored around Irish shores, it would take 136 years to fill up, just to pay the interest on the debt.

Measured in seconds again, throwing one euro coin per second would take a further 2,720 years to reimburse the capital sum.

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

Ronald Rankin

Coates House

Dalkeith, Midlothian

I'm not surprised Robert Dow (Letters, 29 November) finds national debt baffling. It baffles most of us.

Details of British national debt are on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website and 80 per cent of national debt is internal. It's money borrowed from our own savings, ie we owe it to ourselves.

The ONS website also reveals the net worth of assets owned by the UK at the end of 2008 was 7 trillion, which Isuspect George Osborne knew about even as he made his ridiculous declaration of our bankruptcy.

Not that national debt isn't a problem. If it rises above what lenders expect, then foreigners in particular lose confidence in UK currency. And if that happens then our foreign trade suffers.

A dodgy currency means a decline in trade and lost jobs and a downward spiral into a Zimbabwean-like nightmare with goods disappearing from supermarket shelves. But we are a long, long way off that scenario.

Also, all this despair is avoidable. What's needed is good, sensible government which increases productivity rather than one that puts people out of work.Or indeed, for the Lib Dems, if any remain, to come to their senses, abandon their Tory farce, and return to the progressive side of British politics.

ROBERT VEITCH

Paisley Drive

Edinburgh