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AS NEWS BREAKS of the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has been composing a strongly-worded statement about his former nemesis.
As it happens, the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis will be on in Castlebar, Co Mayo this weekend.
Here’s his statement, released ahead of a 3pm speech he is due to make in Belfast today:
Margaret Thatcher did great hurt to the Irish and British people during her time as British Prime Minister.Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies.
Her role in international affairs was equally belligerent whether in support of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa; and her support for the Khmer Rouge.
Here in Ireland her espousal of old draconian militaristic policies prolonged the war and caused great suffering. She embraced censorship, collusion and the killing of citizens by covert operations, including the targeting of solicitors like Pat Finucane, alongside more open military operations and refused to recognise the rights of citizens to vote for parties of their choice.
Her failed efforts to criminalise the republican struggle and the political prisoners is part of her legacy.
It should be noted that in complete contradiction of her public posturing, she authorised a back channel of communications with the Sinn Féin leadership but failed to act on the logic of this.
Unfortunately she was faced with weak Irish governments who failed to oppose her securocrat agenda or to enlist international support in defence of citizens in the north.
Margaret Thatcher will be especially remembered for her shameful role during the epic hunger strikes of 1980 and ’81.
Her Irish policy failed miserably.
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And dump its financial crap on the taxpayer. But oh no we couldnt have mortgage write downs for regular home owners. The cost of this alone would probably give back financial control to thousands of people who made much less investment error than the so called professionals.
Exactly ! How much will this buy out cost us this time ?
Hopefully they now reduce their SVR by 1.5-2% so that I can spend some of my hard earned cash on myself and family
Hopefully the PTSB will now lower their disgraceful SVR to the same amount as the other state owned bank AIB.. this bank has got some amount of help from the government its the least they could do for us…
It’s a nice thought, but in reality PTSB don’t give a flying f€ck about the mortgage customers being screwed on their SVR and neither do the government.
I’d love to be proven wrong on this but I won’t be holding my breath and I say that as one of those customers.
So will the Government do the same for me? Take my debts, leave me with my assets and money and I can live happy ever after?
How worst off could we be if we just left these banks which are no different than any business, go under?
Move the trackers to IBRC or the “formerly known as Anglo” bank .. The same bank FG said they’d disband if we voted them in. Will they reduce the SVR now as it was kept high to pay for the costly trackers. Will it be trackers which are 0.5% -1% above ECB rate and still performing or just those in arrears? Either way the taxpayer is straddled with the burden while the bank can massage its books to look profitable.
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