Where is Brian Cowen now?

What's even more worrying is that "the people" seem to have learned nothing from this massive mess that we were dropped in to by whoever you care to blame.

"The people" are still voting for teachers on career breaks, barristers, solicitors and the like, and then expecting them to have some sort of idea of how to run a country, when most of them have never worked in real business.

As someone remarked to me a while back,

"Those that can, DO. Those that can't become teachers. Those that can't teach, teach teachers, and the ones that can't teach teachers become politicians"..................

Then there's the subtle issue of letting them STILL get away with paying themselves way over the odds for the job, and having what are probably the most generous allowances and expenses in the western world, and there's been next to no uprising from "the people" to say that this is no longer acceptable.

The Irish attitude towards this was well summed up by words I heard one morning on Gay Byrne, when Joe Duffy was interviewing people around Ballymun when the CJH story first broke "Wasn't he a coot Hoor for getting away with it for as long as he did"

How many TD's have we seen hauled up in front of tribunals or courts for corruption, or graft, or brown envelopes, or similar?

For however long it was, the Brits ruled things, and the attitude became engrained into the Irish Culture, "Feck ye and yer rules".

The Brits lost control nearly a century ago, but the culture is still "Feck ye..........." and as has been clearly demonstrated to the rest of us, it goes to the top.

Massive Pay rises, massive pensions, holidays that are even longer than school holidays ( now there's a surprise), the whole expenses and allowances issues, misuse of Dail facilities and postal service, the list is endless.

When the people see the people at the top doing things like this, and often getting away with it for years, then the reaction is to do the same, and to say little, on the basis that if they all have their snouts in the trough, they won't be looking too closely at what's happening further down the line.

I'm not far off retirement age. My pension has been destroyed. My property is worth next to nothing at this stage, and was meant to have been a lump sum to go into my pension when we downsized. The very few shares I had are worthless. The cash we had saved got ploughed into keeping a business going for a while because we believed Ahern when he told us that "the recession would be short, and the property market will have a soft landing". Yeah, right, we've seen the truth now. Can't unspend the money though

I've been self employed for a good while, and a number of the companies I used to work for no longer exist. Social Welfare? No chance, they sent me a letter telling me not to even bother signing on. Right now, I am thinking that I will be lucky to retire before I die, the chances of the property market recovering sufficiently for me to downsize and have enough left to buy something smaller after the debts are paid is unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

So, do I despise people like Cowen and Ahern? Damn right I do, because they were only looking out for their own narrow personal agenda, and they did it in ways that secured their own future and security, with no care or interest in what happened to the people that had put them in there to represent them.

What's adds insult to injury is that there is no will or recognition from the latest bunch that are supposedly running the country to do anything to change it, or even to put some of the people responsible behind bars for their activities.

Brutal reality? The republic as presently structured and run has failed. A new republic, and a new political system is needed, with reform from the very bottom of the structure to the top, with laws in place that give the people the power to make politicians accountable for their actions, and something at constitutional level that if more than a certain % of the population sign a petition or similar, the government cannot ignore it, and has to respond within a constitutional time scale, or face sanction.

Probably won't happen in my lifetime, the real people that are running the country, the top civil servants, will do everything they can to make sure that the status quo is not disturbed, the system works too well for them to want it to change any time soon.

Shades of Yes Minister, and Yes Prime Minister. If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny that it's been allowed to happen for so long with so little reaction.