Irish in the United States slam corruption back home

Diaspora saddended by the crooked deals in Ireland

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Prime Minister Brian Cowen

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News of the IMF/EU bailout for Ireland has trickled across the Atlantic and into the souls of Irish immigrants, some of whom are undocumented, stirring a startling realization that their homeland is in trouble and at the moment not a place for them to go back to.

Marie is from Dublin but living in Brooklyn for the past 10 years (she is undocumented) said, “Seeing what is happening in Ireland has reconfirmed the very difficult decision to stay living illegally in the U.S.”

Said Marie, “Living in a country that has fallen from boom to bust in one fell swoop is horrible, depressing and unnerving, leaving everyone with a massive feeling of trepidation and that’s not my cup of tea.”

Marie said witnessing her family go through the recession is difficult.

“I’ve had aunts and uncles say to me that if they were 10 years younger, they would simply pack up and walk away, the outlook is so dire.”

“Though it’s very sad, humiliating and embarrassing that it has come to this, the reality is that the IMF intervention has been needed in Ireland for years,” she added.

Marie feels the IMF/EU bailout will “eliminate the corruption and the cronyism” that has been rampant in Ireland for years and was allowed “fester into this current disaster.”

Echoing the same sentiments of thousands of people living in Ireland, Marie feels that “Fianna Fail along with the banking institutions” have ruined Ireland for generations to come and “they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Marie blames Taoiseach Brian Cowen for the mess Ireland finds itself in.

“He lied until the very last minute about what was actually happening, but he has had his hands all over this fiasco since the very beginning, as minister for finance and then taoiseach,” she said angrily.

Helen Diggs who is from Co. Louth and been living in Texas for 24 years, said Ireland’s economic situation got out of hand a long time ago.

“It was crazy over there. Things were so expensive, so expensive in fact it meant that we couldn’t afford a trip home since 2005,” said Diggs via email on Tuesday.

Diggs recalls the beginning of the Celtic Tiger and how many of her friends both in Texas and in New York (where she lived for a period of time before moving to Texas) returned to Ireland for prosperity.

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