Irish leader Enda Kenny to deliver first 'state of the nation' address in 25 years

Dear Editor and reader: The Comment @ 10.35 below was not posted by Towngate.

If the Irish people aren't responsible for the mess, why is insisting on them paying for it through tax and social welfare cuts. Go after the fat cats, Enda! Or are you another Tea-shock who represents a privileged minority whilst pretending to be a man of the people.

Perfect time to make Ireland, A nation once again.

Best wait to hear what he has to say., but meanwhile, @Gob: what he 'inherited' was his own Party's support of the Finance Bill before the FF Government imploded. It follows therefore,that he colluded with Cowan to pull the wool over the peoples eyes to hide the fact that the country was skint and begging from 'Europe'! ~ ~ ~ "Uneasy lies the head that wears the Crown" indeed, and there are plenty biding their time,ready and waiting to knock it off!

So it's all Lehman Brothers fault? The Irish banking system was in deep trouble way before September 15, 2008, but their bankers weren't competent enought to realize this. 'Main suppliers of funds to european banks', I assume means banks in the US. The US banking system did not collapse. The US treasury provided a trillion dollars to the system to ensure that banks in the states has sufficient funding and I believe all this has been repaid. The 'Celtic Tiger' was a fairytale told to the Irish people by BBertie, Cowen and their cohorts. It was fueled by borrowed money, often on hugely inflated property prices and sentiment from your then taoiseach that the party would continue forever, that 'he did not know how people who engaged in moaning (warning) about the economy did not commit suicide'. Prudent management of Ireland between 2000 and 2009 would probably have resulted in a far better situation there now. Irish incompetence caused the collapse of their economy, they didn't need any help from the US.

I wonder will he publicly berate the Irish people in the same vein that he berated the Vatican and tell us Irish that we HAVE to “get it” and continue to dance to the Troika’s tune...?

@ gobdawpaddy – the collapse of the Irish economy was largely due to the collapse of American companies like Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Don’t distort history. When the main suppliers of funds to European Banks collapsed, and no others were available to resupply Irish Banks, so did the Icelandic, Irish, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese economies just as are others now emerging, like Belgium and Hungary. What’s Enda Kenny’s speech tonight going to do to rectify that? Nada – a waste of good TV time.

Not sure what Mr Kenny can say to his people but I wish him and his government the very best in their endeavors to sort out the mess they inherited. I hope the Irish people understand that it took at least 8 years of mismanagement to get them into it and it will take time to rectify the situation. I predicted to Irish friends shortly after their election that the Irish electorate would be moaning by the end of the year that their new government hadn't sorted things out and that this crowd are no different to the other lot. I encountered precisely this during a visit last week. Of course not much is different in this country in relation to president OBama,s efforts to turn our economy around. The jobs number last friday does offer a ray of hope.