Felonious Strings Attached

The EU-IMF loan deal is humiliating enough for Ireland. It's not unlike an adult who has been self-sufficient for years suddenly being forced to report back to the parents every minute of every day. Where are you going, who are you seeing, when will you be back, what have you bought there, how much did it cost, did you get our permissions before making the purchase.......

What people find even more degrading is the loan on offer from England. Ninety years after breaking free, and there's Ireland at the back door with hat in hand, hoping for a bit of aid.

It shouldn't be a case of begging, when you look back at history. It was English landlords who reaped rich financial rewards off the backs of Irish tenant farmers, and it was English law that drove the Irish into deep poverty. Not so much a loan, then, as reparations for past damages, and Ireland is getting its due.

The English, of course, don't see things that way. They figure they're doing Ireland a huge favor and so Ireland has to do something in return. Ireland is being asked to take the Irish criminals, around 3,000 of them, now incarcerated in English jails and lock them up on home soil.

England is having its own budget issues, and it has every intention of shutting down up to six prisons to cut costs. With that in mind, all foreign nationals currently locked up are to be sent back from whence they came, to save British taxpayers a few pounds sterling.

A drowning man can't be choosy about who lifts him out of the drink, and Ireland doesn't have much to say about the strings that will be attached to any loans granted. Already over-crowded prisons will simply have to accomodate another 3,000 bodies.

Plans to close down the 'Joy will have to be cancelled, and deaf ears turned to prisoners who are accustomed to indoor plumbing. Three thousand unhappy felons will discover the unpleasant reality of prison life in the Victorian era, without having to travel back in time. Recent changes in the law will cancel out a prisoner's right to refuse a transfer.

Not that the Brits are going to deport prisoners wholesale. Centuries of occupation have left a mark, and you can bet that England has no intention of shipping IRA volunteers back to a country that doesn't see such men as dangerous criminals.

For those who left Ireland for England during the hard times of the 60's and 70's, the government of Ireland could argue that they aren't really Irish citizens any more and they won't take them back.

Back and forth it will go, but in the end, Ireland will end up with an aid package and even more criminals to house and feed. Someone will have to figure out if the British loan on offer is going to cost more in the long run than it will help.