As a long-standing politics watcher, I recently recalled one of the most potent political memories of my youth. In 1984, while sitting at our breakfast table, I listened intently, as the RTÉ radio newscaster reported that the government had "guillotined emergency legislation to allow it to sequester the assets of the British National Union of Mineworkers, held in AIB, Dublin".

What the heck is guillotined and sequestered, I asked myself? "Guillotined", I learned, didn't involve my initial fears, there was no blood, at least not the standard kind. It meant skipping all normal review stages, bringing a bill into law in hours. Sequestered, I discovered, was a form of theft.

In time I learned that Garret FitzGerald had done Margaret Thatcher some considerable service in helping to sort out Arthur Scargill with regard to the bitter coalminers' strike in the UK. So why does this episode matter? Well, I think it matters a great deal. It seems that when necessary, government in this country can act with breathtaking speed to advance its interests.

Our government introduced a bank guarantee at breakneck speed. The law was changed, practically overnight, to allow the government cut the pay of about three-quarters of state workers.

So why is government so utterly impotent when it comes to the other emergency issues facing us? Why is the Dáil so completely dead-to-the-world on issues that matter a great deal to citizens here? Where is the spirit of 1984? Why don't we seize all the assets of every suspect thought to have carried out economic terrorism against this country? Why do we wait for people like David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo, to decide how he will deal with his debts?

Why don't we sequester the bonus and pension of Michael Fingleton? And don't stop there – why not seize the 'golden hand-shake' of Rody Molloy and the pensions of Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevey?

Declan Doyle

Lisdowney

Kilkenny