Inside Out

An email I received yesterday morning from a US radio show interested in speaking to me about an article I wrote (Cork Independent, 3 June 2010), called ‘Turning corners in a maze’, only served to highlight that there is more debate on the state of this country outside it than there is inside. 

In recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Economist have all written about Ireland’s financial woes and the measures the Government is taking to counteract the recession.

So, to be fair, have a lot of Irish commentators, but the fact remains that there is no real debate here; inside the mire, it can be hard to have perspective on an issue that affects all of us. We all have an axe to grind, and most of us are finished grinding, because nobody is listening. And when they do, our centrist politics mean that real alternatives are very thin on the ground.

While Fine Gael and Labour oppose the spending cuts, they have no alternative. They are both so busy lining up for Government that policy positions are a sideshow, and the fact that they’ll more than likely be in coalition after a General Election means they can’t commit to anything. These two parties, anywhere else in the world, would be the least likely bedfellows – can you picture Labour and the Conservatives in the UK going into coalition? 

Fine Gael have spent a lot of time working on policy documents like their NewERA programme, but they are well aware that they won’t be in Government for a little while yet; they may as well watch Fianna Fáil hang themselves through unpopular spending cuts, rather than commit Alan Dukes-style hara kiri by repeating the Tallaght Strategy, for something as nebulous as ‘the common good’.

Labour, meanwhile, have taken the road most travelled; oppose everything, suggest nothing, and keep your powder dry until you actually have to do something. In the current situation, we have no idea how Labour would cope, or what proposals they would come up with to save our skins from the IMF, the EU and all the other bogeymen out there.

Perhaps it is the collective lack of ideology among our politicians (never forget that Labour were the first to promise tax cuts before the last General Election), and among the people who vote them in (yes, that’s us) that is to blame for this consensus.

Yes, consensus-building is good, but that usually means compromise, changing position slightly, making a few tweaks. In this situation, there has been very little questioning of the policy of reducing the deficit.

US commentators have pointed out that recessions become depressions when spending cuts are introduced and the budget is balanced. They point out that governments should spend when private companies don’t. Maybe they’re right; I’m not an economist, I don’t know.

But in the week when we’ve learned that we are officially out of recession, and also, that 5,800 were added to the Live Register in June, it’s worth reopening the debate on whether the cuts being made are really working, and, this time, making it a real debate.

Listen to me on KCRW: http://www.kcrw.com/media-player/mediaPlayer2.html?type=audio&id=tp100630stimulus_or_austerit

Rights and responsibilities

This was written two weeks ago in response to the difficulties locally with local authority workers on strike.

We live in an age where everybody knows their rights. My mother, a teacher, has come home with tales of five-year-olds who are aware of their rights, and use them as a threat. And they’re not unusual. In post Celtic Tiger Ireland we’re all very well aware of what’s owed to us, how we should be treated, and our personal dignity.

But what about our responsibilities? It’s very often forgotten that ‘rights’ is an incomplete term when the word ‘responsibility’ is omitted. We all have human rights, but equally we have human responsibilities. Most of them are based on respecting other peoples’ rights. 

At the moment, there is a type of warfare going on in Ireland in which some people are trying to assert their rights at the expense of others.

In this week’s paper, Eoin Weldon reports on the frustration being felt by local politicians at the fact that they can’t do the jobs they were elected to do. The local representatives quoted have a right to be allowed to do their work but, more importantly, the people they represent have a right to that representation. That’s a pretty fundamental right.

Also this week, Christine Allen writes about the Cork people who are being denied their legal right to passports.

Behind both stories we see the right to a living wage come to the fore – some CPSU members are having a very tough time making ends meet since the pay cuts of last year. I heard of one chap who, since the pay cuts, is earning €1600 per month. His mortgage (which he qualified for under his previous, substantially higher, salary) is €1400 per month. Nobody can live on that, and I feel genuinely sympathetic to him and his colleagues who have been put in that position.

The CPSU are right to be angry. But we’re all angry. Most of us have taken pay cuts, while many have lost jobs, or even homes.

What about the private sector workers on short hours who can’t get appointments at their local social welfare offices because civil servants are on strike? What are they supposed to do? Strike action is not going to solve their problem – they won’t go on strike, because they are glad they have a job, and they will do nothing to jeopardise it.

A social welfare officer recently told an acquaintance of mine on a three-day week that he didn’t qualify for any payments – because he wasn’t actively seeking work. Patently incorrect, but where should he go for help? His local councillor? Well, he could – but she won’t be able to get anywhere either.

What about people who have jobs, with start dates, abroad, who can’t get passports and take up their positions? Where should they go for help? The passport office? They could – but they will be so long queueing that their job will be filled by the time they get their travel documents.

As we’ve all been told by teachers throughout the ages, two wrongs don’t make a right. Equally, rights do not exist without corresponding responsibilities. Margaret Thatcher once said that society did not exist. If things keep going the way they are, soon, she might be right.