Turkey leaders won’t be voting for Christmas
We now have in theory a better idea of what extra taxes and cutbacks in public expenditure we will have to endure over the next four years and that gives some certainty, which is helpful. However, we have been assured on numerous occasions over the past three years about issues in relation to the economy, the cost of the bank bailout and the necessary fiscal adjustment, but we were misled on every occasion.
Don’t forget that Brian Lenihan told us last December that Budget 2010 would be the toughest in this fiscal cycle and that the economy had turned the corner. For those who believed this rhetoric and acted accordingly, a very expensive lesson has been learned.
It is my view that one would be foolish to believe what we are being told in relation to the savings required through expenditure cutbacks and tax increases over the next four years. We cannot have any certainty, because, quite simply, we do not know the eventual cost of the bank bailout. This is due to the fact that either our politicians or our bankers, or more likely both, have been and continue to tell us “porkies” about the true extent of the problems in the banking system.
In my view the figure is set to get bigger over the coming months and I just cannot get the arithmetic to add up.
It is interesting that EU sources have joined Angela Merkel in suggesting that senior bondholders in banks should take some of the hit.
Over the past couple of months our financial and economic problems have become a key focus of international attention. However, this week that international attention has started to focus on the nature of Ireland’s political governance. I have spoken to scores of international journalists, and they are astounded at what they are finding out about our political system and general governance. The decision by the Green Party to pre-announce they are pulling out of government after the election is confusing to most domestic observers, but one can only have sympathy for external observers. Then we have the spectacle of the “independents” acting as king-makers and the dissension of Fianna Fáil backbenchers, who seem to believe that they are acting in the national good, but really only have their own selfish interests at heart.
It is interesting to think back on some of what we have been told over the past three years, and which turned out to be rubbish. One initiative that stands out in my mind is the decision in the October 2008 budget to introduce a €200 levy on employees whose employer provides them with parking facilities. This was estimated to raise €10m in a full year. I remember commenting that this would never be introduced because of the fact that most of the employer-provided parking is in the public sector, particularly senior public servants in Dublin city centre. Conveniently, and not surprisingly, we have heard nothing about this great initiative since.
The reality as I see it is that Ireland has a very serious governance issue and I believe it has been and continues to be pulled down by “exponential gombeenism”. We hear this guff about the need to wear the “green jersey”, but those who govern us both at a political level and a permanent administration level are driven by self-interest rather than the national good.
The four-year plan will be totally meaningless unless we end up with radical reform of our governance structures. I am not holding my breath, because turkeys simply do not vote for Christmas and many of those who run this country are turkeys — apologies to turkeys for the insult.
