Our shattered national ego needs restoring
The media pre-occupation with the leaders’ debate and the hours of analysis that followed the various debates has been quite nauseating and definitely generated a lot more heat than light.
At the end of the day politicians are prone to say whatever the electorate wants to hear and one should probably take most of what is promised with a large grain of salt.
The harsh reality is that Ireland is in a dire economic and financial mess and any policy options chosen will be heavily influenced by the terms of the IMF/EU rescue plan. The other harsh reality is that there is no silver bullet solution to Ireland’s problems and despite the political rhetoric, getting from where we are today to where we want to be will be difficult and inevitably painful.
Where we really want to get to is a situation where a healthy economy starts to generate quality sustainable employment, and a better behaved banking system. If those objectives were to be achieved, the allocation of resources across the economy and society would then become a realisable objective. However, without first generating a sustainable recovery and functioning banking system, the resources will simply not be generated to fund social transfers and other spending.
The incoming government will have to hit the ground running and provide strong, decisive and credible leadership from the word go. Such leadership has been sadly lacking for some years, but the public is crying out for it, and the restoration of confidence to our shattered national ego demands it.
In my view there are a number of key priorities that have to be addressed in the first six months of the new administration.
Firstly, a serious professional concerted effort must be made to repair Ireland’s much damaged reputation abroad. For tourism and foreign direct investment, this is absolutely essential. St Patrick’s weekend should be used as a major opportunity to get out to key overseas locations to tell the story. Politicians and credible people should all get involved. Please media, do not engage in a witch hunt about who went where and how much it cost! It is essential to devote whatever resources are required to restore our reputation.
The second priority has got to be to restore confidence in our beleaguered banking system. Billions are flowing out of the domestic banks because depositors are justifiably concerned about the security of their savings. Whatever is necessary should be done to sell AIB and Bank of Ireland to overseas owners — even if that means providing some guarantee about future losses. That would be a price worth paying. The problem of course is that selling the two would be as difficult as selling a 15-year-old Lada, but we have got to try.
The third issue has got to be the appointment of a minister with special responsibility for competitiveness and public sector reform. These areas are crucial to restoring momentum in the economy. The fourth task will be to start working constructively with the EU to convince them that what we are being asked to do is not logistically possible without some big help from our European masters.
These broad objectives should be tackled immediately and in an aggressive way, because there is a lot of negative stuff coming down the tracks that could put a new government into fire fighting mode very quickly. Oil prices are edging dangerously higher, mortgage borrowing costs are jumping at an alarming pace, and given the magnitude of the German recovery, the ECB is probably chomping at the bit in terms of tightening interest rate policy.
