Smart economy initiative not quite what it seems
Slumps always trigger a rush for the cover of easy escapism – hence the unexpected triumph of Slumdog Millionaire as the Western world’s economy started to slide south – and ministers showed a similar eagerness to pull a feel-good fantasy out of the flimsiest of story lines with their digital jobs report.
Dubbed the smart economy initiative, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan insisted we could create at least 30,000 jobs in the sector over the next decade, and anchored the document’s launch on Intune Networks taking on 350 workers.
But as only 50 of those will actually appear in the next year, it is not quite what it seems, and while any company hiring anyone is good news in an economy sacrificing 1,000 people a day to the dole queue, it is going to be a very long route to recovery if this is the pace.
The intro to the summary of the Knowledge Society Strategy was a wall of white noise language littered with “technology actions” and “signature knowledge intense projects” which will be “progressed” in yet another report to be delivered next year. It may have sounded like incomprehensible jingo-jargon to most people, but to the net nerds present it was the sweetest of pillow talk.
However, to call the blueprint for such job creation vague would be merely to ignore the term oblique, especially as the state’s roll out of broadband has been so slow it is actually a dereliction. But then this is the same Government insisting it needs to push ahead with the ploughing-up of the Leinster House car park to replace it with a lawn at a cost of some €230,000.
Now, there may well be a strong environmental and aesthetic case for turfing out the TDs, civil servants and journalists who park there, but only if the public had access to the new lawn they are paying for (which they won’t), and only when the country could actually afford such Marie Antoinette-style opulence once again (which will probably be never).
The Minister responsible for the Office of Public Works, the wonderfully posh Martin Mansergh, insists the Government has already done its bit for the taxpayer by reducing the cost of the re-lawning from the original estimate of €400,000 by not outsourcing and getting the OPW to do the work. What a brilliant idea Martin! How come no one thought of that little stunner before?
But we will still be paying for renting the 29 new car parking spaces in central Dublin to compensate for the loss of the lawn ones, so that’s not very bright at all is it, Martin?
Oh those far off glory days (last year) when the Government thought nothing of lavishing €220,000 on an office fit for ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern, or even more shockingly, €40,000 on a private toilet and washroom for Tánaiste Mary Coughlan.
Maybe, this has proved value for money though, as she certainly seems to have washed her hands of doing anything to stem the jobless crisis as the live register heads unhindered towards the 600,000 mark and beyond. Maybe she misread her job title as Employment Minister and thinks she’s doing a grand job as Mass Unemployment Minister.
Whatever the truth she has issued yet another of her meaningless ultimatums, this time to the professions warning them that unless they drop their fees, there is going to be trouble from her. The trouble is we’ve heard all the tough talk before Mary and it just never seems to go anywhere.
Remember six months ago when Ms Coughlan dramatically threatened price controls could be reintroduced to stem cross-border shopping if retailers did not pass on the benefits of the devaluation of sterling to ripped-off customers in the Republic?
No, neither do the store chains, because nothing ever came of it.
Smart talk from the Government, but no economies on extravagance and certainly no encouragement of employment.
