O’Reilly warns of recovery hubris

European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has warned against allowing the economic recovery to sideline analysis of what kind of country Ireland should be.

Ms O’Reilly said a vital debate had begun during the recession about the mistakes made in the boom and the sort of society that was worth striving for in future.

However, she said there was a risk that this still early process would be elbowed out of the way in the rush to return to the preoccupations of the Celtic Tiger era.

Urging the public and the media to keep questioning, Ms O’Reilly said: “We still cannot know how much suffering people have endured over the last six years, how much psychic and actual pain was caused by our shockingly sudden fall from financial grace.”

Not enough questions were put during the boom years, she said. “Comfort and complacency dented our civic obligations to question, to demand a proper accounting for the ultimately ruinous decisions that were being taken.”

Ms O’Reilly, who was formerly the Irish ombudsman, took over the European post at the start of this month. She said there were familiar signs of economic recovery. “The property supplements are back, the international media is writing gratifyingly laudatory editorials and op-eds about our economic recovery,” she said. “In the event that we are allowed again to splash the cash will the national conversations about citizenship and related matters come to a grinding halt? Are we now about to be distracted by the reappearance of our old feline friend; will we jettison what has so promisingly begun?”

Ms O’Reilly was speaking at an event organised by The People’s Conversation, an initiative aimed at encouraging national debate in the run-up to the 1916 commemorations. It is run by The Wheel, an umbrella group representing almost 1,000 voluntary, charity, and community organisations.