Politicians clamour to take credit for Ireland’s economic success

I AM not sure whether Alan Dukes was in a self-pitying or a self-mocking mood when he addressed the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce last week. I suspect it was the latter.

The former Fine Gael leader is reported to have told the audience that he feels like an artist whose work has not been recognised in his own lifetime.

In 1987 Dukes had been leader of the opposition for just a couple of months when he was invited to address the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce. He used the speech to say that as long as the recently elected minority government of Charles Haughey followed a responsible economic policy, Fine Gael would not oppose it. Dukes said that if the Government was going in the right direction economically, he did not believe it should be derailed from its course or tripped up on macro-economic issues. The speech became known as the Tallaght Strategy.

In the subsequent two years Fine Gael followed through on Dukes’ promise and offered general support for the tough but necessary fiscal decisions taken by Charles Haughey, his finance minister Ray MacSharry and their colleagues.

Last week the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce invited Dukes to address them again, this time to reflect on how Ireland has changed in the 19 years since his original speech and its relevance for current Irish politics and economics. Although Dukes is now enjoying a full life after politics, he apparently feels that his contribution between 1987 and 1989 has not been recognised.

Dukes is not the first person to argue that he never received credit for the contribution the Tallaght Strategy made to the economic turnaround. In fact, my recollection is that there have been many who were involved in or who have written about that period who have gone out of their way to recognise Dukes’ contribution.

Naturally, Fine Gael speakers have been to the fore in citing the significance of Dukes’ achievement. The Tallaght Strategy, which met with a very mixed reaction in Fine Gael at the time, now holds pride of place in the official version of Fine Gael’s history. Enda Kenny, like Michael Noonan before him, regularly cites the Tallaght Strategy as one of the party’s main modern achievements.

Dukes’ stance was also widely praised by many economic and political commentators at the time and has been commended many times since.

More importantly, in 1989, the electorate gave the Tallaght Strategy an endorsement by giving Dukes’ Fine Gael a 10-seat reward. Ironically, many of those new Fine Gael seats in 1989 were won at the expense of the Progressive Democrats who, despite the fact that they were born out of a desire for financial responsibility, did not line up with Dukes’ support for the general thrust of Haughey’s new and responsible economic policy.

Many Fianna Fáil politicians have also acknowledged the significance of what Dukes did. Indeed, MacSharry, who can claim for himself a portion of the credit for the turnaround in the public finances, has been particularly generous in his recognition of Dukes’ contribution.

In The Making of the Celtic Tiger, a book he co-authored with Padraic White, MacSharry unhesitatingly acknowledged the contribution made by Alan Dukes with the Tallaght Strategy. He says that, as finance minister at the time, he read reports of Dukes’ remarks “with a mixture of bewilderment and delight”. MacSharry admits that there was undoubtedly an element of political calculation in Dukes’ speech but, on balance, he concludes that “Fine Gael put the national interest in restoring financial stability ahead of any short-term political advantage”.

OTHERS on the Fianna Fáil side who were openly complimentary of the Tallaght Strategy included Maire Geoghan Quinn and Charles Haughey himself.

In Tallaght last week, Dukes also took the opportunity to challenge what he sees as a revisionist view that the transformation of the Irish economy began with the coming to power of that Fianna Fáil government in 1987.

He asserted the case for the contribution he and others in the Fine Gael-Labour government of 1982-87 made in reducing inflation, in particular. This will strike many as stretching the point somewhat, since the public finances and borrowing position at the end of that government’s term was in a more dire state than it had been at the beginning.

Dukes’ remarks last week are only the most recent volleys in the at times noisy fight between various politicians and parties anxious to stake their respective claims on the credit for this country’s economic success.

Fianna Fáil argues it can claim the lion’s share of responsibility. The party has been the major party in government for all but three years of the two decades or so in which the economic transformation of Ireland has occurred.

To its credit, the rainbow government, which was in power from 1994-1997, continued the low tax and sound economic policies around which there has been an almost complete national consensus since the mid-’80s.

The Progressive Democrats also played a part, not least because its very emergence transformed the economic policy debate in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. However, its contribution was again overstated by Michael McDowell in a speech in Waterford last week. Although, he was, of course, speaking to an audience of Progressive Democrats.

Interestingly, another politician was also seeking to analyse the cause of Ireland’s recent economic success for his own ends last week. The shadow British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osbourne, was in Dublin to address the UCD Smurfit Business School and had a lot of compliments for Ireland’s economic policies.

Osbourne’s visit was significant. He is a close friend and associate of the new British Conservative leader, David Cameron, and is centrally involved in the transformation now taking place in that party. In its search for more innovative and appealing economic policies, the Conservative Party has thoroughly examined the Irish experience.

In an article for the London Times, published to coincide with his visit to Dublin, Osbourne argued that while it might have been seen as laughable 25 years ago for a British politician to turn to Ireland for economic lessons, it now makes sense, since average incomes in Ireland are now 20% higher than those in Britain.

Osbourne identifies Ireland’s world-class education system, our emphasis on research and innovation, our low corporate tax rate and our skilled workforce as the main reasons for the enduring Irish economic success story. He says similar policies would work in Britain.

Now that the Irish economic achievement has been sustained, politicians here at home are queuing up to claim credit for it. At the same time politicians from abroad are queuing up to emulate it. Both are likely to mould their analysis to suit their domestic political end.

Failure is an orphan but success has many fathers. Success also has many admirers.