Controlling privatisation - Safeguarding society’s services

ONE OF the daunting and pressing challenges facing Ireland and the rest of Europe is the need to ensue that all of society is served by the insatiable and seemingly unstoppable market economy.

That challenge is especially evident when a State-owned enterprise, established in another, all together different time, is privatised.

When our parents’ and grandparents’ sacrifice and social vision becomes an investment opportunity for venture capitalists; when a cause becomes a project; when idealism is replaced by cold accounting, more often than not, too much is lost.

Amazingly, the transition from public to private seems utterly inevitable, despite the avowed socialist principles of our Taoiseach.

We have not yet shown that we have developed a process of privatisation that can replace the inefficiencies of the past, while at the same time preserving the social commitment envisaged by those who established services so that all members of society could be advanced.

In a globalised world, lubricated by ever-more mobile investment, this social protection is needed as never before.

Undoubtedly advocates of unfettered trade will insist there is no need to enhance the social input into the way we manage our economy. They will argue that we need less government intervention not more, but surely it is not beyond our wit to encourage the strong while at the same time protecting the weak?

This week’s manifestation of what can go wrong, of which core value can be sacrificed to the bottom line, was the inevitable Aer Lingus decision to axe its service from Shannon to Heathrow.

This decision has had an immediate impact as two tourism projects in Clare — a €25 million development at Dromoland Castle and a further €50m investment by the American owners of the €100m Doonbeg golf resort — have already been put on hold.

An earlier manifestation of the unfortunate consequences of that process was the further marginalisation of the western seaboard when our telecommunications services were privatised.

That sell-off was directly responsible for the lack of access to reliable broadband in many areas of the country and has delayed development of so many businesses in rural Ireland.

Broadband’s absence also contributes to the insane daily commute endured by so many thousands of families in what has become sneeringly known as the Eastern Front.

This, laughingly, in an economy so often sold as being knowledge-based; this in a society that hopes to replace manufacturing jobs long gone to low-wage centres with service industries.

For some time now the mood has been set for the privatisation of the ESB with management and unions smacking their lips in anticipation of a share bonanza. The government is equally enthusiastic as it looks forward to a windfall of spectacular proportions.

It would be wonderful to share in their optimism but the examples of cherry-picking after our first two big privatisations suggest that we need to include stronger social safeguards in any deal. We should be encouraged in this position in the decision by the French and German governments to review their policies and processes in regard to privatisation.

It would of course be unwise to imagine that our water supplies, Bord Gáis, railways, prisons, educational facilities and indeed, as Health Minister Harney’s co-location project shows, our health service, might never fall under the auctioneers’ hammers.

In this light we need a mechanism to facilitate the best use of State resources but at all times, doing so in a way that will safeguard the core of social-delivery policies that, over very many years, won an honoured place in society for so many semi-State organisations.