Are our gravy train politicians part of the problem Dell wanted to flee?

IT SEEMS like the Celtic Tiger has fled and we are floundering in tiger crap. Things are obviously going to get much worse in coming months, especially as the Government appears to have completely lost the plot in so many matters.

Politicians are expressing what could be mere empty concern for the workers being laid off at Dell and Waterford Glass.

Would we not be better off if they dug deep and found out exactly why Dell decided to move the jobs to Poland?

Is it really moving because of lower wages there? If so, why did they not move to China where wages are vastly lower? Why did Ireland get the hi-tech jobs in the 1990s, even though China had lower wages?

There are undoubtedly other intangible factors also involved, and we should be asking what intangibles does Poland have going for itself that Ireland lacks? If we do not learn from this experience, we could be doomed to repeat it with the other American companies that were the primary underpinnings of the Celtic Tiger, like Intel, Elan, Microsoft and Apple.

They were attracted to Ireland by our low corporate taxes, high education levels and English-speaking workers. The wages they paid and the taxes they remitted for sales to the rest of Europe triggered businesses across many fronts in Ireland and led to the Celtic Tiger economy.

What has changed? Incompetence in government? Flaky practices in banks? Too many greedy politicians? The perception, real or otherwise, of too many brown envelopes? Violence in Limerick where people are now more likely to be shot than stabbed?

For the first time since 2001 the Irish tourist market declined. The number of overseas visitors dropped by 3.4% in 2008 at a time when more people then ever depend on tourism. The decline amounted to a loss of 2% in the tourism revenue of €6.8 billion.

Fáilte Ireland estimates that employment in the industry may have declined by as much as 10%, or 32,000 jobs, but that will not have been as keenly felt within the Irish community because many of those people would have been from abroad and they would have returned home when they were laid off. In recent years it seemed most of the waitresses in hotels were foreigners.

On the streets of Tralee early last year one was as likely to hear a foreign language being spoken as English. That was Celtic Tiger Ireland. Things are obviously going to deteriorate in coming months and there is no sign the Government has either the vision or the courage to come to grips with it. In 1987, when Charlie Haughey came to power in the midst of the last major recession, he put great emphasis on building up tourism.

Now there are patriotic calls for Irish people to holiday at home next year instead of going abroad. But who could afford to holiday in Ireland they way things were going in recent years?

Some of the major hotels were offering rooms for €20 a night in Dublin during the week. At that price many people would probably be attracted to holiday in Ireland, but let’s face it, too many have found it cheaper to fly as far as Turkey for a fortnight than to stay in an Irish hotel.

The tourist industry is going to be further hit by the strength of the euro against sterling and the US dollar. The economies in Britain and the US are already seriously hit and there are unlikely to be as many American or British people travelling this year.

In many Irish golf clubs members effectively pay less than €10 a round when one factors in the annual subscription and the number of rounds they may play in a year, but they expect Americans to pay $250 and even more a round.

We are pricing ourselves out of the whole tourist market. As a first step, there should be a real call for patriotism — for the likes of golf clubs to play their part in making this country an attractive destination for Irish people to holiday. If we are not willing to holiday here, why would anyone else be interested?

Private clubs were helped in the lean years. It was largely through the likes of Bord Fáilte advertising golf in this country and councils improving the roads to isolated golf courses that the clubs enjoyed the tourist boom and it should be their turn now to put something back into the community.

Of course, politicians should be taking the lead, but they have been the biggest rip-off artists. Without providing proper example, their call for patriotism is positively insulting. Brian Lenihan issued his call for people to do their patriotic duty when he introduced the erratic budget in October.

The Government did nothing about Beverley Flynn being able to retain the €41,000 a year payment after she rejoined Fianna Fáil. She apparently thought she could brazen it out after the Irish Examiner first broke the story last week.

She obviously learned nothing from the way her father virtually choked on his own contemptible arrogance, or from the arrogance that prompted her to make that despicable attempt to shaft RTÉ for having done its duty in exposing her part in the criminal behaviour of National Irish Bank.

“I have been deeply hurt in the past number of days about the manner in which it has been portrayed, as if this was some advantage that I have been grabbing for myself when in actual fact nothing could be further from the truth,” she said during the week.

And if you believe that, you probably still believe in Santa Claus, too. She might just as well have told us she took that outrageous lawsuit against RTÉ also to serve her constituents She saddled the licence fee-payers with €1m of her unpaid debt.

WHEN Ms Flynn was trying to hold on to her extra €41,000 a few ministers spoke out. John Gormley, Eamon Ó Cuiv and Martin Mansergh voiced misgivings. Hopefully they will call on their colleagues to recognise that times have changed and it is imperative that so-called leaders should, for a change, lead by providing proper example.

Members of the Oireachtas are currently on their extended Christmas break. Most workers are not entitled to more than three weeks holidays a year, so why should the politicians get more? If they want more, it should be unpaid leave.

They have also been ripping off the country in other ways. The grubby masses cannot even claim against tax for driving to work, but the politicians pay themselves for this at rates that bears little relationship to the actual costs. Their grossly inflated expenses amount to tax-free supplements to their incomes. Their abuse of expenses has been emulated in Fás and elsewhere throughout the public service.

There was one shining exception among the politicians last year: Noel Ahern claimed no expenses.

Politicians who lose their seats in an election get payments to ease their burden. Most people do not get a golden parachute after being fired. As a major shareholder in Aer Lingus, what were the Government’s representatives doing when its chief executive was negotiating his failure fee?

Politicians should lead by good, not lousy, example.