ESRI quarterly report - Personnel or attitude has to change

EVEN the steadfast optimists left amongst us, as cherished and rare as a busy auctioneer, will be rattled by this morning’s ESRI quarterly economic commentary.

Though it would be far, far preferable not to have to consider the daunting projections, the reality is that a determined response is absolutely essential.

If left to spiral out of control, the processes the figures describe have the capacity to have an impact deeper than anything imposed through recent or looming budgets, job losses or ongoing credit difficulties.

The ESRI, in the few fleeting months since their last report, have dramatically revised their growth predictions. In their winter report they anticipated a decline of 4.6%, now they anticipate a fall of 9.2%. They foresee that our economy will contract by around 14% over the three years 2008-2010.

Only a fool or someone blinded by political bias would describe this pattern as anything less than a clear and present danger to this society. It represents economic and political failure on a grand scale and brings the prospect of huge social failure all the closer.

The normally restrained ESRI describe the trend as being “by historic and international standards... a truly dramatic development”.

They put faces on the figures, saying they expect 187,300 jobs to be lost this year. This implies an unemployment rate of 13.2%. Next year the ESRI expects that to rise 16.8%.

Another report yesterday showed a dramatic reversal in Irish wealth holdings last year. It is estimated that €150 billion was cut from aggregate household wealth last year. The total loss over the full property cycle is likely to be significantly higher.

And all the while we bicker about long-service allowances, entirely justifiable and overdue pension levies. We have wildcat strikes, opposed by the relevant union, when just one bus driver feels excluded from a process that changed bus routes to avoid his employer becoming insolvent. We condemn crony capitalism while digging our graves through a crony social partnership. We curtail or close public hospitals yet bend over backwards to facilitate investors who sniff profits in private health services.

Today America will mark the first 100 days of the Obama presidency and though Taoiseach Brian Cowen is wise to prefer to be judged on his achievements rather than on his charisma, the contrast remains stark.

In 100 days President Obama has made his mantra — ‘Yes, we can’ — sound even more plausible and is already credited with changing the mood of his country. A sense of possibility is energising a country facing many of the economic challenges we face.

In almost a year, our Taoiseach has snarled and blustered and made one passable speech that was hailed as almost Churchillian because it was such a rarity. It is difficult to remember an encouraging phrase let alone an uplifting and inspired intervention from Mr Cowen. Energising he is not. Even his own backbenchers and dismissed junior ministers can no longer suppress their calls for the kind of vision and leadership that offers the prospect of confronting these tremendous challenges.

Leadership is about vision and credibility — the vision to imagine solutions and the credibility that provides the opportunity to make that vision real.

Mr Cowen has shown neither, and in the face of the ESRI predictions, that is an indulgence we can no longer afford.

Ireland needs a change in attitude or personnel.