Gambling our future - We’ve made the bet of our lives

NOT even the great, soul-filling genius of Samuel Beckett or Flann O’Brien, our great champions of tragedy and irony, could have imagined a more appropriate symmetry.

The greatest bet in the history of this Republic — the launch of NAMA — was made just as the Galway Races were reaching a climax of sorts on Ladies’ Day. This represents the kind of black humour that even Beckett and O’Brien, at their dead-pan, dead-eyed best, could only aspire to.

God only knows who could match the kind of black humour that saw Taoiseach Brian Cowen enjoying the Ballybrit jamboree — almost €20 million bet at the course this week — while Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was back at the office launching the lifeboats.

Mr Cowen, amazingly, felt able to absent himself from the launch of the NAMA to go racing in Galway.

Mr Cowen may have been pining for the fabled days of “The Tent” where so much “bonding” between Fianna Fáil and the country’s developers took place. The very “bonding” that led to so much misplaced optimism — borrowed, secondhand bravado, as it transpires. The “bonding” that ultimately made the creation of NAMA inevitable.

Though his absence in Galway is a minor issue it again brings into question his understanding of the responsibilities leaders face, or of leadership.

Nevertheless, we must all hope, for the sake of our children, our jobs, our pensions and this country, that NAMA succeeds. We cannot, however, be fobbed off with vagueness or wishful thinking.

Though NAMA will be faced with many, many imponderables when valuing distressed assets it will know precisely who is involved and how much is at stake. The suggestion that the developers, whose grand follies may cost billions in hard-graft tax money, might enjoy anonymity is simply a non-starter. Even during Galway Race week the proposal is an affront too far. Why should they remain anonymous? Are they afraid we won’t cheer their racehorses to the finishing line or that we might try to shoot down their helicopters?

Racecourse management in Galway expected 600 helicopter landings at Ballybrit during the festival. It is difficult to equate that kind of excess with the queue of developers seeking the protection of our courts.

This all adds to the disquieting sense that ordinary people are being taken for a ride, or at the very least are being invited on one, yet again. The sense that we are being sold a pig in a poke — we don’t know what we are buying, what it will cost or if the price represents real or imagined value, adds to those fears.

The Government does not even want us to know who is selling whatever it is we are buying. Neither do we have the comfort of a defined endgame in either time or cash. Remember, we were told, over a decade ago, that the Moriarty Tribunal might take a year or two, but it has not reported yet. Can we afford NAMA to be a convenience-store-in-perpetuity for banks and developers?

All of these concerns add up to something that cannot be passed on a nod and a wink and every opportunity to impose measures to protect State resources must be taken. That is why the next few weeks are so important. That this is the traditional holiday period for active politics can only add to our concerns.

We simply cannot afford to daydream our way into another disaster and we would be foolish to buy “the trust us” argument from the cosy alliance of government, business and banking.

If we do we will only have ourselves to blame.

We do not know, and it is hard to imagine that anyone really does, how much NAMA might cost. That imponderable is the great cloud hanging over the project. The other great cloud is that the culture that made NAMA unavoidable remains at the heart of the rescue attempt. The dependent banks, their untouchable employees, the reckless developers and speculators and Fianna Fáil all have tickets to the show.

It is also un-nerving that Fianna Fáil has such an instinctive pre-disposition to prioritising the needs of big business. What other country would tolerate the deal brokered between Ray Burke, Bertie Ahern and Shell over the Corrib gas field? Why do we?

This record does little to inspire the confidence needed to believe NAMA will be the success we all hope and need it to be.

The adage “never gamble what you cannot afford to lose” has served many a punter well but Ireland Inc has passed that point. We can, no matter how frustrating it is, no matter how it points to our powerlessness, do little more than hope NAMA succeeds.

Maybe, at this low point, we should consider another adage too: You get the government you deserve.