Coughlan tries a failed recipe

IT is usually said the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it.

That might explain the extraordinary utterances of Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Mary Coughlan recently about propping up incomes in the export sector with clear indications that she thought the same ought to be done for employees in the tourist trade and that this would “be looked at shortly”.

However, when the history being repeated is so recent as to be still in the domain of current affairs, one might have expected the adage of “once bitten, twice shy” to kick in. Not with our Mary, though. A year, a month, a week is a long, long time in politics, long enough to forget that pandering to well organised, vocal sectional interests is one of the things that got us into the current economic mire.

Now why in the name of any sort of sense should this over-borrowed economy borrow even more to prop up income levels that are probably a lot of what our problems are about in the first place? Why, why?

Will underpinning the wages of a hotel worker or a manufacturing worker of itself create demand? Will it revive the sectors in question?

Not only is the answer a clear negative but it is the kind of response that will prop up nothing except the diminishing demand for Irish products and services at home and abroad. It is doing the one thing we need to reverse, which is the growing cost of our goods and services in the world market and resultant erosion of our competitive edge.

Maybe Ms Coughlan thinks costs can be lowered within the industry provided the Government picks up the shortfall and maintains the wages levels artificially? For Government of course read taxpayer.

For taxpayer read the poor sods who have no choice but to take reduced wages or see their jobs vanish while their taxes are used in part to prop up the incomes of certain chosen sectors.

This will create crazy distortions and anomalies in the labour market which will in turn create the unrest that discriminatory economic policies always do.

If Ms Coughlan or Arts, Sport and Tourism Minister Martin Cullen want to boost tourism and the export market, then they might be better off leading a vigorous marketing campaign that highlights value for money and in tandem persuading the sectors in question to bring their costs into line with world norms.

This means of course taking a realistic look at wage costs too. In all sectors and at all levels.

Margaret Hickey

Castleowen

Blarney

Co Cork