Taoiseach, trust the people to make the right decision on Europe

DEAR Taoiseach and Tánaiste, You were elected to be different.

You have both promised us, fundamentally, a different style. The core of that promise was that we could always trust this government, just as the government would trust the people. Now more than ever you need to live up to that promise.

It’s all there, right at the start of your Programme for Government. In your “statement of common purpose” you say that you “will strive to ensure that every one of our citizens has an effective right … to contribute to the economic, social and cultural life of the nation.”

You say that “new approaches and new thinking will form the constant backdrop to the coalition’s style of governance”. You talk about the historic challenge your government faces, and in ringing tones you declare about your government that “the trust of the nation has been invested in it. It is committed to honouring that trust”.

I buy all that. If the opinion polls are to be believed, so do a lot of people. Right now though, it means only one thing. The one thing you need to do most is to hold a referendum on whatever deal finally emerges from the complicated negotiations now under way in Europe. You need to do it freely, because it’s the right thing to do. Because the people who elected you have a right to be heard on something as fundamental as the change now being contemplated.

Do you know what everyone thinks, every time you or a Government spokesperson says that the Attorney General will have to decide whether a referendum is necessary? We know that’s code. It really means that you’ve sent the Attorney General off to find any reason she can to avoid holding a referendum. It suggests you don’t trust the people to make the right decision.

And that’s not why you were elected. There should probably have been a referendum on the bank guarantee, back in 2008. There should certainly have been a referendum on the IMF bailout. In fact, if the last government had gone into those negotiations on the basis of a commitment to hold a referendum, they would probably have got a much better deal than they did.

Their failure to hold a referendum was a betrayal of the people of Ireland. They sold our right to have a say in our future. They may never be forgiven for that.

I’m urging you not to make the same mistake. You know I’m a supporter of the government, and I want you to succeed. I’m guessing a lot of people want that too.

But, and I say it with the greatest respect, between the lot of you you made a right bags of the budget. You mustn’t get this next big decision wrong.

Let’s talk about the budget for a second. As far as I can figure out, you seem to have set out to do three things, and you seem inordinately proud of them. The three things were — protect income tax rates, protect basic social welfare rates, and protect the Croke Park agreement.

Well, the trouble is, that was precisely the wrong way to go about the budget. We can, and we must, have a long hard look at income tax, especially for better-off people. We need to reform social protection payments and systems right across the board. And don’t get me started about Croke Park.

But instead of doing any of that, you had a go at the poor. You did pretty well exactly what Brian Lenihan did in his 2009 Budget (maybe not quite that bad, because he slashed the minimum wage as well).

I just can’t understand what happened. We just passed a budget, at a time when the country is extremely hard-pressed, and it left well paid people — in the private sector as well as the public sector — pretty well untouched. A €100 house tax and a 2% rise in VAT isn’t going to trouble people who can make choices.

But I’ve yet to meet a lone parent who went mad on property speculation, or contributed to the economic bubble. In fact, if there is any one group of people in Ireland who were almost completely passed by the Celtic Tiger, it is lone parents. What did they ever do, I wonder, to deserve to be singled out for such harsh treatment? It’s hard to escape the conclusion, to be honest, that you haven’t forgotten that it was the middle classes in their thousands who gave Fine Gael such a whopping vote in the general election, and public servants in their thousands who elected more Labour TDs than ever before. I hope they all realise that the budget, which asked for no contribution from them, was your way of saying thank you. If the budget medicine works — if it contributes to getting growth going again — no doubt you’ll be forgiven in due course for some of the clumsier and unimaginative cuts. But the unfolding situation in Europe demands a different response.

Just as poorer people in Ireland made no contribution to the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, so the Irish people as a whole are not responsible for the collapse of the euro. Yes, awful banking practice in Ireland and elsewhere is at the heart of the problem, but that’s a Europe-wide phenomenon. Of course we have to contribute to the solution, and of course there is merit in a set of rules and structures that tries to make sure this never happens again.

BUT we don’t know yet what the solution will really mean. Changes within the European Union could well be difficult to achieve. But the European Union has the Commission, which has a track record of trying to protect smaller countries. It has the Council of Ministers, where a veto can be exercised if a vital national interest is compromised. It has the European Parliament, which at least has responsibility for democratic principles, even if it doesn’t have enough real power.

But if we are to agree to pass power away from the European Union, and into the hands of some “Inter-Governmental Agreement”, you’d better tell us what that means, in plain and simple language. As a layman, I’m guessing that an inter-governmental agreement won’t come with vetoes to protect the interests of the smaller countries, or with the necessary democratic structures.

In fact there’s every possibility, isn’t there, of the EU becoming entirely irrelevant to key economic decision-making while the inter-governmental agreement is getting on with the job of screwing down budget deficits?

Just like Brian Cowen, it would actually be in your best interests as negotiators if you were to go to the table and make it clear up front that any agreement would have to be subject to a vote of the people. No doubt the big boys will find that exasperating, but it will immeasurably strengthen your hand.

And as I said earlier, it’s the right thing to do. It’s the only way for you to keep trust with your people. And in the end of the day, that’s the only thing that makes being in government worthwhile. Right?

With best wishes.