Pyrrhic referendum victory asreality of more austerity kicks in

IT WAS nice while it lasted.

Our partners in Europe indulged the Government’s fantasy, that it is capable of renegotiating the crippling bank debt, for just 72 hours before pouring cold water on the fanciful claims on Monday.

Delirious after the referendum result, and after two months of strenuously avoiding any mention of bank debt for fear of antagonising hatchet-faced voters, suddenly Government representatives had bailout Tourette’s — everyone was talking about bank debt at every available opportunity.

It was no more Mr Nice Enda when the Taoiseach made a speech from the plinth outside Leinster House in the wake of the decisive victory. Having earlier said he wasn’t going to be shoved around by Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, he now promised he wouldn’t be shoved around by those jack-booted ingrates in Europe.

Attempting to inject some icy steel into his dulcet Mayo brogue, he told reporters he had called Angela Merkel to inform her of the referendum result and demand a deal on the €64bn and counting bank bailout.

“This is an issue which I regard now as Ireland having sent a message here about an issue that we understand is a particular problem, and this has got to be dealt with by the political leaders of Europe,” he thundered, sounding as threatening as an aggrieved goat.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore took the opportunity to reveal that he has been walking around with cotton wool in his ears since ascending to high office — apparently he’s just now hearing that a lot of people are barely managing to stay afloat amid the relentless onslaught of year after year of perpetual recession.

“There are many people in this country who are under pressure in relation to mortgages, jobs, businesses, and their standard of living, and who are feeling the effects of this economic crisis. We have to respond to what we heard on this campaign,” he declared in an appalled tone, as if all of these calamities are new phenomena.

Asked by RTÉ broadcaster Sean O’Rourke if he was hearing anything different from what he heard in advance of the general election last year, around about the time he promised it would be Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way, the Tánaiste was forced to make an embarrassing admission.

“Er, no,” he mumbled, after an excruciating pause, before cutting his losses and launching into another stirring sermon on all of the myriad societal ills he’s just now, belatedly, discovering.

European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton said a “radical change in position” was required by the intransigent Germans, while the mutualisation of debt was “an absolutely unavoidable element of the solution to the eurozone crisis”.

Junior Minister Brian Hayes, whose own constituency of Dublin South-West bucked the national trend and rejected the treaty, was nevertheless upbeat when he appeared on Newstalk on Sunday.

“It’s not the end, but it’s the beginning of the end of this crisis,” he mused, invoking Winston Churchill, adding that “a European-wide solution on the bank debt” was now crucial.

So, we’re all agreed then? We’d very much like the Europeans to remove the big cement blocks that were shackled to the country by the last cabinet of incompetents just before they pushed it over a big cliff. Great.

There’s just one slight problem — the same problem we’ve had since Biffo and Brian had a light-bulb moment at 3am one night in 2008 and underwrote the entire banking sector to the tune of €440bn. The Germans won’t let us.

Having generously given the Government three days to conduct self-congratulatory victory laps in the media, during which time one began to think that finding a cure for cancer and attaining world peace would be next on immodest ministers’ to-do lists after the pesky matter of the bank bailout was finally resolved, the Germans chose Monday to rain all over their parade.

“We see no need for movement at the moment,” sniffed one of Merkel’s minions. “Ireland is considered a model bailout student so you have to think of the consequences of such a renegotiation which would, in effect, double Ireland’s bailout programme.”

If you listened very carefully, you could hear a faint popping sound. That was hope, finally, dying.

Evidently, we’re top of the class but we still get the booby prize. All due respect to the Government, but Fota Wildlife Park’s newest resident, ape Shay Gibbon, could wring a better deal out of the Europeans than that.

Unfortunately, it gets worse. A deal on Ireland’s bank debt would send a “negative signal”, said the same minion, who evidently wanted to add ministers’ last remaining shreds of dignity to the long list of collateral the country was forced to cede for the bailout monies.

Of course, the wrong signal, by his estimation, would be some sort of sign that Irish representatives don’t just meekly bend over every time they’re asked to perform by the troika. Having successfully delivered the oratorical equivalent of a roundhouse kick to the gonads, he needn’t have worried. Ministers were soon sounding much less strident then they were in the first flush of referendum success.

While publicity-hungry ministers enjoy ranting and raving about bank debt on the telly, it’s about time they levelled with the Irish people and told a few self-evident home truths.

THERE will be no deal for Ireland unless we manage to piggyback on any deal that’s done with Spain, which is currently engaged in a game of high-stakes chicken with the EU in an attempt to use the ESM fund to recapitalise its bust banks.

If this does happen, it will have precisely nothing to do with the negotiating nous of Irish cabinet members and everything to do with Spain’s exponentially increasing economic misfortunes.

Any claims to the contrary are idiotic and facile.

In the meantime, there’s a lot of pain coming our way — and most of it would be necessitated even if there was a deal on the tens of billions of unsustainable bank debt we currently owe. Over the next three years the Government will be making further adjustments of €8.6bn.

According to the always authoritative namawinelake blog; “That’s €5,000 per household… in a state where nearly half of all households have less than €1,200 per year of discretionary income.”

That, by the way, is a best-case scenario predicated on economic growth rates that many would now, charitably, deem pie-in-the-sky. Unless the domestic economy comes to life, the Government will be forced to introduce additional austerity measures to meet targets contained in the fiscal treaty.

There are already clues of what’s in store for us in next year’s budget, with the Government this week flying kites about slashing funding for respite care for families of disabled children and a plethora of bad news reports, concerning politically toxic measures such as property taxes and hospital downgrades, set to be published soon.

The Government can continue to bask in its pyrrhic referendum victory, and pretend it makes a blind bit of difference, but it’s about time its fighting talk was put into action or voters will not be as malleable the next time.