No dividend for suffering taxpayers, just pain

Without doubt the Forbes magazine article on Ireland’s business-friendly credentials will have whiskey tumblers raised in glee at high-powered Christmas lunches in the coming days.

However, it will not bring much festive cheer to the many hard-pressed households across the country.

When taken in the context of recent debates on executive pay and welfare rates it highlights that the criteria on which success is measured are not those which are necessarily aligned with an equal society.

We are praised for low wages in the broader economy, persuaded that lower welfare rates, are needed to incentivise work at these lower wages, and that executives need top-ups in order to retain the ‘best’.

Our standing no doubt also benefits from our socialisation of private debt in order to maintain and protect the banks which almost crippled the country.

The concept of a social dividend is not high on Forbes’s list.

As we mourn the passing of the great Nelson Mandela we would do well to remember his words: “I am influenced more than ever before by the conviction that social equality is the only basis of human happiness.”

Now that would be something that all could raise their glasses to.

Barry Walsh

Blackrock

Cork