Elections are sold — but what exactly are the voters buying?

The decision we are seemingly determined to make, is return to where we were, writes Gerard Howlin

ELECTIONS are not bought, they are sold. The passive-aggressive behaviour of Irish voters towards their politicians, is a well-honed technique in responsibility avoidance. It is also a sham.

A prominent story last weekend speculated that the minister for finance will splurge an extra €5 per week on every old age pensioner on budget day. Add in the largesse spent on the public service via the Lansdowne Road Agreement, and the promise of tax cuts of up to €750m, to match spending increases of the same amount, and you have a riotous return to the politics of “if I have it, I’ll spend it”.

Well only up to a point.

The flurry of stories about endless Enda, or Labour TDs like Derek Nolan and Alex White wanting a voting pact with Fine Gael, but others such as Dominic Hannigan and Joe Costello saying “hell no”, is a sign of electoral fever. In this newspaper on Monday, Renua’s leader Lucinda Creighton said she would consider coalition with Fine Gael. While that is hardly surprising, it does beg the question of exactly why she and her three Oireachtas colleagues left that party in the first place.

Lest anyone be left out, some TDs in Fianna Fáil are allegedly up for collation with Sinn Féin, but only if Gerry Adams goes. In tandem Fianna Fáil’s Justice Spokesman called their putative coalition party a “cult”. Michael McGrath can see Fianna Fáil as the junior partner in a Fine Gael-led coalition, but Senator Thomas Byrne begs to differ.

Back in reality, the European Commission, the Central Bank and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council counsel fiscal caution. They say that Ireland remains heavily indebted, and is acutely vulnerable to an external economic shock. The price of oil and the price of milk are proof of that.

Shale oil production has transformed the international oil markets, yielding vast new supplies. Saudi Arabia, alive to the strategic danger posed by shale production in the US, is pumping increasing quantities of crude. The result is a glut, and historically low prices predicted to continue for the foreseeable future.

And China is in the frame. Its economic slowdown has reduced demand, feeding the cycle of rising supplies and falling prices. Oil producers are in a race to the bottom on price, to preserve market share. On Monday a barrel of Brent crude oil cost $48, less than half the price of last summer.

The price of milk is closer to home. Dairy commodity prices are 40% down on what they were a year ago. Farmers, who made major investments, and hoped for a boom after the abolition of milk quotas are looking at a hard year. Irish farmers, partly protected by a weak euro, are not as badly hit as their British counterparts. A historically strong British pound, means their product is even less competitive. And China is in the frame again. Its growing economy was a driver of global commodity prices for everything from oil to dairy. At 7.45% last year, its economic growth rate was the lowest in 25 years. That’s if official figures are credible.

The best-case scenario is a new normal where average growth rates in China will be closer to half the 10% they were over previous decades. That is a major down-pull on the global economy. For now, low oil prices are a boost to Irish competiveness. Falling milk prices are hitting farmers hard. These are swings and roundabouts. The critical point is volatility. Major political flashpoints are the Middle East and China itself. Tracts of the Middle East are already in flames. The LÉ Niamh is on duty in the Mediterranean, dealing with the calamitous human fallout. The ultimate fear is that a faltering economy, exasperating underlying tensions of poverty, inequality, and corruption would undermine the Chinese regime and lead to widespread unrest. That thankfully is a what-if, but it’s not an impossible.

We can do next to nothing about most of these things. But we can make a decision about whether we are going to allow our palms to be greased, and then pretend it wasn’t our fault for voting for the policies that left us exposed to an economic shock when it comes.

That’s the point about elections being sold, not bought. It is voters who are buyers in elections. There is every sign we are going to buy a mad mix of fantasy and fairytale. The truth about the €1.2bn to €1.5bn the Government plans to unleash into the economy on budget day, is less apparent and more insidious that it seems. Actually in big picture terms it is not a deal breaker. A weak euro, cheap oil and growing employment mean all the government’s number are going the right way. No, the insidious part of this isn’t the specific amount in one year, or fiscal, it’s cultural. It is the culture of the politics that is being reintroduced, that is poisonous.

The Lansdowne Road Agreement, copper fastened by the National Economic Dialogue process, has re-established the key drivers of the colonisation of the public interest by the public service during the boom. A simple example of the politics involved is that if you are a public servant, your pension levy has been reduced and your pension has been increased. That will come from employee contributions, but overwhelmingly from taxation. Only half of workers, however have any pensions of their own, and the half that has, includes every public servant. Public servants of course deserve pensions, but here is the rub. The same government that rushed out to increase public service pensions, has steadfastly refused to grasp the nettle of either auto-enrolment or compulsory contributions for all workers. The difference is that increasing pensions for public servants, curries favour with a defined voting bloc. Facing down every employee on their first day on the job, and telling them they must begin to make some provision forthwith, is fraught.

But that’s the way we want it. Because it is the choice we have always made. In the greater scheme of things what is a fiver on the old age pension? You couldn’t put less on a bet on a horse.

The decision we are seemingly determined to make, is return to where we were. The drive to challenge vested interests in the economy has evaporated. The mix of parties and personnel that gets into government is secondary. Regrettably there is no coherent, credible political force committed to a sustained pursuit of policies of fiscal prudence and reform. Called “austerity” as a term of abuse, it was overwhelmingly common sense, and long overdue.

But now it is simply over, permanently. Who’s in and who’s out is almost nonsense and we know it. So long as nobody is so rude as to say it to our face, we don’t mind. We know the game, and we are in on it. We make the decisions, or at least the important ones.