HEARTBEAT:Consensus is growing in favour of the construction of a more inclusive society, writes MAURICE NELIGAN
I HAVE been away for a few weeks on the far side of the world. Now I have returned to daffodils, cherry blossom, tulips and forsythia and the green anticipation of spring.
It should be a time of hope and renewal. Sadly, however, our minds are distracted by other more mundane matters, like how are we going to survive this economic catastrophe visited upon us.
“Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19, 19, six (pence), result happiness.
“Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20, nought (shillings), and six (pence), result misery.” Mr Micawber reckoned thus in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.
I suppose our lot never read much Dickens but the principle outlined is the basis of prudent housekeeping. For sure our lot don’t know much about that either.
I had thought that distance might provide some respite from the calamitous economic situation in Ireland. Unfortunately it did not.
Firstly, the internet provided me with a daily appraisal of the position at home, and classically “evil news rides post” (John Milton). Secondly, the group I was travelling with fell to comparing recessions and their consequences.
It was little solace and indeed a source of shame that these good folk of many nationalities felt that however bad their situation might be, that we Irish were worse. Since my return, some hapless gentleman from one of the rating agencies wandered into the lion’s den by suggesting or intimating that our problems might be more readily solved after an election.
Support for this view has also been expressed by others in the EU. This viewpoint is simply an expression of a widely held viewpoint here, that those who landed us in this mess are unlikely to be those to plot the road to safety.
Criticism from within or without is proper and the ludicrous posturing about outsiders commenting on our domestic affairs is not sustainable. The stark reality is that the IMF are outsiders and they won’t give a damn about our domestic susceptibilities. Furthermore, we are part of a union and the problems of one affect all.
Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximet ardet.
“For it is your business when the wall next door catches fire,” wrote Horace in The epistles. Seems our lot didn’t read him either.
We didn’t spend all our time discussing the woes of the world, but there was a perception among us that a careless, carefree, hedonistic era was drawing fast to a close and that a new order needed to be formulated.
That was as far as consensus brought us. The free marketers in the group, albeit slightly chastened by recent happenings, still felt that small government and light regulation still constituted the best way forward.
This “devil take the hindmost” discredited policy, I found disconcerting especially when faced daily with mounting evidence of its failure.
I suppose a daily exposure and uncritical acceptance of the ideological content of Fox News breeds this type of tunnel vision. Significantly, however, a higher proportion of our American friends and almost everybody else accepted the need for change and the construction of a more inclusive society.
In making reference to the internet, I had problems with my provider, Eircom.
My companions connected easily and quickly with their broadband servers while I was left to grow old and grey waiting for something to appear on the screen. It was disheartening to hear that our broadband “roll-out” was to be delayed owing to the current situation; so much for our “knowledge-based economy”.
We’re great ones with the words. It set me thinking about the whole Eircom debacle, how a once prosperous and thriving company was sold off and asset stripped and unwitting investors in its bright new future were essentially swindled.
It says something for Ireland that those responsible are still prominent in business and political life today.
Other items wended their way slowly through the ether. I learned that the new children’s hospital to be developed on the Mater site was going to be postponed for some time.
Big surprise that was. I would suggest to my paediatric colleagues that they should get on with their work in their present loci and leave the battle for the siting and development of the new facility to their as yet unborn grandchildren.
We only wasted €50 million on planning the transfer of Temple Street Children’s Hospital to the Mater before that was scrubbed in favour of the bigger picture.
The selection of the canvas for the bigger picture was, of course, not politically motivated. It was mere chance that it was located in Bertie’s constituency. In any case it helped to take the troops through the last election; that and the last minute canard that if “that other crowd” got in that they would halt the building bonanza.
The tragic and cynical decision to postpone the new cystic fibrosis centre in St Vincent’s falls into the same category. Fanfare announcements in response to public outrage and you think that at last something is to be done. Well you were wrong, it was the usual mixture of procrastination and deceit.
I await the coming days with interest. This is going to be very hard on all. I don’t think we will ever forget those who led us here and put ourselves and our children in penury for years to come. There will, of course, be a justifiable reckoning.
** Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon