Irish Society: After the Ball is an analysis of what the Celtic Tiger left behind when it slunk into the undergrowth, writes Liz McManus
On the day I finished reading this book, a debate on the Government Estimates was taking place in Dáil Éireann. The question that caught fire was: "How can the Government justify cuts [in the social welfare budget] of €58 million for the weakest in society when €67 million will be made in prize-money for the diversion of tax exiles in the racing industry?" The political clash that ensued would have fitted nicely as an epilogue to this book.
After the Ball is an analysis of what the Celtic Tiger left behind when it slunk into the undergrowth. The book begins by demolishing the myths - here, in Ireland, we are not unique in our history of suffering, struggle and economic stagnation. Globalisation in the 21st century is what defines us as different. The Republic of Ireland is now the most globalised country on earth. The author quotes Fred McMahon, of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, describing Ireland's economic performance as "nothing short of miraculous" and using it as an argument to prove the validity of right-wing, free-market ideology based on low tax, wage moderation, and low public spending. Nonsense, says O'Toole:
Whatever else the Irish economic model from the later 1980s onwards may have been, it was not the free market. It was driven in large measure by precisely the kind of institutions that the right despises; an interventionist government, public servants, the social democrats of Europe. Even in strictly economic terms, the role of left-wing movements such as feminism was crucial.
Here endeth the first lesson.
What follows is a development of that proposition. O'Toole is a staunch proponent of values that do not chime with the hymns to the free market that are regularly chanted by media commentators and economists. He cites the Internet as an example of what old-fashioned principles of communal property, co-operative working and public utilities can deliver. And the human genome project exists in a battlefield where conflicting forces of right and left are in contention.
He then proceeds to tell the story of Ireland from Charles J. Haughey onwards. Much of the information is statistical. Facts are listed in a way that makes for a useful reference book. There is a lot of material drawn together as evidence for a central thesis, that the opportunity to channel the benefits of our economic miracle effectively has been squandered. It is a failure - as the author devastatingly shows - that leaves us languishing at or near the bottom of so many important leagues and measures of what constitutes a fair society.
Those who did benefit are put under scrutiny, as well as those who lost out. The great bulk of the super-luxury yacht, Christina O, intrudes and the author has some fun describing in detail the rooms and the celebrity residents that occupied them.
"Why is all of this of the slightest interest to Irish taxpayers?" he asks. "Because they paid for it", he replies.
Irish tax law allows the buyers of the Christina O, which is available for hire and therefore regarded as a business, to claim capital allowances for the yacht's purchase and refurbishment and to set these costs against their Irish income for tax avoidance purposes. Later, O'Toole delves deep into the extent of tax evasion in Ireland and the way the State has turned a blind eye to it over many years.
After the Ball is published by tasc in conjunction with New Island. Tasc is a new think-tank dedicated "to radical thinking leading to progressive social change in Ireland". It is the kind of research body that is commonplace elsewhere but which, in Ireland, is all too rare. So it is good news when a respected journalist such as Fintan O'Toole publishes such a critique, designed to expose the gross inequalities that characterise our newfound prosperity. It is a sad, sorry catalogue of failures that he lists. It might have helped to show the full picture of the Celtic Tiger legacy; the workless who found work, for example, and the women who were liberated out of poverty. But that is not the purpose of this book. Its purpose is to jog our complacency, to nudge us into action even, to face the legacy of bad government and short-sighted policies and to set ourselves challenges to meet in the future.
Liz McManus is deputy leader of the Labour Party
After the Ball. By Fintan O'Toole, tasc at New Island, 180pp. €11.99