Revision in policy-making urged

The decentralisation of policy-making must be immediately reversed if an efficient public service is to be achieved, ESRI economist Prof John Fitzgerald said today.

In an address to the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, Prof Fitzgerald said the programme had made decision-making considerably less effective and more costly.

“It is clear that, properly managed, many functions of administration can take place away from the centre, but policy making needs to take place at the heart of key public bodies,” he said.

“It is not just the question of the major increase in costs that decentralisation imposes on the policy making process; rather it is the damage it does to the policy-making process itself.”

Prof Fitzgerald said in choosing to generate revenue the Government should look to broaden the tax base rather than increase rates.

“It will also be important to choose taxes that have desirable properties for other reasons, such as discouraging damaging behaviour, and taxes that are unlikely to be too volatile in the future,” he said.

“Taxes which could fit the bill include taxes on property, water charges and taxes on carbon. If these prove insufficient or unacceptable, then broadening the base for income tax or VAT may also be necessary.”

He said there were signs the economy was repricing itself quite rapidly and that competitiveness was improving. This resulted in a good export performance in the first quarter of the year.

“However, it will be at least another year before this recovery will be sufficiently vigorous to convince scared consumers and investors that the corner has really been turned,” he said.