The harsh options facing the Government may curiously end up being liberating, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
LISTENING TO early coverage of the McCarthy report on RTÉ radio, as a long litany of cuts were solemnly read out, I was reminded of the list of deaths that are read on local radio stations. It had the same funereal atmosphere. All that was lacking were details of the removals and burials.
No doubt they will be provided after the next general election, when the electorate will bury anyone they perceive as responsible for this mess. Oddly enough, the certain prospect of electoral annihilation should be curiously liberating for the government parties.
They have only two basic options. They can either implement savage levels of cuts, and be wiped out at the next election, or not implement them, and risk the country becoming a failed, bankrupt state and, incidentally, be wiped out at the next election. Should there be enough residual patriotism to choose the former, they can proceed with a certain calm.
As a popular term, “An Bord Snip Nua” is up there with the Troubles and the Emergency, part of the long Irish habit of using a wildly inadequate euphemism to describe situations of terror or disaster.
Some might see in it the Irish ability to maintain a sense of humour, but it is also evidence of our highly developed denial mechanisms. We have been in complete denial, and it is time to wake up. Ireland is borrowing at unsustainable rates merely to keep afloat, and that cannot continue. Given the nature of sovereign debt markets, the plug could be pulled at any time.
Brian Lenihan called for “a collective social effort”. He begged us not to pursue our own special interest to the exclusion of all else. Fat chance, Brian. It is far too late for that. Somewhere around 1995, we abandoned ideas such as self-sacrifice for the common good as irrelevant and decided that economic success was our priority.
Many individuals and groups were troubled, and warned we were losing a social cohesiveness that would be hard to regain. They got called whingers and begrudgers for their pains. Now, when we desperately need social cohesiveness, it is in tatters.
The Government will somehow have to have the courage to ignore the protests, the phone-ins, the furious complaints and the inevitable vengeance of a disgusted electorate.
That does not mean a licence to plough ahead with all that has been proposed. With respect to Colm McCarthy and his team, they are thinking like economists. Health, education and social welfare may be the biggest costs on our balance sheets. They are also vital to quality of life.
The Government, even as its nose is being rubbed in economic reality, has a duty to protect what is valuable in our society, and that includes a great deal that is delicate, fragile and irreplaceable. Much that we rely on to bear fruit in the future needs careful nurture right now.
As a second-level teacher, education is the sector that I know best. If implemented in full, the proposed cuts, particularly at first and second level, will be utterly destructive. Most of the proposed cuts betray little understanding of what education is about. For example, increasing class sizes is not about putting another few desks into a classroom, but denying children a fair share of care. Unpalatable as they may be, changes in working conditions and pay for teachers may be inevitable, even on top of the other levies. It will cause great bitterness among teachers, who feel they did nothing to cause the recession. But there are far worse cuts proposed.
To take just one example, it is simply unthinkable to cut the numbers of special needs assistants, and at the same time, get rid of smaller special classes and slow the recruitment of educational psychologists, unless you wish to signal that children with special needs really do not matter. Similarly, you cannot cut social welfare rates, lone parent allowances, and child benefit without adding to the 19 per cent of Irish children who already live in poverty.
Fianna Fáil bears a huge level of responsibility for the mess both because of its cosy relationship with property developers, and its fiscal irresponsibility. The Greens are just collateral damage because of the huge anger felt towards Fianna Fáil.
Unfair? Certainly, especially since care for the environment, and ongoing efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not just optional extras for good times, but absolutely indispensable bulwarks against worse (yes, much worse) disasters we face in the future.
However, the Greens cannot whinge. Little is fair about this recession. Their members may demand that they cut and run at their special convention. If they do, they will be punished even more. Fianna Fáil and the Greens must face the same challenge – how to implement entirely necessary cuts in the face of entrenched public opposition, and how to prioritise compassion and justice as they do so.
Brian Cowen during his tenure there, named the Department of Health “Angola”, because of the number of unexploded landmines there. His response was not to take any steps at all. That is not an option any more. The fact that the electorate could not hate Fianna Fáil any more if they tried, in a strange way offers Cowen a chance to redeem himself.
The man has ability and a fundamental decency which he manages to conceal almost entirely most of the time. He now has to utilise both, without hope of reward, in the service of his country.
bobrien@irishtimes.com