It is questionable whether most people are better off as a result of the economic boom, suggests Peader Kirby
At times under the Celtic Tiger Ireland's half-decade economic boom, we seemed to have taken leave of our collective senses. "The good times are here to stay" was the dominant euphoric mood.
This is what I label the "thesis of permanent transformation" in my latest book. I am sceptical of such a thesis since it rests on a very partial reading of the economic evidence. But I also believe it misses entirely the essential characteristic of the Celtic Tiger - that economic success has gone hand in hand with social failure.
In arguing that our economy has been transformed, it is very surprising that none of our mainstream economists, who are so quick to criticise our past economic dependence on Britain, sees cause for concern at our growing dependence on the United States.
By the standards of any economy in the world, our industrial base is hugely dependent on the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals. This makes us highly vulnerable.
Much has also been made of the transformation of our indigenous industry, particularly the software sector. Yet, as the recent downturn has shown, this too is a highly vulnerable sector, and claims about an indigenous industrial renaissance were far too premature.
But even if the economy were transformed, it does not take a social scientist to have noticed the growing gap between economic success and glaring social failure on numerous fronts.
Our mood of euphoria seems to have derived from the seduction that economic growth is good in itself, not a means to a better society.
It is clear that the Celtic Tiger has enriched a small elite. Overall, however, it is debatable how much better off most of us are as a result.
We are told, for example, that our take-home pay increased by 35 per cent between 1987 and 1999. But if we take into account that house prices increased nationally by 104 per cent between 1994 and 1999, and in Dublin by 136 per cent, we are forced to more complex conclusions.
A similar case can be made in regard to employment growth. In my book I take issue at some length with the claim that Ireland has been transformed into a highly qualified "white-collar" economy.
For example, within industry most of the employment growth has taken place in construction while overall two-thirds of new jobs have been in services.
While some of these service jobs are highly-paid, quality jobs, a large part of the increase has taken place in retail jobs, in hotels and restaurants, in transport and communication.
Many of these are relatively low-paid, insecure jobs worked in anti-social hours. It is noteworthy, for example, that we have seen a number of determined strikes over low pay in the transport sector, in Aer Lingus, in Irish Rail and in Dublin Bus.
Much is made of the growth in the financial and business service sector and obviously this does provide some good jobs. But even here, data show that average earnings have not kept pace with average industrial earnings.
Overall, therefore, I conclude that the Irish occupational structure is characterised not by the upgrading of jobs but by growing polarisation between an elite workforce in good jobs and more and more workers in insecure and relatively poorly paid jobs.
The theme of inequality emerges as being central to the changes wrought by the Celtic Tiger.
As I describe at length in The Celtic Tiger in Distress, unequal treatment is built into the institutions of our educational and health systems, into our taxation system and into our social welfare system.
If some argue that growth has been good for Irish society, then clearly it has been far better for some than for others.
Housing is a particular case that illustrates the dynamics driving social change in Ireland. Our virtually non-existent tax regime on property and the profits derived from it has fuelled speculative investment in housing by the newly-rich elite. Housing has been transformed from a social good, accessible by most in our society, into an investment opportunity.
We hear far too little about the resultant hardship under which large numbers live as a result, though the dramatic growth in both housing lists and in homelessness attests to the social costs involved. Meanwhile, the whole process deepens the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots since owning a house is the main wealth asset of most families.
To these social failures we could add a list that would put us to shame even among most Third World countries. Top of the list would be our appalling public transport system.
But the crisis management mode in which most of our social services seem to operate at the moment, the glaring failures of the State in attending to the needs of young juveniles brought before the courts, the awful conditions in which the Travelling community lives, are others of which the media regularly remind us.
When we are told therefore that one of the causes of our economic success has been a highly efficient State (in attracting multinational investment, for example), we are only hearing one side of the story.
The big puzzle is how the Irish state can be so efficient in some economic matters but so grossly negligent and in seeming permanent crisis when it comes to so many areas of social provision. I suppose it indicates priorities.
The most glaring failure, in my view - and again I outline this at some length in my book - is the lack of any State policy to address the growing inequality in our society.
Government ministers seem far more interested in claiming rather dubious successes in reducing poverty than in acknowledging that we have, by international standards, a most serious problem of inequality.
Indeed, reading official documents on this issue, I have been forced to conclude that the growing gap between rich and poor is not seen by the official mind to matter.
Such neglect is foolhardy in the extreme. One formulation of what constitutes successful development, going back to the 1950s, is "growth with equality" since inequality is seen to undermine the cohesiveness of society and growth itself.
Growth with inequality is thus seen as the mark of unsuccessful development, nurturing seeds of social conflict.
It is for this reason that more and more concern is being expressed internationally about how globalisation seems to be deepening inequality.
Ireland, therefore, which our economists tell us has benefited so much from globalisation, is also illustrating its darker side. It is an example of the costs of economic success under the dominant corporate and neo-liberal form of globalisation.
Far from feeling any euphoria about our economic boom, it is time for a more balanced assessment of its highly ambiguous impact on our society.
At the end of my book, I emphasise the need for a far more activist civil society to foster a debate on the kind of society we would like to create and to pressure the State to assume its social responsibilities. For the Irish state has more than paid its debts to the market; it is high time for it to take the needs of society seriously, to find ways of ensuring economic growth benefits society and not just a small elite.
The Celtic Tiger in Distress: Growth with Inequality in Ireland was published last week by Palgrave