Sir, – Your Editorial “Beyond austerity” (January 23rd) does little to help create an informed and realistic debate about the difficult choices which lie ahead for Ireland. The pious “hope-ium’ of those whose “Plan B” you largely approve, reflects for me, how public debate in Ireland can be conducted earnestly and within the pages of the newspaper of record, with only passing reference to salient and unpalatable facts.
Ireland’s yawning gap between what it raises from its citizens in total taxation, approximately €42 billion, and what it spends on public expenditure and salaries and pensions, €60 billion, is currently bridged by loans from the Troika. The majority of the signatories to a letter published by you (January 20th), calling for “an emergency budget”, draw their incomes from the public purse and against the aforementioned stark reality they simplistically argue for a tax and spend policy as a viable solution to stimulate employment and growth.
If the collective wisdom of the distinguished group seeking an “emergency budget” is simply bounded by a recognition that the bank bailout for Anglo and Nationwide was an error and the belief that a sound “Plan B” should be focused on capital, property and increased income tax on the higher paid to fund State-driven job creation, then readers have reason to be truly concerned for our collective future.
Ireland is borrowing to meet a huge level of historic overcommitment in public expenditure. In the 10 years from 2001, for example, expenditure on social protection has increased 266 per cent from €7.84 billion to almost €21 billion in 2011.
Your group of well-intentioned contributors ignores the harsh reality that our democratically elected decision-makers have over the past two decades created many more entitlements and claims on the nation’s wealth than national wealth itself.
The inconvenient truth remains that even if we were to get a substantial level of debt forgiveness for the folly of the bank guarantee, any credible “Plan B” must still focus on cutting the national cloth to a substantially reduced measure. There are no easy solutions to improving our international competitiveness and sadly many of the pillars of our public service have been less than effective in doing more with less. Under any and all credible Plan B scenarios we will have to recognise the futility of assuming that we can consume more than we create on an ongoing basis. – Yours, etc,