WITH THE exception of Ireland's sporting achievements, 2009 was a year most of us would like to forget. A new year and decade, however, are a time for reflection, and for optimism, writes EAMON GILMORE
Ireland has serious problems. This recession is longer and deeper than others we have experienced, and the fallout for families greater. The yardstick, however, is our capacity to overcome our problems. As we have shown many times often before, that capacity is as remarkable as it is robust. We can, and will, do better. Ireland is a small country with a talented, creative and enterprising people.
In an era when practically every country in the world proclaims its ambition to be a knowledge economy, we have a good track record in the knowledge-intensive sectors. We have a strong educational tradition. We have rich natural resources underpinning our food industry, and the huge, virtually untapped, resources of the sea. Ireland is still, and will continue to be, a fundamentally attractive place to visit and to invest in.
As the world economy recovers, those positives can come into their own. But we also need change. We need a focus on jobs, reform and fairness.
At government level, the response to the economic crisis has gone through three phases. At the beginning, they were in denial. Then, when the enormity of the problem finally registered, they panicked. That was the period of the banking guarantee and the emergency budget. Fianna Fáil was fixated on the banks and on the fiscal crisis, and did nothing about jobs. Since April, we have seen the third or “beggar my neighbour” phase.
This is the strategy whereby Fianna Fáil marked out one or two groups in society, and loaded the weight of adjustment on to them. Public servants – nurses, gardaí and teachers – have been the subject of particular abuse, and with people such as carers or those with disabilities, have been made to carry a disproportionate share of cuts.
Meanwhile, the privileged in Irish society have circled the wagons, and demanded in ever shriller tones that others need to feel pain.
Fianna Fáil has been willing to oblige them. There is always a short-term gain from “beggar-my-neighbour” politics. Ministers get to look tough and there are plaudits from those commentators who yearn for “John Wayne style” government – who believe that if only government can be tough enough in standing up to the imagined enemy, all will be well.
But the short-term victory comes with longer-term costs. Social solidarity and national unity, are not just fine-sounding ideals – they are the glue that holds our country together. If we fracture those bonds now, they will be extremely difficult to mend. There is always a price to pay further down the road.
Our problems are great, but so too are our strengths – provided we pull together. We saw that clearly during the recent flooding, when local communities and organisations such as the IFA came together. We need a similar approach to our economic crisis. Indeed, the Dutch, who know a thing or two about dealing with floods, have historically applied the term “Polder capitalism” to the search for common economic solutions, since similar common efforts were required in Holland to hold back the sea.
I have consistently argued that a new National Agreement would contribute greatly to national recovery. Such an agreement should provide for a coherent jobs strategy, greater home protection, a negotiated approach to public pay, a budgetary strategy based on fairness, and a guarantee of industrial peace. Now is not the time for industrial action.
A determination to move forward together is not a sign of weakness. Neither is it a recipe for peace at any price, nor should it limit robust debate. Rather, it is a recognition that in a small country, we achieve far more through negotiation and co-operation than through conflict. A resolve to face our difficulties, resolutely but fairly, and in a spirit of national unity and solidarity, would send a powerful signal to the broader world. It would also provide hope at home, particularly as it must contain a coherent jobs strategy. Labour’s Jobs Fund Proposal would have provided the resources to begin that work.
Part of the process of rebuilding the economy is showing a willingness to learn from your mistakes so that they won’t be repeated. That is why we need a proper, time-limited, inquiry into what went wrong in the banking system.
As we rebuild our economy, we should look, too, at the values driving it. We don’t have to return to the status-focused consumerist society that marked out the high point of the bubble. We will judge the quality of our children’s lives, not by the brand on their jeans, but by their respect for each other and sense of citizenship in the wider world.
Eamon Gilmore is leader of the Labour Party. Garret FitzGerald is on leave