TRANSFORMING IRELAND 2011-2016
The Fine Gael/Labour Government has embarked on a programme of reform and some steps have been taken to bring this small country of ours back into solvency. This process had been begun by the late and much lamented Brian Lenihan who, in Glenties two years ago, spoke so passionately and so convincingly of a plan for recovery. Neither he nor indeed anyone else at MacGill in July of 2009 foresaw that even worse was yet to come and Minister Lenihan did not envisage that the banking crisis would continue to drag us down or that he would preside over the arrival of the IMF/EU/ECB in the Department of Finance in Merrion Street. The rest of the road to recovery which he set out on will not be easy.
At the time of writing, a former banker has attracted considerable publicity for the fact that he is involved with a British-based private equity company in buying distressed property loans from Irish banks. This is one of the bankers whose own bank had to be shored up by the taxpayers of this country and who, having received a salary of over €3m in his last year, retired on a pension of €650,000. Where is the fairness? Where is the justice? Where is the patriotism which appears to have become a dirty word in our society? And this is not an isolated case. The Head of a public company as well as its Board, and at this stage one has to question the role of boards in general, have had to be forced by government to forego the payment of a bonus to that CEO that would keep several low income families going for a year.
There are lots more hard decisions to be taken by Government-some of them extremely distasteful like, perhaps, reducing rates of social welfare, increasing tax rates yet further on people on relatively modest incomes, introducing additional taxes such as water rates etc. Life is going to get even harder for many of our people but this government cannot afford to shrink from the task at hand and cannot allow popularity in the polls or electoral considerations to blunt its determination to get this country back on track. Our people, who do value and cherish this Republic, are prepared for even more sacrifices, at least for a time. But they want to see fairness. They want to know that those who are comfortably off and have hardly been touched by austerity measures and who are shifting their money out of Irish banks rather than investing it at home contribute their fair share to restoring this country to solvency. They want an end to fraud and corruption and they want to see reform of our institutions so that inefficiency and waste are not allowed to continue. And they want to see governments govern in an honest and efficient and reforming way.
The MacGill agenda therefore is, as always, very full. It is essentially about building a better Ireland of which we can all be proud. It is about rebuilding our economy, having the right policies to create jobs so that our young people are not forced to emigrate. It is about highlighting the gravity of our economic situation and allowing the many citizens who come to Glenties or who follow our debates in the media or on line to be better informed and to have a say in the kind of measures which should be implemented. It is about reforming the political system and other institutions of the state so that they may become lean, fit and efficient and suited to a relatively small country of four and a half million people. It is about transforming our society so that by the end of this government’s term of office, we have a healthy economy again, excellent health and education services and a society based on fairness, transparency and equal opportunities for all, irrespective of class or creed. These achievements would in themselves be a celebration of the anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
Joe Mulholland