Jim Power: Facing into a war over wages
I concluded that ‘new politics’ doesn’t quite float my boat and, in fact, gave me a sinking feeling.
Following more than a week on which to reflect and with the benefit of hindsight, I have concluded that I didn’t do justice to the budget in its immediate aftermath.
It was actually much worse than I originally concluded, and if it is any indication of what we have in store in this era of ‘new politics’, then God help us.
As the reader knows, the budget package consisted of €1.3bn in extra spending and taxation measures.
The money was thrown about in a very scattered fashion, and at the end of the day, ended up making no more than a modest impact on those whom it was meant to benefit.
Most of us are slightly better off, but nobody will be significantly better off.
However, that will always be the outcome from a scatter-gun approach to policymaking, which is a type of policy approach that has been all too familiar in Ireland for many years.
Imagine if the €1.3bn had been targeted at one or two areas of concern such as the homeless crisis, hospital beds, or third-level education, a significant impact could have been achieved.
Instead, a significant amount of money has been spread very thinly across a lot of different areas, and the net result is that the money has been spent and nobody is materially better off.
Another missed opportunity in a long fiscal history of missed opportunity.
I shouldn’t be in the least bit surprised because the very diluted and fragmented model of democracy that we are burdened with in this country will dictate the delivery of depressing budgets of the type that we were subjected to last week.
We can expect more of the same.
With the budget now out of the way and an open goal hopelessly missed, the real war is starting for our grossly inept Government.
That war is being fought in the trenches of industrial relations, and one fears that there will be heavy casualties.
Luas drivers and Dublin Bus workers have already emerged victorious and the teachers, gardaí, and doctors are now getting engrossed.
We can be certain that many others will emerge on the battleground over the coming weeks and one worries that the weak political structures we have will not be capable of putting up any sort of resistance.
The strong likelihood is that pay demands will soak up considerable resources over the next couple of years, which effectively means that few resources will be available to improve frontline services such as hospital beds, gardaí on the beat, and nurses.
In an environment of scarce resources, it will not be physically possible to satisfy the growing crescendo of wage demands and other vital areas will be deprived of funding.
One cannot escape the conclusion that greed and short-term thinking are again starting to drive Irish policy making. We have learned nothing.
Meanwhile, the farce that is Brexit continues to take many twists and turns.
Sterling weakened sharply last week and came into this week threatening to go into freefall. In the event, it has had a relatively good week and has made up some lost ground.
The arrest of the decline and the modest recovery have been primarily due to an increased possibility that the invocation of Article 50 will have to be approved by parliament rather than by the prime minister in her role as head of the cabinet.
Such an eventuality would be good, because there is some possibility, however slight, that parliament could choose to attempt to reverse/ignore the referendum result.
This week’s currency action just goes to prove that if ‘Hard Brexit’ is looking more likely, sterling will fall a lot further, and if a ‘Soft Brexit’ or no Brexit at all becomes more likely, sterling will strengthen.
The bottom line is that the fate of sterling does appear to lie in the hands of a political system, which like our own, does not exactly inspire confidence at the moment.
