IRELAND, TIME TO STAND UP FOR OURSELVES

Irish people would want to start standing up for themselves. We are being used as a political football by bigger nations who have their other own mix of agendas. The first thing to do is to start standing up for ourselves to each other. The continuous wallowing in doom and gloom and the blame game is destroying our belief and own self confidence and is hugely self destructive.

Problems must be faced in order to deal with them. In order to face them we must be honest and have perspective. The blame game is cancerous for two reasons, firstly revenge never gets you what you want, and secondly it affords you the luxury of not blaming yourself for any portion of where we are. Most have played some part in the excesses of the past decade even if its was only buying the television we couldn’t afford or buying a fancy car that we didn’t need.

I believe it is important to be truthful with ourselves because that is the first stop in accepting we are where we are, and moving on. The second aspect of the blame game that needs to be addressed is that we keep most of our vitriol for our own.

Whilst I have no sympathy for our politicians or our bankers, Europe and the rating agencies have also played a major role in our current circumstance.

They kept interest rates low when it suited everybody in Europe except Ireland. This meant that we had such an availability of cheap money during the boom that it was difficult to refuse cheap capital. Our economy was out of step with Europe and they were as aware of it as we were. They must take some of the blame for not focusing on it.

In the present circumstance it also suits them to forget that it was convenient to have Ireland as this small nation who was the poster boy for European success. In relative terms our current problems are being exaggerated compared to other European nations, even France and the UK.

To appreciate this I believe one needs to look at our banking crisis and the cost of our public service primarily. The banks are being bailed out throughout the western world for reasons which are broadly similar to Ireland.  Rating agencies and regulators have been out to lunch for the past 15 years.

The rating agencies who have been downgrading Ireland`s debt on a daily basis are the same rating agencies who handed out triple AAA ratings like confetti a few years ago to risks that subsequently proved to have no value.

We must remember that bond markets are just banks or other financial institutions, mainly German banks, and here we get to the heart of it. It suited those banks to lend into this booming economy. They saw profit. The rating agencies agreed.

Many private individuals are today blaming the banks for giving them the money. The Irish banks could on the same basis, argue the same in terms of those German banks.

We are being used now as a political football by the German’s and French in particular. The German banks were happy to fund Irish and others, but won’t take the blame. The rating agencies are slaves to the bigger nations and therefore facilitate them in terms of getting a premium on Irish debt.

It also suits them to focus more on a small less significant nation when attending summits such as the G20, as it distracts from the less savoury aspects of major players. Ireland therefore gets a hugely disproportionate amount of airtime.

Meanwhile rating agencies go scot-free. It must be nice to have a job where, whether you are right or wrong, you are always right. They should be prevented from those hour by hour assessments of risk as it is too open to abuse.

We must remember that someone is making a lot of money by playing around with Irelands risk profile. In pure financial terms the banking bailout is a small portion of our ever increasing deficit. If the cost is 50 billion, the annual cost of servicing that is 2.5 billion approximately.

Meanwhile we are incurring losses that need to be funded at a rate of 20 billion a year. The public service issue is therefore 8 times that of the banking crisis. This running cost has been built up over a short period of time and if it continues it will bankrupt Ireland far quicker than the banking crisis.

As a low tax economy, at all levels it is even more unacceptable that our public officials are paid significantly more than their counterparts in Europe. This is widely known but not confronted because of individual greed as evidenced by the Croke Park Agreement. We must put pressure on to tackle these two issues and focus on them.

However, whilst we are stuck in the blame game, every vested interest group in the country is using the crisis to suggest that they are the worst affected by it. I say to them that you can’t fix the component parts if you don’t fix the main engine. There is no point putting alloy wheels on a 1970 Anglia.

This is an opportunity for Ireland to take another step forward as a nation, be ambitious for Ireland, and have confidence in the innate ability of Irish people. This is where perspective come in. Let’s reflect on the Celtic Tiger in a different way.

Consider the following in terms of post Celtic Tiger Ireland:

·        800,000 more people employed  

·        Vastly improved infrastructure·        Roads, tunnels, schools etc.

·        Indigenous wealth

·        How people live and what they regard as the new norm

·        Ireland as a place to do business

·        Ireland in terms of quality of life

·        Vastly improved tax structure

If you look at how people live in Ireland now and what they regard as the norm, we have made incredible strides. Now what is required is a major correction. We enjoyed the good time let’s not bottle it because it’s got a little tough. We need to think of Ireland the nation first, and that means getting our fundamentals right.

To do this we must realise that at the end of the day we are the only people who can do it. No one will give us a free hand, or free lunch as it were. The defeatist thought of allowing outsiders to intervene is just giving up and unnecessary. Our politicians are gutless. The banks are spineless. A Politician’s only job is to get elected and if you are lucky, you get a small number of them who have vision, courage and leadership. At this moment we are devoid of this kind, with one exception.

Our banks and economists are the same as their counterparts worldwide. Bankers are sheltered people who don’t understand business. Any ability that they used to have to assess risk has long since disappeared. Economists are scorekeepers who seldom get it right. The tactical stupidity of Morgan Kelly’s article emphasises this better than anything I could add. The media are too busy wallowing in the blame game. They know truth about many things but won’t tackle them because they are part of the junket.

Every time some foreign entity comments on Ireland we effectively ring the up and say no, no, it’s much worse. We can’t runaway from the truth but we must stop destroying ourselves internally at every juncture. You won’t hear Brittan, Italy or the US creating such an avalanche of comment about how their world is falling down around them.

The Irish are a highly intelligent capable nation of people. Let’s start believing in each other even those who have made mistakes. Yes we must continue to pressure our leaders to do the right things, but we must also be supportive of the nation.

The biggest thing we must do is to bring certainty to our situation and encourage those who have agendas that are not good for Ireland that we are capable. In addition we must understand that we do have leverage and use it. They want us not to fail on their terms. We must tell them that we are not going to fail on our terms. Small as we are, Europe can’t afford us to fail maybe even more than we can’t afford it.

The Irish are renowned for their willingness to fight. As a nation we need to grow up and learn to fight for ourselves with Ireland at the heart of our ambition. Truly united with a national self belief.