What is on the horizon?

Moving in times of crisis

It is not easy in these times of crisis trying to move forward.  It is akin to walking with your eyes closed.  Daunting yet necessary.  To help this blind ambulation it can help to try and find out what the future might hold, at least this will shine some light on the darkness and one will not crash into anything too obvious.


Of course this is a national darkness so many people are walking around in varying states of confusion.  And in the darkness ghosts and fears lurk.  Ghosts of the past, fears for the future, at once ethereal but also potent in their ability to cause mental anguish and sleepless nights.
No wonder people are relieved to be talking about something as mundane and real as snow and the weather.  We as a nation can at least struggle against that.


But after the weather subsides the debate and confusion will return.  Being wintertime, a time for reflection, deep though and remembrance makes it trickier.  We will need some forms of relief from those hard to grasp fears that are outside our control yet impact on us.

Ghosts and fears

With these ghosts lurking in the darkness people will start doing strange things.  Of course ghosts from the past, like tricky neighbours or work colleagues must be engaged with every now and again, often from sheer necessity or chance.
At a national level the ghosts of the people who fought and died in 1916 may be called on.  Or even the people in the past who voted in the Maastricht treaty or those who voted in FF in the last election may be called on.  The past and its ghosts are powerful and like older people should be duly respected. Put we also should move forward.

What makes the current situation more difficult is that the ground on which we stand and strive to walk on is feeling shaky.  Now walking blindly amid ghosts and darkness on shaking ground is tough for any man or woman.

People will feel this and strive to strengthen the ground on which they stand.  But what is this ground?

You will see some people adopt a dogged approach putting the head down and working furiously. They may not engage with the debate on how to fix the country. When they look up and see that not everyone is working furiously they may become frustrated and bark at them.

Some others will find the going too hard or maybe feel too powerless and will stand still.  They most likely will not engage with the debate.  They will use whatever resources they have shored up or can get from people to keep their life going.  They may take some tablets or find it necessary to engage in delusions.

Others may take more extreme measures and throw in the towel.

Many will engage with the debate and strive to fix the country.  Much will be said and done with a tone of anguish and pain, perhaps alleviated with some drink and other forms of relief.


So what does the future hold - Next week the Budget?


On the horizon next week is the budget.  According to Pat Rabitte, last week on Radio One, he thinks the government will leave a lot of the big decisions to next year, for example the Social Welfare cuts will not be broached.  As Deputy Rabitte succinctly put it the IMF/EU agreements and four year plans are all front loaded, yet the actual policy implementation back loaded.  The government have been at this game for 13 years!

This will allow the government to pass a budget with no real big controversial points and bind the next administration into EU/IMF plans. The next administration will then do most of the cleaning up of the mess.  This is the strategy that FF has been using for years, working the system.
Yet is it killing the spirit of democracy, parliament and basic honesty of the political system.

The government released the Memorandum Of Understanding with the IMF/EU this week.  It details specific policy requirements which the Irish government are bound to take in 2011.  Among these are an increase in the pension age, large social welfare cuts, large reduction in the public service wage bill, new laws to reform the legal and medical profession and a new bill to address personal debt regimé.  If this is nota straitjacket for the incoming regimé I don't know what is.

One things leaps out at me here.  There will be a lot of strikes in 2011.  I can't see the large public sectors unions taking these cuts lying down.  Also the legal and medical profession.  These guys won't budge easily.


One of the standard levers to use to administer these cuts, is to get the people's buy in.  This is normally done by having a democratic debate or vote.  Thus as The President of Iceland said (see blog "Can Ireland learn from Iceland?") large changes must be done in harmony with the will of the people.

We are not doing things in harmony with the democratic will thus I expect large strikes in 2011.

The Greens and democracy

The Greens espouse local democracy as part of their foundational principles.  It seems strange that they cannot see that they are breaking one of their own principles and alienating their political base.  One must surmise that they believe the FF line that this is not a time for democracy as we have no choices.  There are always choices.  Even if the choices are very limited by not engaging properly in a democratic sense
and giving the people a voice erodes the spirit of democracy itself.

The other level available to the government is force.  I doubt the new administration has the appetite yet to bring the gardaí into government deal with these?


Snakes on the ground

It looks likely that there will be a legal challenge to the IMF/EU bail out deal.  The great Dev used this constitutional ploy to refuse to pay land annuities to the UK, precipitating the terrible Economic War.  Darren O' Donovan, a UCC lecturer in public international law, argues in the Irish Times, 2nd Dec 2010 that it may require a Dáil Vote.  The EU funding mechanism that Ireland is availing of is itself being challenged
in the German courts at the moment.  I'd say some citizen will challenge the bail-out deal here in the Irish courts.

The other major threat is the whole Euro as a monetary system.  This is under severe threat and looks like it will have to be resolved in the next 6 months.  What happens with the Euro will have an impact on Ireland in 2011.  Yesterday the ECB started essentially printing Euros to alleviate the problem.  The German people are against this as it weakens the Euro.
This is a sick hen which the markets will continue to pick at to see if it falls down.

The EU leaders are pumping resources via bail-outs into a crumbling system.  They do not know how to move forward in this crisis.  They are hoping that the Euro as a system is working as it currently stands yet it does not look so.  New rules and a new system are required yet the EU leaders are gripped by fear of the unknown and are in denial.  Something will have to give.


The Election in 2011


This will be an unusual affair.  Much of the debate will be frantic and aspirational.  How will the parties acknowledge that they will be straitjacketed by the IMF/EU and tempt the voters with anything but cuts and hard times?

I wonder will the election be fought on renegotiating the IMF/EU bail-out and the four year plan. I see the influential Fintan O'Toole is already trying to do this, see his column last Tuesday, 30th Nov, the Irish Times. Unfortunately this is a real danger and it will mean that it will set the country back about 6 months in the recovery.  But this is what you get when you do not treat a democratic people democratically and impose cuts that are not in harmony with the will of the people.