People are right to praise Lenihan's Budget as a brave attempt to arrest the freefalling fiscal crisis, but I'm surprised they didn't mention how Lenihan sold the pass on public service pensioners.
There is little point in tackling the structural deficit without including these people, many of whom 'retired' in their 40s or early 50s on incredibly generous pensions, only to start second careers. These are not little old ladies sparing the coal!
The fact that Lenihan has made radical changes to the pension rules for new entrants to the public service is an implied admission that the previous rules were nothing but a sham. If I recall the figures correctly, Ireland is facing a public sector pension bill of some €100 billion by 2030. That is not only unsustainable, it is a scandalous imposition on our future workers, thanks to the uncosted and fraudulent populism of a series of dreadful governments in our recent past. Worse still, is the well-founded impression that public service pensions were spared only because retired ministers and politicians would be caught as well.
Talleyrand could have been referring to the Dail when he said of the Bourbons, "They have forgotten nothing, and learned nothing." What a pity our politicians have once again added their usual dollop of cynicism to a vital measure of national policy.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Quangos - Anybody Got a Match?
Now that the dust is settling on the Budget we are beginning to see some of its gaping holes, despite all the good work done by Brian Lenihan in stabilising our precarious situation. And of all these holes, none is bigger than the complete absence of any mention of quangos.
The so-called 'bonfire of the quangos' has been promised from the moment the credit crunch really hit home, with those of us who had always chafed at the massive waste of public money that these unelected and unaccountable bodies represented, now being joined by most reasonable people.
With the attention of the public suddenly focused on this massive diversion of taxpayers' funds, the Government seemed to realise the game was up on their little racket, and quickly started making noises about doing away with the multitude of quangos created under Bertie Ahern's plan to buy everyone and everything in sight with our money.
However, a year later one could be forgiven for thinking every quango had been done away with, and the billions squandered on them had all been recouped, if Lenihan's speech was anything to go by. But no, the 800 (a guess) or so quangos are still merrily spending money like it's going out of fashion, and countless 'chief executives', 'directors', and 'chairpersons' are still occupying their expensive office suites around the country and issuing spending directives and press releases as if they were Eva Peron.
But of course, we were all being a bit naive if we believed any politician would willingly relinquish his right to nominate certain well-connected people to a public body that had been specially dreamt up just for them. Especially when it was all being done at the taxpayers' expense. Don't we all remember how Bertie Ahern appointed his ex-girlfriend to the Consumer Agency, even though she had precisely zero experience in any of the issues she would be sitting in judgement on? But nobody cared. The important thing was that politicians had found the most wonderful little scam whereby they could lash out political patronage to their willing stooges, while bribing potential enemies, all at our expense. But what's a €200,000 salary between friends, even if we did have to hand it out thousands of times between quango bosses, managers, board members and staff.
Now that we are beginning to see that the most inexcusable part of the public sector is the one that has remained untouched, there is more than a little bafflement. Lenihan has a big enough battle on his hands with justifying cuts to pay and benefits for people on the edge of the financial abyss, so you can only admire his weird determination to fight to the last ditch to keep the apparatchiks and comrades in the Equality Authority at their expensive desks.
Maybe the Government knows more than they're saying, and they have a big surprise in store for us. Or more likely, all those in the inner circle who were so carefully featherbedded in their quangos by the politicians, know where the bodies are buried, and have made themselves "untouchable".
The so-called 'bonfire of the quangos' has been promised from the moment the credit crunch really hit home, with those of us who had always chafed at the massive waste of public money that these unelected and unaccountable bodies represented, now being joined by most reasonable people.
With the attention of the public suddenly focused on this massive diversion of taxpayers' funds, the Government seemed to realise the game was up on their little racket, and quickly started making noises about doing away with the multitude of quangos created under Bertie Ahern's plan to buy everyone and everything in sight with our money.
However, a year later one could be forgiven for thinking every quango had been done away with, and the billions squandered on them had all been recouped, if Lenihan's speech was anything to go by. But no, the 800 (a guess) or so quangos are still merrily spending money like it's going out of fashion, and countless 'chief executives', 'directors', and 'chairpersons' are still occupying their expensive office suites around the country and issuing spending directives and press releases as if they were Eva Peron.
But of course, we were all being a bit naive if we believed any politician would willingly relinquish his right to nominate certain well-connected people to a public body that had been specially dreamt up just for them. Especially when it was all being done at the taxpayers' expense. Don't we all remember how Bertie Ahern appointed his ex-girlfriend to the Consumer Agency, even though she had precisely zero experience in any of the issues she would be sitting in judgement on? But nobody cared. The important thing was that politicians had found the most wonderful little scam whereby they could lash out political patronage to their willing stooges, while bribing potential enemies, all at our expense. But what's a €200,000 salary between friends, even if we did have to hand it out thousands of times between quango bosses, managers, board members and staff.
Now that we are beginning to see that the most inexcusable part of the public sector is the one that has remained untouched, there is more than a little bafflement. Lenihan has a big enough battle on his hands with justifying cuts to pay and benefits for people on the edge of the financial abyss, so you can only admire his weird determination to fight to the last ditch to keep the apparatchiks and comrades in the Equality Authority at their expensive desks.
Maybe the Government knows more than they're saying, and they have a big surprise in store for us. Or more likely, all those in the inner circle who were so carefully featherbedded in their quangos by the politicians, know where the bodies are buried, and have made themselves "untouchable".
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Root and Branch Reform
With Brian Lenihan doing the bare minimum necessary to stop the country falling into bankruptcy, this well-flagged Budget contained no surprises. Although the usual crescendo of groans predictably rose from those who always felt they had some sort of superior claim on the national income.
What came as a surprise to most people, I think, was the bizarre announcement by the Garda Representative Association (GRA) prior to the Budget, that the breakdown of the social partnership talks would be the signal for them to ballot their members on strike action.
That an organisation representing the bulk of the national police force should believe it is perfectly acceptable to contemplate withdrawing their presence from the streets, almost beggars belief. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern was right on the money when he described the plans as "an affront to democracy". Not even in the dark days of the Civil War or its Blueshirt aftermath, did the Garda ever consider such a mutiny to be conceivable.
The question is, what has changed in our society that such blatant lawbreaking by the police is something they themselves take for granted? Could it be that decades of pandering by our politicians to every interest group has now conditioned those groups to believe their every demand must be satisfied, no matter how outlandish?
From an objective viewpoint, the guards have little to complain about. With an average wage of over €1,300 per week, and an array of expenses and other perks, they are at or near the top of the public service tree - especially compared to the soldiers who often back them up in operations, who would be glad to earn half that amount. Nevertheless, they genuinely seem to believe that they are hard done by, even though some of their complaints over the last year would make a schoolchild blush.
Not for them adherence to the dictum so memorably summed up by President Calvin Coolidge of the USA, when Governor of Massachusetts during the Boston Police Strike of 1919: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."
If it wasn't indelicate to suggest it, I might believe their bellyaching had more to do with the fact that gardai were among the most enthusiastic of the 'buy-to-let' brigade during the property bubble - ably aided and abetted by banks who were only too glad to lend to these princes and princesses of the public sector, job-for-life set. Indeed, I know guards who openly boasted to me of their houses, apartments and ski-chalets in Bulgaria, and how they travel out there frequently to enjoy "the cheap drink".
I hate to say it, but it looks as if the public safety is now under threat because our police have been living it large and don't want to pick up the bill for their lifestyle choices. And I guess that goes for all the others who were considered a 'great risk' by the lending institutions, but who are now in negative equity and are looking for someone else to carry the can.
This is what happens when spineless populists pump-prime the part of the economy over which they have control for years on end, acting like Santa Claus to the people employed in that sector, and then invite national havoc when they are forced to take away the whisky bottle from those people.
We can't afford to put the country through this gross mismanagement again. It's hard to see the republic surviving another dose of this criminal incompetence. In the name of God, reform the system from the top down, and ensure that the people who run this country and control its financial health are held accountable for their decisions from now on. It is the very least we must do.
What came as a surprise to most people, I think, was the bizarre announcement by the Garda Representative Association (GRA) prior to the Budget, that the breakdown of the social partnership talks would be the signal for them to ballot their members on strike action.
That an organisation representing the bulk of the national police force should believe it is perfectly acceptable to contemplate withdrawing their presence from the streets, almost beggars belief. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern was right on the money when he described the plans as "an affront to democracy". Not even in the dark days of the Civil War or its Blueshirt aftermath, did the Garda ever consider such a mutiny to be conceivable.
The question is, what has changed in our society that such blatant lawbreaking by the police is something they themselves take for granted? Could it be that decades of pandering by our politicians to every interest group has now conditioned those groups to believe their every demand must be satisfied, no matter how outlandish?
From an objective viewpoint, the guards have little to complain about. With an average wage of over €1,300 per week, and an array of expenses and other perks, they are at or near the top of the public service tree - especially compared to the soldiers who often back them up in operations, who would be glad to earn half that amount. Nevertheless, they genuinely seem to believe that they are hard done by, even though some of their complaints over the last year would make a schoolchild blush.
Not for them adherence to the dictum so memorably summed up by President Calvin Coolidge of the USA, when Governor of Massachusetts during the Boston Police Strike of 1919: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."
If it wasn't indelicate to suggest it, I might believe their bellyaching had more to do with the fact that gardai were among the most enthusiastic of the 'buy-to-let' brigade during the property bubble - ably aided and abetted by banks who were only too glad to lend to these princes and princesses of the public sector, job-for-life set. Indeed, I know guards who openly boasted to me of their houses, apartments and ski-chalets in Bulgaria, and how they travel out there frequently to enjoy "the cheap drink".
I hate to say it, but it looks as if the public safety is now under threat because our police have been living it large and don't want to pick up the bill for their lifestyle choices. And I guess that goes for all the others who were considered a 'great risk' by the lending institutions, but who are now in negative equity and are looking for someone else to carry the can.
This is what happens when spineless populists pump-prime the part of the economy over which they have control for years on end, acting like Santa Claus to the people employed in that sector, and then invite national havoc when they are forced to take away the whisky bottle from those people.
We can't afford to put the country through this gross mismanagement again. It's hard to see the republic surviving another dose of this criminal incompetence. In the name of God, reform the system from the top down, and ensure that the people who run this country and control its financial health are held accountable for their decisions from now on. It is the very least we must do.
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