Manifesto

It's rare that it happens, even rarer that I would admit to it, but last week the improbable came to be: I found myself agreeing with something that David Begg said. Congress Secretary David Begg believes that what this country really needs is a revolution to fix what ails it. So do I.

Begg, stalwart Union man that he is believes that a union-led revolution, in support of the poor (sic) maligned civil service is what is necessary to redress the injustices of the past few months.
My perspective, while similar, is somewhat different. I believe that what Ireland really needs in order for it to recover is a generational cull of government, banking and union leadership.

Before there is any over-reaction, and before anyone decides to turn household implements into pikes or Molotov cocktails and march on the GPO, I am not proposing a bloody, messy coup. For one thing our beleaguered health service couldn't handle it: Injured revolutionaries would be left on trolleys in dirty hospitals, A&E departments would not be available in many of the areas that government has been decentralised to and our modern day revolutionaries would be more likely to catch MRSA than die heroically in a hail of gunfire.

No one wants to see a modern day Padraig Pearse catching the winter vomiting bug.

Nor is it an ageist manifesto; indeed many of the most outspoken critics of the current administrations failings are of the same chronological age of the current government, banking sector, or union leadership. Without the likes of Garrett Fitzgerald, Shane Ross, Eddie Hobbs and the spritely by comparison David McWilliams, this economic disaster would have come as a terrible surprise.

No, what we need is something altogether different, a revolution fit for a 21st century country which has had ideas above its station for the last decade, a country which has suddenly realised that it has first-world levels of personal debt coupled with third-world governance more akin to a banana republic (potato republic perhaps?)

So why do we need this revolution? Where are the injustices you say?

To re-cap, we have had one party leading government for over a decade, and with the PD's by their side, the self styled 'soldiers of destiny' have led Ireland bravely from a period of untold prosperity into a depression of seemingly infinite penury, an economic charge of the light brigade.

As well as the high profile cock-ups, such as the €60 million of tax-payers money wasted on e-voting machines (which continue to be stored by the party faithful at large cost to the taxpayer), the estimated €180 million wasted on the defunct PPARS system for the HSE, there have also been less high-profile but equally expensive white elephants. No doubt they will tell us that this is all the fault of the high paid consultants to whom this government outsourced all major decisions to (though why we are paying for a civil service and consultants, no-one in government has been able to explain.)

Now, after repeatedly failing to regulate the banking system, after ignoring the warnings that there was no such thing as a 'soft-landing' with a property bubble, after selling off the countries telecommunications infrastructure for free when they floated Eircom, after presiding over the decline of our health service, we are being told that these are the ones who can lead us out of the mess which they got us into.

While as an electorate we clearly seem to be less than enamoured by the charisma in the oppositions leadership, the lazy, apathetic and apolitical 'well I can't see the other crowd doing much better' that has sustained the incumbents through a decade of incompetence must end. The alternative is unthinkable.

That minds of the quality of Richard Bruton, Rory Quinn and Joan Burton have been languishing on the opposition benches for the last decade through a period where the gombeens in power wasted our money like it was tap-water (glass of crypto-sporidium, anyone?) would be laughable were it not so tragic.

But leadership in government is only one area that demands a revolt. During the alleged boom years, every second radio or television ad (seemingly regardless of whether it was for a mortgage or a bag of Tayto) reminded us that the product was "regulated by the financial regulator". Well thank goodness for that, then.

Soft regulation in banking has been shown to mean, in effect, no-regulation and it is clear that the entire office of the financial regulator, rather than just scape-goating Patrick Neary and his obscene pay-off, is wholly incapable of regulating a sector so rife with impropriety that we may as well have sent the girl guides to police a biker bar (sincere apologies to the girl guides, you'd probably do a far better job.)

While many of our top bankers were parading themselves as poster boys for modern Ireland, strong, virile and brave, they were in effect poster boys for the Ireland of dodgy deals, backhanders and jobs for the boys. JM Synge would have made hay out of sunshine like this.

Leader of the banking pack, Seán Fitzpatrick, happily advocated abolishing the old age pension and free travel for pensioners while he was hiding the fact that he had borrowed over €120 million from the bank he was supposed to be protecting. Charming chap Seanie.

The sad irony is that many Anglo Irish Bank shareholders were pensioners who had invested in the bank in order to provide some income for themselves in old age and to prevent them becoming a burden on the state. Now, after lifetime of work and saving, most have nothing but the old age pension and their free travel to show for it.

It would be easy to dismiss any further need for change in our banks management as 'the bad boys have been found out' but the underlying causes of the current debacle still remain. Bank of Ireland's first major announecement after the government recapitalisation? Raises all round! AIB's reaction? We have to pay these massive bonuses, it's only fair!

Off with their heads the lot of them. If you have been involved in running a bank in Ireland over the last 10 years you should be made to reapply for your position.

And the unions. Ah yes, the unions. While David Begg, Jack O'Connor and Peter McLoone will wring their hands and cry 'strike!' and point fingers at the government, the banks and others, the truth is that these union leaders have been closer to the machinations of power than they have ever been since the foundation of the state. David Begg even wangled his way onto the board of the central bank for over a decade, chairing the banks internal audit committee.

The National Partnership strategy of the past 10 years has been heralded, mostly by the unions and the government parties it has to be said, as the source of all that is good for what ails us, but the truth of the matter is that it's largest beneficiaries’ have been TD's and civil servants in the highest echelons of power. The General Secretaries in the civil service earned over €180,000 last year, while the government have voted to double their wages over the last 12 years.

All that the last few years of social partnership has meant for the lower paid in both the civil service and in the private sector is that any small incremental wage increase has been wiped out by spiralling inflation and shoddy mortgage lending. Despite this, the unions undertook to stay on board while FF & the PD's moved Ireland closer to Boston than Berlin as long as the numbers went up and wage inequalities be-damned. And they were well paid for it: Union leaders Begg, O'Connor and McLoone all earn well over the €100k mark and it is no surprise that McLoone, who represents the largest public sector union IMPACT, earns the most with €150,000.

We have been let down badly by our leaders over the past 10 years, whether you view yourself as a citizen or as a consumer or whether you are in the public or private sector. The frightening thing is that the government, bankers and unions leaders all refuse to admit that they have cocked up, or to quote Australian academic Justin O'Brien that "Staggering regulatory, corporate and political incompetence" has squandered the country’s wealth. It’s clear that they don’t have the backbone to do the honourable thing and resign, or even apologise: A 21st century revolution is needed, and the sooner the better.