McCarthy, MacGill, McJob

It's all happening in one place and one place only this summer. Forget lazing on the beachs of the French Riviera, swanning around the boutiques of Notting Hill, sipping latté's in the café's of gay Paree or wherever it is the bold and the beautiful spend their summer holidays these days.

Right now the only place to be seen if you have any ambitions of political power and influence in Ireland is fabulous Glenties, Co. Donegal.

Nestled at the foot of the Blue Stack mountains, the central hub of the parish of Inniskeel is not only a 5-time winner of Ireland's prestigious Tidy Towns competition, but is also host to the Patrick MacGill summer school. Now in it's 29th year the school is dedicated to the memory of Irish journalist, poet and novelist Patrick MacGill.

The theme of this year's school is 'The Irish Economy: What went wrong, how will we fix it?'

We should be very grateful for the organisers of the school, given that the government delayed the release of the now infamous 'Bord Snip' report until a full week after the Daíl went on yet another undeserved holiday, thus stimy-ing any meaningful debate on what is clearly an incredibly important and relevant report. Convenient that.

Most media commentators have so far chosen to analyse the report purely in accounting terms. Anyone who dares suggest that some aspects of the report should not be implemented and that old age pensions and social welfare should be sacrosanct are reminded that 'we have more money going out than coming in' and that 'everyone must feel the pinch'.

These are the mantra of post-boom Ireland, repeated regularly and with the same unquestioning mind as the rosary was in 1950's Ireland. We have replaced religion with free-market economics it seems, tossing the baby out with the bath-water.

Every commentator has also been at pains to point out that the consequences of the cuts recommended by Colm McCarthy's group were outside of the groups remit and it is on this hypothetical context that most of the analysis to date has focused.

Economists are incredibly unimaginative creatures it would seem, beset by a condition akin to academic autism. They deal in theory, charts, numbers and believe in an invisible hand that controls everything around us. Perhaps 'academia's scientologists' would be a more fitting description.

I jest of course (in part) but this lack of critical analysis have let the members of the report group off the hook and bar Vincent Browne's typically scathing attack on the media's failure to question the "pernicious orthodoxy" of social and economic thought, much of the media have accepted the report meekly in the same way that Turkeys accept Christmas.

The reality is that this report must form part of a far wider discussion and should not merely be framed in the narrow context of a temporary (albeit extremely serious) economic crisis, but in an honest discussion about which direction in which we want our society to go.

For the last decade we have flirted with free-market economics, light touch regulation and massive privatisation of public utilities. This has mostly come about at the behest of a tiny political party and their influence on a far larger, political party who weren't too perturbed that they were mortgaging the future of the country for short term electoral success. The media and the electorate were mostly unquestioning. The legacy that the PD's have left this country should never be forgotten.

As it turns out, moving our economy closer to Boston than Berlin may not have been the wisest move for all bar a very small few in the country. Our banking system has imploded, our health service is on death's door and the privatisation of Eircom has single-handedly crippled Irish business development across the country.

So the contention made at the MacGill summer school by our Minister for Finance that the national minimum wage should be reduced, is an example of how little the current parties of government have learned from the economic crisis and how we have got to where we currently are.

While his front bench colleagues have been at pains to point out that there is no such proposal currently in place and Lenihan said that the minimum wage "could" be cut "if" it was seen as an impediment to economic growth, let there be in no doubt as to what the underlying message is.

The purpose of the MacGill summer school for the likes of Lenihan and indeed members of the opposition is to float ideas and see how they fare in the public sphere. If as happened with the pensioners and the medical card there is widespread uproar, Brian can return to the Daíl in September and claim that he had never intended to reduce the minimum wage, and was merely considering all his options. If it's accepted without contest, as it has been so far, then it will be implemented and poverty be damned.

But a word of dissent has come from the most unlikely of corners. Leo Varadkar, often portrayed as a spokesperson for a faction within Fine Gael who regard Reagan and Thatcher as 'a bit too lefty', showed a perspective yesterday that perhaps highlights the influence that Richard Bruton and George Lee have over economic policy in Fine Gael.

Referring to Lenihan's proposals Varadkar questioned the benefit of cutting the minimum wage, saying that "I don’t honestly believe that reducing the minimum wage would achieve anything in relation to job creation.”

Shocking as it may sound coming from Varadkar, he has a point. Less than 2% of the work force are on the minimum wage and the rate has been frozen since 2007. A reduction of 5% as proposed by the McCarthy report would save employers a grand total of €16.86 per week. If we are to believe that companies are going to the wall because of the minimum wage rate, then I have a beautifully well appointed house for you to buy in Rathgar with a unique architectural feature, that is an absolute bargain at only €1.35 million.

No doubt the loss of businesses such as Dell in Limerick and most recently Element Six in Shannon will be trotted out by the governing parties as justification for reducing the minimum wage, despite the fact that not one employee at either plant was on the minimum wage. The problem in the economy is far more complex, has been coming for far longer than 18 months and will take a long time to remedy.

Simply put our utility costs are far too high and the price of property has been allowed spiral out of control for over a decade. The sale of Eircom's infrastructure rather than just the customer base, has meant that broadband has been limited to a few small urban areas and is far slower and more expensive than any other country in Western Europe. And wages at the top and middle end of the economy, both public and private have been bloated. None of this has been cause by a minimum wage of €8.65 per hour.

It's been of great amusement to me over the last few weeks listening to 'the great and the good' of Irish society, the vast majority of whom are rich, middle-aged men of considerable carriage, talking about the need to cut the minimum wage.

The vast majority of these people are not, contrary what they believe themselves, self made. They were never hungry growing up, were well educated and were put through University by their parents. That already puts them in the economic top 10% in the world. They have no moral authority to reduce the minimum wage, nor any reasonable economic justification.

I should know as I'm of a reasonably comparable background, though admittedly younger, less blinkered and less paunchy. And yet few in the media, blinkered as they are by the "pernicious orthodoxy" have called the likes of Lenihan to task.

It will be interesting to see what more comes from the debate at the MacGill Summer School and what will be revealed by what aspects of the report the various political parties will advocate implementing. There is no doubt that much of the report must be implemented and that a certain amount of redundancies in the public service are inevitable, as are spending cuts. But starting with those languishing at the bottom of the workforce, already struggling to make ends meet, is neither economically justifiable nor equitable.

As Leo Varadkar stated on Morning Ireland "I think there is something really indecent about a society that tells people on €17,000 a year that we're going to take money off you." Continue in this vein Leo and I may yet warm to you.