Budgeting over the brink
By James Lawless ~ October 17th, 2008. Filed under: Health, Policy, Politics, Social & Economic.
There’s been a huge amount of reaction the past couple of days over provisions in this hot off the press budget, particularly the over-70s medical scheme changes, but also class size increases and other draconian style measures contained within.
I don’t generally believe in dealing on the basis of media frenzy, as there is often a ‘rent-a-mob’ element at work (the Joe Duffy effect) and also I have often found an amount of artificial outrage can be manufactured on the airwaves which is not in fact matched by people on the ground. A good example is the last general election when the media weaved tales of Fianna Fáil canvassers being ran from the doors, whilst in fact I canvassed night after night and met with little, if any hostility, rather an occasional robust debate, in many cases a hearty welcome and probably the majority a polite but brief interaction as people get on with their busy lives.
But I digress. My point is that, media reaction regardless, on this occasion I feel there is substance behind the controversy and my sympathies extend across the divide. I think most people understand in tough times, tough measures are called for and I think most people, whilst they may grumble, will in the long term thank a government for taking necessary but unpopular decisions for the long term greater good. That being so, I believe many measures in this budget present bitter pills but will be swallowed, in a spirit of solidarity and the end justifying the means. The new income levies for example represent tough but fair measures.
However the particular issue of medical card cuts and education cuts I believe are a step too far. I have always believed Fianna Fáil to be a broad church, one that can harbour many ideologies within but I personally have always identified with an ethos of social democracy which I believe runs throughout the party and would have been shared by many of the founding fathers. From the radical polemicism of Liam Mellowes on the “men of no property” to Frank Aiken (a proud Republican if ever there was one) “workers and small farmers republic” right through to men like Lemass, and that ethos continued in greater or lessening degrees right into the current decade when the party pledged to prioritise the old age pension as a manifesto promise I was proud to see honoured in many successive budgets over the past decade. Arguably even this year social welfare payments have been increased as perhaps the only payment moving against the otherwise downwards tide.
However it is not acceptable after a decade of growth, much of it fostered by Fianna Fáil policy and prurience over previous years (I will put it to anyone that MacSharry, Haughey and Ahern in departments of Finance, Taoiseach and Labour laid the path for which Ireland would travel from ’sick man of Europe’ to ‘An economic miracle’ in the turn of a decade) to be in a situation where classroom sizes are now being threatened with once again climbing, threatening to jeopardise the pivotal but pain-staking progress of recent times. The school building programme thankfully continues but I would rather sacrifice my beloved transport projects than see class sizes go backwards.
As for the medical card scheme there are a few points to be made. The proposal is not, as some would have it, an out and out wrestling of the card from people’s grasp in an across the board gesture. Rather the proposal is to end the automatic age-based entitlement that currently exists. As such it is less draconian than may first appear, but nonetheless I have stated my belief in social democracy and social justice, and I count it a principle in a civilised society that certain things are provided on a universal basis, independent of means or ability to pay. Fundamental services should be delivered to our citizens in an advanced society irrespective of means, income or social status. Fianna Fáil pioneered this philosophy when it was still regarded almost subversively radical, introducing free education for all, a public health system, the creation of the welfare state, free old age travel scheme, numerous assists for heating and energy bills many the latter benefits specifically targeted at older people. Are we now to lose decades of policy progress to squeeze a few extra pound from the exchequer purse?
I listed and agreed with much of what Deputy Joe Behan said on tonight’s news after resigning the party whip. He came across a noble and decent man and I hope he will come back to the party because we need people like him to help us to be all that we can be, as a party, and by extension because the Fianna Fáil party is passionately patriotic if it is anything, as a nation. For the first time in a long time I heard Joe Behan give voice on the airwaves to what I know the Fianna Fáil party to be. The voice of cumann secretaries, of grass roots activists, of local councillors and backbench deputies. What to me is the real social democratic heart of the party, an ethos that prizes community values and social justice for all. The voice that will speak up for the bowed whilst encouraging the brave. The party that will enable enterprise whilst nourishing the needy. That will allow progress to prosper but with noone being left behind. The voice and the will that I know the party to have.
I have raised issues of social justice before, at a time when I felt strongly on a an issue of fundamental fairness. I wrote to the Minister at the time, in correspondence that has echoes of the current dilemma where it appears GP contracts are not facilitating the intended workings of the scheme. It is not the first time I have exchanged such correspondence with the present health Minister. I was heartened to see An Taoiseach appear in public view tonight on the nine o’clock news when he said he would progress a ‘pragmatic response’ to what he acknowledges was a far more wide reaching reaction than anticipated.
The over-70s medical card was not up until recently an automatic entitlement. It was introduced only at the start of this decade in an earlier Fianna Fáil budget. It was a progressive move to bring it in. It was a regressive one to take it back. Let’s hope that social justice prevails and that the real soul of the Fianna Fáil party now has the courage of its convictions. I know there is the will. Now let’s find the way.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
The cuts in education are overshadowing the fact that education got a handsome 8.9% increase in its budget. Approx. €650m is going into science promotion, 3rd & 4th levels and regualr schooling. This was the 2nd biggest departmental increase, Social Welfare got the biggest.
The teacher-student ratio is going to go from 1:27 to 1:28, but Ireland has got where it is on high teacher-student ratios. I got my education (and pretty much everyone else in the country) on higher ratios than this.
The FG & Labour PR teams had cleverly picked the most sensitive issues to get the mass media to put as much pressure on FF, and thus dictate public opinion. It worked. Some FF TDs cracked under the pressure.
If FF are too “top-heavy”, then the grass roots need to get together with the ministers and iron this out – behind closed doors.
As for the budget as a whole, it managed to knock 2% off the deficit. Another 3 or 4 similar budgets should haul it back to within EU guidlines, i.e. less than -3%.
The over-65s have benefitted from 22 successive budgets. So have the low paid. That goes all the way back to the 80s. Then, one hard budget, and FF TDs start panicing, namely Joe Behan.
FG/Lab along with RTE and Irish Times have scored a point against FF. Let’s not let them score any more. Solidarity within the party is needed and trust in Cowen and Lenihan. At the end of the day, it’s not the FF TDs putting their neck on the line, it’s Cowen and Lenihan.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I might also add:
The EU guideline regarding the 3% public deficit can be breached in times of recession, however, there is another guideline on total Government debt. If it breaches 60% of GDP, then we could be in big trouble. Not for breaching the 60%, but for going from 30% to 60%+ so rapidly.
This leads me to think that there are going to be alot of tougher budgets down the line.
Sacrifices are going to have to be made, and sadly, nobody will like them. If we want European levels of public services, we need to pay European levels of taxes. At the moment, we are paying low taxes, relative to our neighbours.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hi Conor, thanks for your comments, re your own educational experience with high class ratios etc (and I know you now to be a man of letters !) , I take the point, I got 5 ‘A’s out of a christian brothers with leaky prefabs myself, however I would like to think we’ve advanced in the intervening twenty years and it’s not what I want for my own children. Thankfully the school building programme does continue, particularly at local level, but there are real concerns on the other issues.
Re the EU debt ratios, one international commentator recently said “the first member state to throw EU ratios out the window will be the first to climb out of recession”… I think our Sallins man in Brussels would hardly demur..
October 20th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Very balanced and reasoned and impassioned piece
October 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Your post is good but I think the government are entitled to take the medical card away from the rich, they shouldn’t have got it in the first place, also the doctors are screwing the tax payer by hiding behind the medical card.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hello James,
Joe Behan left Fianna Fáíl on principle – a principle he failed to discuss with his party leader before he left. . I’m not sure that such an action merits great praise. While I’m loathe to agree with comments made yesterday by Dick Roche on The Wide Angle yesterday morning that it’s better to stay in and effect change from within, one would like to think that at least, Joe Behan had tried to do that. So rather than being heroic, he seems to me at least, to have acted out of a lack of courage rather than the courage of his convictions. It smacks, if you like ,of the best boy in the class tattling at home about his schoolfriends, rather than telling the principal.
Speaking of Dick Roche makes me wonder if the movement of Fianna Fáil so far away from what some of the grassroots members like you and Joe Behan espouse as true party principles is not unlike the movement of the EU Commission and to a lesser extent the Parliament, away from the people they purport to represent. Interestingly, both regularly hear the criticism that they are in the pockets of powerful lobbies.
You say that the school building programme continues and on the face of it, the protection of at least that aspect of the education system would seem meritorious. But there is a context to this and that is the fact that many schools in recent months had their contracts stalled, the Summer Works Project, which would have seen many important jobs done in schools over the holidays, was cancelled without warning -after schools had invested in the preparatory work with engineers, architects and others. It casts doubt in my mind over the legitimacy of this apparently bountiful gesture of the Minister.
I also can’t quite marry comments from the Taoiseach that this budget is allowing us to be ready for the upturn when it occurs when the removal of teachers from classes, of language teachers from students who will be immediately disenfranchised through their state sponsored inability to communicate and keep up effectively, of the farm retirement and installation aid programmes all are measures designed to halt progress in the way we deal with some of our vital resources. Our chief indigenous industry and the future workforce of all industries and services have been dealt a series of debilitating blows.
The part of me that accepts that changes and cuts are necessary is the same part that revolts against their absolutely random and unfair nature.
In other words, James, I’m not sure that I see the grounds for any kind of moral victory to be plucked from the jaws of this monumental defeat.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hi Claire, thanks for the comment, I’m not sure I see a whole lot of victory going on here either, in fact I think it’s been one of the worst weeks in the party’s history.. I may take some solace from the fact that the grass roots are finally finding voice but the mood at present is pretty far from celebratory..
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Hi James,
Let there be no doubt that this past week has been one of the toughest for our party since I can remember.I have the greatest admiration for the leadership of the party however if there is one lesson to be learnt from this debacale it is that the leadership should listen more carefully to us the grassroots members.
Only by doing this can they keep their fingers on the pulse of the nation and bring Fianna Fáil back to its members all of whom have the wellbeing of the Irish people at heart.We must never forget that we are a rebublican party and that we will only remain republican by refusing to lose touch with the people on ground.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] week people were furious – and about time they stood up and were counted. Have discussed this here View from the Tracks Blog Archive Budgeting over the brink [...]
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Jimmy,
I had a mickey fit, been meaning to give you a buzz on this one. I started out thinking I couldn’t believe a party (specially FF) could make such bad ‘political’ choices, robbing old ladies, screw the kids etc. Then I thought, mmm, sideshow. Yeah it’s the old cynic in me, throw in a couple of ‘negotiables’, row back when the shit hits the fan get the rest of the budget in. Everyone is moaning about the wrong things. What got us into this shit heap in the first place. Personally, I would have put a uniform on, nationalized the banks (sell em back out in 3 years) taken their profits ( 6b a year) and done a ‘New Deal’ for the Republic, but then I’ve been off the pills for a bit.