INSIDE POLITICS:The Taoiseach's task is to deliver major cuts in public spending in a climate where everyone is used to having it easy, writes Stephen Collins
BRIAN COWEN is facing a real test of leadership after only two months in the job. In the next few weeks he will have the unenviable task of justifying what is likely to be the toughest package of public spending cuts in more than a decade, at a time when his authority has been badly dented by the loss of the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
Ministers and their top civil servants have been trawling through spending programmes for the past few weeks in an effort to come up with savings in this year's estimates in order to cope with the rapid deterioration in the public finances. Deeper cuts will be required for next year but the first task is to get a grip on what is happening now.
The projection by the ESRI of negative growth in the economy this year finally focused political debate on the stark options facing the country. While Brian Cowen, typically, refused to concede the scale of the problem in Dáil exchanges with the Opposition, he was more forthcoming in a speech to employers when he spoke of the need to endure some pain now in order to avoid a lot of pain later.
The response from the trade union leadership was not very encouraging, but the Taoiseach has no choice but to press ahead with the strategy due to be agreed by the Cabinet in the next week or so. In the Dáil he rejected suggestions that the country was slipping into a 1980s-style recession, but the only way such an outcome will be avoided is if the right strategy is adopted and firmly adhered to in spite of the squeals of protest from vested interests.
The problem is that the Lisbon Treaty defeat has left Cowen in a weak position to fight the array of forces that will line up against him. The serious consequences of losing the Lisbon Treaty referendum only dawned on his own TDs after it had happened.
Fianna Fáil TDs were spoiled over the past decade not just by the boom but by Bertie Ahern's emollient style. Opposition of all kinds was simply bought off as the government reached into the bulging exchequer for the cash. Even the Dáil opposition found that the government regularly backtracked and compromised, leaving it very little to complain about and sucking the life out of political debate.
Politicians used to that culture may find it hard to come to terms with a political world in which they have to fight tooth and nail to defend Government decisions. In the Dáil during the week the Taoiseach even asked Fine Gael whether it would be prepared to support whatever action is required to get the public finances in order.
There is a fat chance that the Opposition parties will back his spending cuts, however necessary they are, particularly as they can say with some justification that as minister for finance for the past four years he should have acted much earlier.
Fine Gael and Labour will try to pin the blame on Cowen for whatever pain the public has to suffer, but that is politics and he has no choice but to get on with it.
The first task facing the Taoiseach and his Minister for Finance is to convince their Cabinet colleagues of the need to do what is required. None of them, particularly the Ministers in the big-spending departments, will relish taking the axe to cherished programmes, but they will have to face up to it and be prepared to defend their decisions.
Cowen will also have to instil a sense of realism among senior civil servants whose instinct is always to protect their own little empires and budgets regardless of national policy. Charles Haughey briefly punctured that culture in 1987 when he threatened top civil servants that unless they came up with real budget cuts their careers would suffer, but the system quickly reverted to type in the boom.
A combination of budget surpluses and the Ahern style has left the country with a set of politicians and bureaucrats totally unused to taking hard and unpopular decisions. Agencies and regulators were established by the score. As well as their own staff, many of them have employed a range of lobbyists and public relations consultants who have grown fat at the taxpayers' expense.
However, much and all as a ruthless pruning of the quangos and their hangers-on is required, it will not be nearly enough to make the required savings. The bottom line about the public finances is that pay is by far the biggest item of expenditure.
The public sector unions were indulged during the boom years with benchmarking, improved working conditions and incredible pensions, on top of national pay awards, but to date there is little sign of gratitude from union leaders for that largesse.
While it is still early days, and the adoption of tough negotiating positions is to be expected, the mood does not seem well disposed to belt-tightening. Confrontation rather than social solidarity is on the cards.
Of course the Taoiseach and his Ministers can hardly lecture anybody in the public service about the need for pay restraint as long as they hang on to their own massive special pay increases. Cowen has signalled that the ministerial pay rises will be abandoned but he might be as well to make the formal announcement soon rather than trying to use it as a bargaining chip.
In fact he should subject the whole system of pay, perks and expenses in the political world to real scrutiny. Over the past decade politicians have done better than anybody else in the public service, so who better to set an example now that spending cuts are desperately needed?