Promises are the meat and drink of election campaigns, but even allowing for this, the abundance of tactical – often ill-considered – manifesto commitments this time around has been striking. Money is easily spent, but original ideas to tackle the big issues facing Ireland remain in short supply. And the same shortcomings on delivery that faced the outgoing Coalition will remain for whatever parties make up the next one.
More of the election campaign could usefully have been taken up debating ideas on housing delivery and how to boost State investment spending without overheating an economy where there is little spare capacity. Missing has been any real assessment of party priorities and how they would be affected by a fall-off in corporate tax receipts, which have done so much to boost the public finances.
None of this is easy election fare for parties as they compete for attention in a short, soundbite-driven campaign. Important proposals are mixed with proposed tax or spending giveaways in the election conversation. Trade-offs between different policies get insufficient attention, as do the challenges of implementation.
Voters should be wary of those promises. Party programmes go some way to identifying priorities and policy approaches, even if they give little idea of what might fall out if the public finances tighten. Many promises will fall away anyway in coalition talks as parties try to hammer together a new programme for government.
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And this programme in turn will be subject to unpredictable events and at risk from the uncertainties now facing the public finances. The election of Donald Trump has brought with it risks to future tax revenue and US investment, as well as threats from a possible international trade war. As a small, exporting country, Ireland is acutely vulnerable, as the Cabinet was warned this week.
So the signs are that the next government will face a complicated and interlinked series of economic policy challenges. It will have to grapple with the delivery issues which bedevilled the outgoing administration in many areas, at a time when the availability of resources to do so may tighten. Urgent issues such as climate change and an ageing population will loom large.
The absence of campaign discussion on climate change in particular, and the populist instincts of some parties to pretend that fossil fuel prices will not have to continue rising, is deeply disappointing and depressingly consistent with international experience.
The overall impression is of a political class increasingly unable to speak honestly to voters, offering little more than short-term platitudes on the issues of the day while the major forces shaping both the country and the world barely merit a mention.