There's nothing socially just about robbing tomorrow's taxpayer, but it's the easy option that all parties are now shamefully endorsing, writes Peter White
We have disgraced ourselves again. We look disparagingly at AIB management for allowing hundreds of millions to go missing, but none of us is much better. We had an Irish economy that was humming along, generating income for us and for our children, and we blew it.
It is public knowledge that day-to-day spending increased by 22 per cent last year. This was not put into roads, metro systems, telecommunications and other good investments.
It was not even used to deliver effective public services. It is money you will never see again as it was frittered away.
The high-spend formula has been shown time and again to be self-defeating because it ultimately must mean higher taxation, but we have been taking the easy option at both ends.
The two Government parties rightly point out that their low-tax policies promote enterprise, self-reliance and prosperity. That is the easy bit. They have disgracefully allowed spending to get out of control and have in the process undermined the very objectives they seek to protect.
The Opposition parties hardly inspire any greater confidence. Fine Gael, the party that more than any other faced up to economic responsibility over our lifetimes, has brought derision upon itself by its lavish and ill-considered promises to Eircom shareholders, taxi drivers and others. The Labour Party, instead of drawing on the strong record of their leader when he was Finance Minister, is presenting us with a spending bill of billions.
There is nothing socially just about robbing tomorrow's taxpayer. This madness continues from the Government and is encouraged by the Opposition. It is a matter of certainty that a sharp shock is around the corner. The whole political system has lost touch with reality.
About a quarter of a century ago, the Irish political parties discovered the advantage to be gained by commissioning market research. Instead of using this as a guide to how they are perceived by the electorate, political parties have used quantitative and qualitative research as a way to determine policy.
Our "leaders" lost sight of their real role of looking over the hill, maybe over rough terrain. Instead, they have become bewitched by market research and are forever chasing yesterday. Imagine if politics in the UK in the 1937-39 period had been dominated by market research. Can you see Churchill commissioning focus groups to determine voter sentiment on a possible war in Europe?
No. He looked outwards at a menacing reality. Unswayed by those around him, he led.
Today in Ireland, we had the bizarre spectacle of a coalition Government agreeing a constitutional amendment and then one of its parties publicly wobbling on the issue because an Irish Times opinion poll said it might be lost. So much for conviction politics.
Whatever one's view on the amendment, it is a far cry from Edmund Burke's 1774 Bristol speech. "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
You can be sure that all political parties are chock-a-block with focus groups and other market research. This will not have shown up a great appetite among the public for hair shirt politics and fiscal rectitude. But instead of using their analytic and rhetorical skills to lead the electorate, the political process has caved in. Out of a parliament of 166 TDs, there is not one of them who is crying halt or making any serious attempt to face reality.
This is shameful.
It would be refreshing for someone in Dáil Éireann to tell us the truth about what they plan after the next election. But, with just weeks to go, it is probably too late for any serious campaign based on reality to take hold.
It will be an election that no one will win.
There are deep differences in Irish politics but these are no longer to be found between the two largest parties. Because they are artificially pitted against each other, they are paralysed, using their political skills to prevent things happening.
Against this political wasteland, many locally focused independent candidates will fill the gap and be elected. The only party making significant gains - Sinn Féin - is the one that all larger parties have good reason to exclude from government.
Any government reliant on TDs committed on principle to high spending (such as much of the Labour Party) will be under unbearable strain as hard decisions are forced upon it.
There is not - yet - a sufficient sense of crisis within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to encourage either of those parties into coalition.
There will be considerable untidiness over the next year or so. There are no believable parties.
All you can do is vote for those individuals, whether in established parties or not, whose integrity and judgment you can count upon when things begin to fall apart.
Peter White was press secretary to Fine Gael from 1984 to 1993. He now runs his own public-affairs consultancy with a variety of clients in the private and public sectors