ie-politics

Thanks Slugger!

Mick Fealty over at Slugger O'Toole has generously described this blog as "a good southern blog read".  Well that explains the astonishing jump in my stats over the last few hours!  I'll take that as encouragement and keep belting away...

The Triumph of Process over Policy

The papers this weekend are full of Fine Gael, I will mention just two.  In the Sunday Tribune Shane Coleman concedes that the political recovery of Fine Gael, since being left for dead after the 2002 election, is nothing short of remarkable.  He praises Enda Kenny for his contribution to rebuilding the party organisation and also for stopping the party from conceding own-goals but he says that where he and his party are weakest "is in articulating what Fine Gael stand for-other than being anti-the current government".  At some point, Coleman warns, this will have to be addressed, and platitudes and cliches will not suffice.  Furthermore, a quarter of a century ago, the party under Garret Fitzgerald was on the brinks of achieving electoral parity with Fianna Fáil and was about to win many new voters with seemingly radical social and economic policies.  There is no such innovation from Fine Gael these days in terms of either policy or vision.

In the Sunday Times Alan Ruddock makes a similar point when he says that

for all the bluster of the past two weeks, with the posturings of the alternative government prompting vicious putdowns from the government parties, the next election will be fought on comfortable territory. Whose smile do you prefer? Who looks more trustworthy? Who can run the economy? Your choice will be between personalities — Enda or Bertie, Pat or Mary — rather than a real choice between alternate visions of how this country should be governed.

Here again is the triumph of process over policy, born out of a desire not to offend anyone. 

I was intrigued to read a piece in the Tribune about the possibility of Fine Gael hiring the almost legendary American pollster Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc.(see also the Democracy Corps site)  Could they actually afford him?  I'd much prefer Greenberg to Fianna Fáil's US import Bob Shrum, a man who allegedly did more to foul up last year's Kerry campaign than anyone else.

Rabbitte says Social Partnership must evolve

Pat Rabbitte's speech to the Jim Larkin Summer School elaborates a little on how the party might alter its stance on social partnership. 

Essentially they are agreements between the government of the day, the employers and the ‘democracy of producers’. While various bodies representing the voluntary and community sector are now part of the process it is the triad of unions, employers and government that determines the fundamental shape of any package that emerges from the talks. What is missing from the equation are the ‘other two democracies’ - the democracy of consumers and the ‘supreme democracy’ of the citizen.

The current model fails to meet some significant challenges and the agenda has moved well beyond the earlier emphases on trading of wage moderation for tax cuts.  There are now myriad social policy issues that effect people as citizens and consumers rather than as just producers.  Thus Rabbitte implicitly recognises that the that the base of social partnership is too narrow, rooted mainly in the public sector and certain other highly skilled workers elsewhere.  His reference to the recent CSO data on trade union membership underlines this point.  He also pointedly refers to

The great mass of unskilled or semi-skilled workers that Larkin brought into the mainstream of trade unionism and Irish public life are back on the margins. Ironically the current social partnership model means that the Labour Party is both sidelined and restricted when it comes to championing the rights not just of trade unionists but all workers.

Then there is the question of democratic legitimacy.  Rabbitte wants to place the process of social partnership firmly under the aegis of the Oireachtas, and take it away from the chosen elites of business, unions and the voluntary sector.  Some Trade Unionists and IBEC figures have predictably evinced some scepticism about Rabbitte's ideas but are careful to confine their criticisms to practical arguments rather then challenge them at the level of principle.

Labour should rebut Harney's low tax nostrums

Mary Harney has said that the PDs would be willing to join in a coalition with Fine Gael and Labour but only if Pat Rabbitte rules out any plans to raise taxes, which she dismisses as an "outdated" policy.  According to Harney, higher taxes lead to "less activity, less employment, less wealth and less revenue".  She presumes this is so blindingly obvious that she doesn't feel the need to support her claim, except to say that such policies are no longer being pursued anywhere in the world.  Lower taxes are supposed to have the opposite effect. 

Labour have hinted that it wants to restore some kind of wealth tax and would also want to take a hard look at capital gains tax.  And so it should.  This is not to satisfy some primeval socialist urge to soak the rich but it is based on a recognition that taxation policy is a useful instrument that can still be used by national governments to promote certain positive economic and social outcomes such as using wealth more productively and addressing growing levels of inequality. 

Progressive taxation generally does not have to operate contrary to the dynamics of a market economy.  Carefully targeted taxes could discourage speculative or rent-seeking activities, especially when it comes to property and land.  Ability to pay taxes is not solely related to income and therefore a wealth tax should be considered in principle.  The point is that there is a link between levels of taxation, the size of the tax base and the kind of social policies that have been put onto the political agenda in recent times.  All this should be the subject of political contestation, where arguments and evidence come into play.  Harney should be firmly rebuffed.

The Deadlocked Politics of Communal Indetity

The other day the News Letter reported Ian Paisley as saying that Unionists now felt like second class citizens, adding: "The double laws, one favouring republicans and the other, heavy handed on unionists, must cease. "The black spots of deliberate discrimination against employment of Protestants must be tackled, and the disgraceful practise of the Government allowing Protestant communities to be underprivileged must stop. "  This was said in the context of calling on the British Government to address unionist distrust of the peace process in the wake of recent violence and growing inequality.  This sort of statement is bound to cause a great deal of bafflement in the Republic. 

It would seem that there is no room in the unionist mindset for any notion of "parity of esteem".  Instead, if one side is esteemed, it has to be at the expense of the other and so we have the endless prospect of zero-sum struggle for cultural recognition in the relentless battle of the politics if identity.  Noel Whelan, in yesterday's Examiner, reminds us of the objective facts that have strengthened the unionist position over the past few years. 

In the last decade or so the IRA, having been beaten to a standstill, was compelled to end its campaign of violence. Over the same period the electorate of the Republic has met one of unionism's repeated demands by dropping the objectionable constitutional 'Articles 2 and 3' the territorial claim on Northern Ireland and copper-fastening the principle of no unity without consent. Republicans have been compelled to accept that the progress of their aspiration to a united Ireland is now in reality subject to the democratic veto of the unionist majority. Sinn Féin has been required to contest elections within the mechanics of British rule, has taken seats in a Stormont assembly, and even temporarily participated in a Stormont administration. Even the simplistic assumption that Catholic nationalism would breed its way to a united Ireland has been displaced by the cold statistical realities of the most recent census.

Yet, Whelan humorously notes, even at what should be a moment of celebration for them, unionism and loyalism have found something to be defeated about.  This sense of defeat could deliver Northern Ireland towards a new era of violence.  The recent riots, with angry crowds clashing with armed police, may look like another re-run of the familiar tribal clashes of the past, only this time it's protestants doing the rioting.  But that would be to overlook that there is something new going on here, according to Brendan O'Neill, who asserts that the riots do not represent traditional 'tribal' loyalist urges that threaten to wreck the peace process.  Rather they are a product of the peace process itself. 

In the past 10 years, political and public life in Northern Ireland have been entirely reorganised around the 'politics of identity', around the idea that it's the state's responsibility to recognise, respect and protect the 'cultural identities' of Northern Ireland's two communities. Politics in Northern Ireland is no longer concerned with grand visions about who should run society and how they should do it. Rather it is obsessed - from the very top, down through every public institution - with striking a careful balance between two apparently volatile communities, to ensure that both are accorded 'equal worth' and both have ample opportunities to air their grievances. Such a political process can end up nurturing a sense of grievance among disaffected communities, and can easily give rise to violent outbursts if one community feels it is being disrespected in favour of the other. In effect, the recent riots were riots for recognition.

Then there are important economic factors that aggravate the situation.  Employment growth and economic opportunities over the last 10 years or so have been unevenly spread and there are many working class protestant communities in Belfast that have suffered significant reverses.  Whelan has some incisive comments to make on this:

The last decade has also seen many of these communities face an even greater threat from within, and in particular from within loyalist paramilitaries organisations through which drug warlords have cannibalised their own communities and then warred violently over the remaining turf. It doesn't help that the Protestant working class has not been politically mobilised in anything like the same way that the nationalist working class has been by Sinn Féin. In some pockets most potential voters are not even registered. Even those who were mobilised in recent elections opted for the DUP which has been displacing loyalist parties like the UVF-linked PUP and closing off any room for electoral impact by the UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group.

The prospects for any kind of 'normal' politics to emerge in Northern Ireland once the Assembly and devolved government is up and running again are not at all encouraging.  How do we go beyond the idea of politics as a sectarian balancing act, which reduces everything to the politics of communal identity?  With sections of the protestant working class disaffected and marginalised and with upscale middle class protestants opting out of electoral politics altogether, how will unionism be able to renew itself politically?  According to today's lunchtime news, Unionists have withdrawn from the Belfast District Policing Partnership in protest at the way the PSNI handled the recent violence.  Loyalist paramilitaries and militant Orangemen can only take that as encouragement to remain steadfast as the armed wing of loyalist cultural identity.

Fine Gael, Party of Government

Fine Gael is being taken seriously again, mainly because the public now perceive the possibility of an alternative government consisting of themselves and Labour and, possibly, the Greens.  The over-the-top, intemperate attacks and derision of Bertie Ahern and other ministers about destroying jobs and raising taxes through the roof have only reminded the electorate that there is an alternative.  Mark Brennock's op-ed piece in The Irish Times makes the point that Fine Gael's policies and performance will be, as Enda Kenny says, "under scrutiny" as it becomes more electorally credible. 

It is striking how much alike each other are Fine Gael and its chief rival Fianna Fáil - not for the obvious reason of being right wing, pro capitalist, conservative or whatever.  What they most have in common is that they are first and foremost parties of government, that is they are only really relevant as office holders, actual or potential, existing solely to win elections.  Of course Fianna Fáil have been much more successful, probably because of their unique blend of nationalism and populism and their far superior levels of grass roots organisation. 

Fine Gael on the other hand has often been cast into the political wilderness.  Its long decline from 1932 when it lost office for the first time (although that was technically Cumann na nGaedheal) until it almost accidentally re-entered government in 1948 shows the electoral importance of office holding for that party.  It actually increased its vote in the 1951 election even though the inter-party coalition government lost the election.  When Garret Fitzgerald's coalition lost office in 1987, the party's vote declined at the two following elections.  The unexpected mid-parliament change of government in 1994 restored Fine Gael's electoral fortunes as its vote went up significantly in the 1997 poll.  In 2002 the Fine Gael vote crashed to a 50 year low because it was clear that there wasn't a ghost of a chance of being in government.  It was either going to be a Government victory or else a remade coalition of FF and Labour. 

So what's the point of this brief excursus into electoral history?  Well, I believe it might have be significant in terms of what kind of policies the alternative government in waiting might actually commit itself to.  We know already that there won't be any launch of a sweeping and detailed joint slate of policies in advance of the election campaign proper.  Instead there will be sporadic and exiguous dollops of policies here and there - enough to keep the media interested without giving to much ammunition to the Government.  Mark Brennock makes the point that on the really big issues, like taxation, Fine Gael and Labour would want to be be singing from the same hymn sheet. 

If it really wants to, Labour can be in the driving seat in terms of forming the policy of the next government on the key issues.  Brennock reports that Fine Gael insiders are prepared to trim policy for the sake of winning the next election and the party's position has shifted on issues like Social Partnership and abolishing the Groceries Order.  The promise of power has the effect of suppressing the party's natural conservative instincts.  The imperative of political survival will encourage greater flexibility in terms of policy and Labour should have the courage of its convictions and not simply agree to a blanket no tax increases stance.  What they should actually propose can be the subject of a future post.

Childcare: the debate hasn't even started...

We all know by now that childcare will be a very big issue in the next election.  Today the National Women's Council of Ireland launched its proposals for a ten year plan costing 1.7 billion euro.  This, say the NWCI, will bring us into line with the childcare funding and provision of most European countries. 

The headline elements of the package are:

• A 50% reduction in childcare costs for all parents of one and two-year-olds and up to 100% reduction - depending on income.
• Paid maternity leave to be increased from 18 to 26 weeks.
• Five days paid paternity leave to be taken within one month of birth.
• Paid parental leave, on top of the 26 weeks maternity leave, for 26 weeks - for mother or father.
• Free childcare programme for three-and-a-half hours each week day for all three and four-year-olds, with subsidised childcare for the remainder of the day.
• Subsidised after-school care for five to 14-year-olds - depending on income. All parents would get a 50% subsidy on childcare - regardless of income - this would be extended to 75% for those paying the lowest tax rate of 20% and free childcare would be provided for those on minimum wages.   

The NWCI claim that their proposals are based on the OECD report Early Childhood Education and Care Policy published last year.  There is a consensus that more resources for childcare is a good thing and the NWCI proposals appear to be a good mix of policies that might avoid a one size fits all approach.  However the more I read about childcare, the more complex the issue becomes.

Breda O'Brien, in her Irish Times column on Saturday, raised some questions about the possible harmful effects of childcare, particularly for very young children.  As she says herself, the child care argument is nowhere near settled.  Because she raises issues about childcare that are not just about more resources she runs the risk of the usual ad hominem attacks that she is some kind of catholic traditionalist who wants mothers to stay at home. 

A quick search on the web based on some of her cited material yields some interesting material that needs careful consideration.  There is some information on the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development longitudinal study here and here.  Professor Edward Mulhuish's literature review is available here.  And there are a couple of good articles in the Australian and the Guardian here and here.I will have to return to this topic at a later date once I have digested some of this stuff. 

Apart from the issues raised by O'Brien, there is the question of what is really driving the childcare policy agenda?  It couldn't be entirely unrelated to the insatiable demand of the Celtic Tiger for unprecedented numbers of women to enter the labour force, could it?  This type of approach would manifest itself in the demand for more childcare places, i.e. more creches and nurseries, an almost industrial approach to childcare.  On the face of it the NWCI proposals have the advantage of a more flexible mix of policies that include longer leave and more flexible work practises.  Perhaps the idea of refundable tax credits should be thrown into the policy mix as well, thus giving greater choice to parents to invest it in childcare or help at least one parent reduce the amount of time she/he is forced to work. 

I recently finished reading Finola Kennedy's Cottage to Creche: Family Change in Ireland and in her conclusion she makes the point that "changes in family patterns have been driven by economic factors, which, when they gained sufficient strength, tended to outweigh those of tradition and religion.  Policy and institutional changes were frequently introduced to accommodate choices already made by the people."  Economic factors are probably driving childcare policy in much the same way but it would be good to be able to intervene and not just accept what blind economic forces try to dictate. 

Paramilitarism and the Orange Order

Peter Hain may well be thinking of declaring the UVF ceasefire to be ended but it's clear that the Orange Order itself shades into paramilitarism. The Orange Order's call for supporters to take to the streets had been clearly answered not just by its supporters but also by armed paramilitary groups, who evidently had guns and blast bombs at the ready.  Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde is in no doubt that the rioters intended to kill police officers. The unrepentant  Orange Order said police actions had been "brutal and heavy handed".  "All we would say is that if what we saw was policing, it was policing at its worst."

Meanwhile there is no sign whatever of the political leaders of Ulster unionism criticising or distancing themselves from the loyal institutions.  They are instead content to lay all the blame squarely at the Parades Commission.  It seems that since the IRA's declaration to disarm itself, unionism has retreated into sullen oppositionism and seems incapable of doing anything remotely positive.

Update

Maurice Hayes notes how working class loyalists have been deprived of a voice after the successes of the DUP pushed the fringe loyalist parties and their leaders like David Ervine, Gary McMichael and Davy Adams even further towards the margins.  Many working class protestants feel unrepresented by the Ulster Unionists as it is too middle class, yet feel too secularist to find a comfortable home in the DUP. 

These are difficult times for the Protestant working class. The industries they worked in have collapsed and deficiencies in the school system make them less able to take the new jobs that are available. The Shankill Road was wrecked by the planners before the Provos left their bombs in it and it is no accident that the main trouble spots of the weekend were the soulless estates housing those relocated from unionist heartlands. These are frightened insecure people who are striking out blindly in the only language they know. They need political leadership and they are not getting it.

Polls, Putnam and (Social) Partnership

The poll published in the Sunday Business Post shows that support for Fianna Fáil has slumped to 32%.  This simply confirms what has been widely perceived and discussed and it shows that the minimalist, do-very-little strategy of Fine Gael and Labour is yielding some dividends in terms of its growing credibility as the basis of an alternative government.  Details of the poll can be found here, here, here and here. 

Surely now is the time for the opposition, and Labour in particular, to start to promote a more positive programme for a future government?  Pat Rabbitte's Jim Kemmy Memorial Lecture didn't give much away as it stuck to the safe tactic of attacking Fianna Fáil's record of waste.  Rabbitte referred in his speech to the 2005 UN Human Development Report which found that the Irish people, in terms of GDP per capita, were ranked the second wealthiest in the world.

But amongst the world's wealthiest countries, Ireland is one of the most unequal with the third highest level of poverty in the eighteen countries surveyed.  Is it any wonder that the Taoiseach is reading Bowling Alone for the second time as Fr Seán Healy failed to produce miracles for him in the opinion polls last year?

Quite so Pat.  References to Bertie Ahern's alleged guru Robert Putnam are all over the place these days.  The Sunday Tribune today has a feature called "Is Bertie really following the advice of his guru?" which looks at the picture in Ahern's own Dublin Central constituency.  Needless to say the picture is mixed at best.  Michael Clifford's column in the same paper links Putnam with the ubiquitous Eddie Hobbs and reminds us of the difference between the normative and empirical aspects of contemporary Irish politics by saying that

Putnam's ideas are the stuff of what politics should be about.  Eddie's opus is what politics today really is about.  For Putnam, the citizen is the primary force in society.  The reaction to the Rip-Off Republic series suggests that the consumer holds sway.  Far from being mutually exclusive, the two are integral components in the make-up of a liberal democracy.  It's just that these days it would appear that matters of consuming far outweigh any holistic issues involving society. 

And so it will remain unless some thought is given to how to articulate a politics that has the role of the citizen in relation to both the state and civil society as its central element.  It surely won't come from Fianna Fáil, no matter how many times Putnam is invoked. 

Social Partnership comes under attack in today's papers.  Alan Ruddock in the Sunday Times says it is a "delusion", that it is "undemocratic" and that it represents an "undeniable triumph for the unions", which "distorts the real picture of Irish economic realities".  A less intemperate critique comes from Colm McCarthy in the Sunday Independent.  His point is that Social Partnership has given public service unions a veto on reform which have a negative effect on productivity and competitiveness in the wider economy. 

I expect we'll hear more of these kinds of criticism as the negotiations for the next phase get underway soon.  Social Partnership is beginning to show its age.  What made sense in 1987 may no longer be appropriate.  But who will set the agenda for a possible remodelling of the process?  Can the unions come up with a position that goes beyond the merely sectional?  I see very little evidence of any capacity for strategic political thinking among the current generation of union leaders.  Will the opposition take a more critical line on Social Partnership, and will this be based on a coherent line of political argument or will it be merely another opportunity of hammering an increasingly unpopular government?

Steep decline in union membership

The Trade Union movement is in serious decline.  According to CSO data, the proportion of workers who are union members has declined from 45% to 33% in 10 years.  In 1994 there were 432,000 trade union members, now there are 518,000.  But the labour force has grown by over half a million and a 19.2% rise in the total number of union members means a 12% drop in the proportion in union membership of the potentially eligible workforce.  It's a surprise to learn that the numbers added to the labour force in recent years are roughly the same as that of the trade union membership in the country.  Trade unions have been in decline all over Europe but, looking at some comparative data, Ireland has slipped far down the league table of union density at a time when no other country's labour force grew to such an extent.  The question is does any of this matter? 

The answer is of course it does for those who place ourselves firmly on the latter side of the Boston or Berlin dichotomy.  If you're in favour of the Americanization of the economy then all is well.  It's also clear that trade unionists are much more likely to be found in the public sector.  Union members in the public sector are also much more likely to be in favour of Social Partnership, particularly as their union leaders are much less critical of the process than those representing private sector workers.  The real problem is in finding a position that lies between such uncritical acceptance of Social Partnership and a so-called return to 'traditional' militancy and free collective bargaining.  I discussed some of these issues a couple of years ago in a paper called "Mixed Signals: SIPTU, Social Partnership and Competitive Corporatism" available here.