ie-politics

Sinn Féin and Tax: Class or Nation?

At last a political party has clearly indicated a desire to break from the prevailing low tax consensus and so we might just have a little scope for debate.  Sinn Féin is reported to be advocating a 50% tax rate for those earning over €100,000 a year, capital gains tax would increase and corporation tax is proposed to be at the rate of 17.5%.  Other elements in the soon to be finalised policy document include splitting stamp duty revenue between central and local government and the introduction of significant tax breaks to be offered to Irish-owned firms if they invest in research and development, in remote regions and in environmentally sustainable industries. 

So does this reinforce the perception of Sinn Féin as a party of the left?  Does it give the party some credibility as a radical force in Irish politics, a party who will campaign with conviction for policies that are outside of the mainstream?  I'm in the sceptical camp on this one.  In the short term, tacking to the left will win Sinn Féin votes, in particular the votes of working class Fianna Fáil or Labour voters.  The party's immediate aim at the next general election would be to double its vote and get its Dáil representation into double figures.  This is achievable.  But party strategists will be aware of the need to broaden the party's appeal if it wants to rival Fianna Fáil and become the dominant political force in the Republic.  While this might seem fantastical, the leadership of Sinn Féin has not decommissioned the armed struggle just to be junior partners in some future coalition government. 

It's likely that party strategists think that in the long term Sinn Féin will need to have genuine cross-class appeal and will want to avoid being stuck on an electoral plateau like the Workers' Party was at the end of the 1980s.  It will want to avoid the perception of being ant-business.  Michael McDowell has already used the phrase "Hello Mary Lou, goodbye jobs" as a jibe against its desire to raise taxes. 

Fundamentally, Sinn Féin is a nationalist party and that means that it will refuse to accept that there could be an irreconcilable clash of interests and the party would have to choose one mutually antagonistic interest over another.   Sinn Féin could learn most from Fianna Fáil in this regard.  The dominant party in the system has been in government about three-quarters of the time since its foundation and yet such is its populism that it somehow manages to argue that the 'establishment' is somewhere else and not to be found in that 'great movement of the Irish people'.  There are some quoted remarks of Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin in the October 6th edition of Business and Finance that could have been said by any Fianna Fáiler:

I think we are radical but a much more important word is relevant.  Sinn Féin is relevant and that is a much more important depiction of our position today...I enjoy, and my colleague deputies and our elected councillors throughout this state enjoy, support of significant numbers of people in business life and at all levels of business in our respective communities.  Sinn Féin is the largest political party in Co. Monaghan, my home county.  That was not based on a sectoral appeal. 

From the weekend's papers

The Banality of Adams
Does the backlash against Gerry Adams begin now that the peace process is seemingly firmly embedded?  On UTV's Gerry Kelly Show Adams finally used a form of words that Unionists had been demanding for quite some time: "the war is obviously over".  According to the Belfast Telegraph the significance of that phrase is that it may be seen as bringing to a close a long episode in political and media duelling between Sinn Fein on one hand and journalists and other politicians on the other. Unionists have for years demanded the IRA, and Sinn Fein, use the explicit words, and Adams was asked the 'Is the war over?' question on hundreds of occasions by journalists. 

But in other coverage Adams comes in for a severe slagging.  Brendan O'Connor in the Sunday Independent claims that "the one downside to this uneasy peace we enjoy is that, unencumbered by having to deal with the Situation, and unencumbered by weapons, Gerry is now free to roam the world as a kind of Bono/Nelson Mandela/Pope John Paul II figure, preaching a vague message of peace, love and understanding".  On the other hand Lindy McDowell in the Belfast Telegraph reckons that "the days when Gerry was big box office would appear to be over. The cameras have moved on. These days Gerry is to the roll call of important international statesmen what Rebecca Loos is to the pecking order of mega-celebrity".

Our Indo scribe then turns his attention to Adams's latest book:

"This book," according to the press release, "marks a significant point in the development of political life in Ireland. In the book he imagines an Ireland in which the 1916 Proclamation is seen as an historic document in the mould of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and the Freedom Charter. He looks to the protection of tradition and culture, the defence of rural communities, the special importance of children and women, and the need to liberate the individual while instilling a feeling of community and protecting the environment. He sees every single person as change manager and is strongly internationalist in his perspective." Sort of Deepak Chopra meets Bono meets Jesus.

And there's more:

Did you know, for example, that Sinn Fein was responsible for everything from the unions to the GAA to the development of industry in Ireland? Me neither, but apparently, 100 years ago "was a time of renewal and rebirth in Ireland. Sinn Fein was the political expression of that dream, which blossomed in Conradh na Gaeilge, Cumann Luthcleas Gael, the trade union movement, na Fianna Eireann, the cooperative movement, the development of Irish industries and agriculture, Inghinidhe na hEireann, Cumann na mBan, the movement for women's suffrage and the Irish Women Workers' Union of Ireland." Presumably they invented the Catholic church as well.

You read on and you realise that Sinn Fein can essentially be whatever you want it to be. It was made up of sugar and spice and all things nice. "The tributaries of separatism, anti-sectarianism, feminism [did such a thing really exist 100 years ago?], cultural revival, socialism and the physical force tradition flowed into the river of Irish republicanism." I actually won't trouble you or myself with any more of his waffle. Because that's all it is. Waffle. Gerry Adams is no longer the guy who can deliver the weapons, so now he's just a common or garden politician who must be judged on the same standards as the rest of them and, to be honest, he doesn't measure up very well.

Let's face it, we take it for granted that all politicians are full of s**t. The thing is, Adams's s**t isn't even good s**t. Adams makes Bob Geldof look like a highly evolved political philosopher. His book makes The Da Vinci Code seem like a deep political tract. It's a load of meaningless crap that even when it does stray into sense doesn't make any sense. Making the 1916 Proclamation a reality? What the hell is he talking about? By the way, when the United Ireland comes, he thinks we should have our own currency too - not sterling or the euro. Our own one. Because in between banging on about how internationalist he is, Gerry likes to point out that he doesn't believe in the EU, despite the fact that he and his party are happy to take up space in the European Parliament, space that could be taken up by people who don't disagree with the whole project.

The DUP should learn from Sinn Féin
Liam Clarke in the Sunday Times has an interesting piece showing how Sinn Féin are much better at managing a complete volte face in terms of publicly declared core positions or principles and yet appearing to remain credible.  The piece is worth reading in full but here are a couple of key paragraphs:

Sinn Fein has often snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. In the years since 1969 the Provisional IRA, supported by Sinn Fein, has set out to drive the British from Ireland vowing it would never stop until there was at least a declaration of intent to withdraw. It has now stood down and disarmed even though British soldiers remain on Irish soil and the border is not only intact but guaranteed by an international treaty. The right of Northern Ireland to exist as a separate state is accepted in the Good Friday agreement, a document that republicans present as the key to progress.

This could easily be seen as failure but, unlike Paisley, Sinn Fein never speaks of sellout. Instead, it redefines success in terms of the best achievable outcome given the circumstances.

That is not the unionist way, or has not been so far. The unionist strategy has been to play a zero sum game, resisting every change that is proposed and embracing defeat. As a result of their inability to tack to the wind they have found it very hard to formulate demands.

Dáil Plan for Northern MPs fallout
It seems like Bertie Ahern's very modest plans to give Northern Ireland's MPs an input into the Dáil have been scuppered by most of the opposition and his own PD colleagues.  The Irish Times editorial yesterday argues that the proposals were "ill-advised".  The writer speculates that maybe " Mr Ahern was 'going through the motions', publicly delivering on a political commitment that had little chance of success. If that was the case, trust between Mr Ahern and Mr Adams will be damaged. But then, the rot started long ago with the Northern Bank robbery".

Meanwhile, in the same paper we have the authoritative opinion of Senator Martin Mansergh telling us why Fianna Fáil has no intention of organising in Northern Ireland in the short or medium term.  Essentially the line is that the peace process was initiated by a pan-nationalist front of Fianna Fáil, the SDLP and Sinn Féin as symbolised by the handshake between Albert Reynolds, John Hume and Gerry Adams on the steps of Government Buildings on September 6th, 1994, after achievement of the first IRA ceasefire.  Mansergh quotes Bertie Ahern as saying that the purpose of the relationship was "to bring all strands of nationalist Ireland to our peaceful republican analysis and to arrive at the implementation of a historic settlement with unionism and the British people". The onus on him in leading that relationship was to remain above party politics.

Cowen's Budget
John Drennan in the Sunday Independent reminds us of the significance of budgets; it is about more than economics and finance and that "its real importance lies in its status as one of the last acts of political theatre which sets the agenda for government and society".  Cowen, reckons Drennan, might just be able to fashion a budget that could rescue Fianna Fáil.  Noel Whelan in the Irish Examiner tells us to look at what Brian Cowen said to the FF Ard Fheis last weekend if we want to know what's in the budget.  There will be some kind of package on childcare and a big hike in child benefit and he will move against some of the special tax incentives that enable top earners to pay hardly any tax at all - a timely reminder of this fact appears in the Sunday Times under the headline "Super-rich use loopholes to avoid paying taxes". 

Trade Unions and local pay bargaining
The Sunday Business Post looks at some emerging differences between different unions over the question of whether there should be a local bargaining clause inserted into the next partnership agreement in addition to the centralised pay norms.  The IBOA, Amicus and the TEEU are leading the charge.  In the public sector the Irish Nurses Organisation support it but Impact are resolutely opposed, seeing it as a "non-runner in the public sector".  SIPTU, quite predictably, won't be drawn on the issue. 

Finally, there is a good feature on the Ferns report and its aftermath and implications by Fintan O'Toole here and, also in the Irish Times, a useful summary of the way some of last Sunday's papers handled Liam Lawlor's death in Moscow here. 

Minimalist proposals for Northern 'representation' in Dáil

Sinn Féin has been campaigning for a long time "for Dáil representation for people in the Six Counties".  So without actually being elected to what used to be derisively dismissed as the "Free State parliament", Sinn Féin's top leaders would have speaking rights in the Dáil and could behave as if it were truly an all-Ireland body, and thus another step on the road to "making partition history".  This has always struck me as constitutionally highly dubious.  Such a situation would permit parliamentary representation to people elected to the parliament of another sovereign state, under the laws and regulations of that state, to avail of facilities paid for by taxpaying citizens who would have no power to vote them out because they didn't elect them in the first place. 

Bertie Ahern's proposals made earlier today will not allow speaking rights and privileges in the Dáil and in fact are the bare minimum the Taoiseach could deliver on the promise he obviously made to Sinn Féin.  Ahern's proposal is that the 18 MPs representing constituencies in Northern Ireland should be invited to participate in the work of the Dáil, through what is called a Committee of the whole House. 

This is far short of the Sinn Féin position who nevertheless politely welcomed the proposals and acknowledged that while it did not involve full representation "it is clearly a step forward" and that "full representation and full participation remains Sinn Féin's goals".  Ahern stressed that his proposal was  to invite Northern MPs to make representations to the Committee and the order of business on that Committee would be for a matter for the Dáil itself and a matter for agreement among the party leaders

In his letter,  Ahern said he wanted to explore how to implement the proposal of the All-Party Committee on the Constitution and that it would be valuable from time to time to have the input of Northern Ireland MPs in Dáil deliberations.  Allowing Northern MPs to attend twice yearly meetings to give them an opportunity 'have an input' is a very minimalist position to adopt.  Anyone can be invited to 'have an input' - even bloggers!  But it won't give us representative rights or any other parliamentary privileges for the very good reason that we were never elected.  Clever old Bertie...

Update - It seems that even these modest proposals will be rejected by the other parties in the Dáil.  They don't like the idea of Adams and McGuinness addressing the Dáil chamber, even though it would technically be a Committee of the whole House rather than a plenary session of the Dáil itself.  A Labour spokesman is quoted as saying "this is all about the optics of having Gerry and the boys debating in the Dáil on television."

Engaging Citizens

Engaging Citizens is the title of the report from the Democracy Commission published today.  The full report is available here and the executive summary can be found here.  So far I've only just read the latter and there's much promising material to discuss over future posts.  RTE's report on the evening news highlighted the Commissions call for obligatory 50:50 gender quotas for candidates put forward by political parties.  (I'm sure we can look forward to the likes of Kevin Myers and John Waters fulminating against this particular capitulation to feminist tyranny). Other issues that are prominent are citizenship education, the proliferation of non-departmental public bodies that lack accountability and the concomitant weakness of the Oireachtas in terms of scrutiny, the strengthening of local government including the direct election of mayors and the creation of a press ombudsman and press council recognised by law. 

Partnership deal will be linked with public sector reform

Very predictably, following the SIPTU vote of 400 to 1 that partnership talks be deferred, the ICTU has followed suit.  Equally predictably, Bertie Ahern says he is happy to engage with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on concerns the union movement has in advance of a new pay round.  The choreography of this whole thing is going to get mighty tedious.  Union leaders may well be aware that partnership has become bloated and cumbersome but they have no vision of an alternative strategy.  Ahern's willingness to assuage union concerns stems from his role as the 'Great Concilliator" back in the 1980s when he was Minister for Labour.  As one commentator in the Irish Independent put it this morning " national pay deals are embedded deep in his political DNA". 

That same piece was a rather overcooked polemic about how partnership has outlived its usefulness and how SIPTU's decision gives us an opportunity to call a halt to the nonsense partnership has become once and for all.  While the article attacks partnership as "a kind of watered down vocationalism, an ideology which had its first outing in Mussolini's fascist Italy during the 1930s", the real target is the public sector:

Under so-called social partnership public sector workers have further widened the pay gap between them and their private sector counterparts. Average public sector pay is now running at €820 a week compared to just €641 a week in distribution and services, and just €577 in industry. Public service wages are also rising much faster than those in the private sector. While industrial wages are rising by an average of just 2.7pc a year and services wages are growing by 3.1pc public sector wages are racing ahead by 6.2pc, more than twice the rate in most of the private of the private sector.

There's a lot of distortion of the true picture here but what can't be gainsaid is the fact that most of the 750,000 new jobs created in the last dozen years have been in the multi-national or indigenous services sector where the trade unions have barely registered an impact. 

Our economy is a curious mix of elements of the European social model with its blend of corporatism and welfarism and what might loosely be termed a US-type neo-liberalism, which is manifested in a high dependence on inward investment by the multi-national sectors.  Our polemicist in the Indo is more or less right when he says that "strip out the public sector and traditional indigenous manufacturing and trade unions don't feature in the modern Irish labour market".

Fianna Fáil at the weekend signalled their clear intention to put public sector reform very prominently in their election campaign.  Senior ministers indicated that Benchmarking would only follow commitments towards real reform.  So not only do unions largely not feature in much of the private sector, they are likely to be put on the defensive in the public sector as well.  Is there any sign at all that Union leaders have a plan to deal with this other than scurry back to the top table of partnership - after a decent show of reluctance of course?

Populism, Tax and Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil is one of the most electorally successful parties in any democracy and this ability to win elections is in no small part due to its populism.  There are different elements that make up the populist character of the party - its nationalism, its cross-class appeal, superior levels of grass roots organisation and its ability to work clientelism and patronage to its advantage.  While FF has suffered from declining party identification in the electorate, its relative decline has been less than that of its principal opponent Fine Gael. 

At the weekend Ard Fheis Fianna Fáil was doing its best to position itself, amidst the distraction of Liam Lawlor's death in Moscow, to win a third election under Bertie Ahern.  Reclaiming the symbols of nationalism from Sinn Féin is part of this process.  It's not just about dealing with the electoral threat from Sinn Féin, with whom Ahern has insisted he will not go into coalition.  Part of the long term dominance of FF was due to its successful incorporation of national symbols, such as the colours of the flag and the harp, into the party's very identity. In a party system where nationalism formed the primary basis of competition, the more nationalist FF was more consistently successful.  Rhetorically, FF refer to itself as a national movement rather then a mere party. 

More recently Fianna Fáil has relied more on the techniques of political marketing and media handling rather than its grass roots organisation to appeal to the electorate.  It is reasonably established that the party uses focus groups to test out a range of policy positions.  Brian Dowling in the Irish Independent says that Ahern's remarks at the weekend indicate that the government is gearing up for a "populist" budget to get them out of the political doldrums.  It appears that tax credits may again be index-linked, providing a real increase in take-home pay especially to those on lower salaries. 

These tax cuts may be combined with some tax increases for the wealthy.  Brian Cowen has said that his budget would include measures to ensure everyone paid their fair share in taxes.

It is unacceptable to me that some of the wealthiest residents in Irish society should use property and other tax incentives to avoid paying any income tax while at the same time enjoying the services provided by the State.

At the same time Bertie Ahern made it clear on The Political Party on TV3 that he would not be in favour of increasing corporation tax or capital gains tax.  So he's not exactly taking huge political risks here.  Putting a cap on personal tax allowances won't cost too many votes.  But promising tax cuts for ordinary working people and their families, combined with promised reform of the public service, will enable FF to become a little bit more populist.  At the same time Ahern's legendary caution means that it's a conservative and incremental populism.  It might be enough to scrape back home if the opposition parties don't start to develop attractive policy positions themselves.  Fianna Fáil will start to recover in the polls and it won't be enough to just wait until the government loses the election before the campaign starts.

Adviser still has to explain dodgy doctorate

According to the Sunday Times, Enterprise and Employment Minister Micheál Martin has given the government Chief Scientific Adviser Barry McSweeny the opportunity to prove that his PhD was earned correctly and for a suitable body of work.  This just simply won't happen, at least if the reported remarks of FBI consultant John Bear are anything to go by.  He describes a degree from Pacific Western University as "a ticking time bomb on a person's CV".   The Labour Party's Jan O'Sullivan continues to ask searching questions about the issue.  What happens if Mr McSweeney fails to take the opportunity to defend his doctoral credentials?  Will he be asked to resign?  Why not?

Reclaiming Republicanism

As the Soldiers of Destiny gather in Killarney for the Ard Fheis this weekend, their leader has announced that the party will reclaim the spirit of the 1916 Easter Rising and has ordered the reinstatement of the traditional parade involving the Army marching past the GPO.  It's now considered safe to be republican again.  Also there is the matter of seeing off major electoral competition from Sinn Féin.

Ahern's initiative is not without the taint of accusations of opportunism and it seems that the Department of Defence was not consulted in advance.  Nor were the Fine Gael and Labour Parties.  Does any of this matter?  Every nation celebrates its founding and it's not unusual to give expression to this in an officially sanctioned annual ceremony.  Ahern was being opportunistic in the timing of his announcement but that doesn't invalidate the notion of celebrating our founding as a republic.  I think it was a good thing that most of Ireland managed to detach itself from that jaded ancien regime state called the United Kingdom.  There is much to be said in favour of republican principles when the alternative is to be continually bemused by the worn out pageantry of a state whose power structures  until recently were largely unchanged since the settlement of the Glorious Revolution. 

Being grateful that we live in a republic does not mean that we endorse the conspiratorial methods of the Irish Republican Brotherhood whose members kept the tradition of radical separatism alive.  Still less does it mean acquiescing in the rhetoric, ideology and methods of those who have insisted that they are the sole repositories of the spirit of 1916. 

Of course the fact that the IRA has now officially ended its armed struggle against the state authorities in this island means that such ceremonies can be largely de-politicised.  The state will always try to mediate between historical memory and contemporary political exigencies.  It's interesting to compare the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Easter Rising in 1966 with the much more muted 75th anniversary in 1991.  After 1969 revisionist historians had the upper hand in revising the rising almost out of the picture and the parliamentary tradition of O'Connell, Parnell, Redmond and Dillon was given greater prominence.  But we are all post-revisionists now and a proper understanding of the fluctuating fortunes, the tensions and the overlap between radical separatism and constitutional nationalism needs to be properly developed. 

1916 obviously boosted the radical separatists, though largely as a result of the stupid way the British state tried to deal with the aftermath of the rising.  Home Rule would no longer satisfy the aspirations of a majority of Irish nationalists and the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party became associated with the practise of compromising with a British state that was prepared to be repressive to continue its domination.  Some of the remnants of the old IPP tradition after independence found a home in Fine Gael.  This strand was recently articulated by John Bruton when he questioned the War of Independence.  It was just this that led to the creation of his own party and ultimately enabled him to become Taoiseach. 

From the Reviews

Every so often, I'll link to book reviews that have caught my eye and where the titles will join an already impossibly long Amazon wish list.  My first pick is The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M.Friedman, reviewed in Foreign Affairs by Joseph Stiglitz.  The book has two targets.  On the one hand there are the proponents of the populist anti-growth literature who are sharply critical of the impact of growth on poverty and the environment. On the other hand there are the naive cheerleaders of hyper-globalization, such as the author's namesake, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.  The book is about whether specific policies can produce a kind of sustainable growth whose benefits are more equitably shared.

In the New Statesman Edward Skidelsky reviews Earthly Powers: religion and politics in Europe from the French revolution to the Great War by Michael Burleigh (whose The Third Reich: A New History was quite brilliant).  The book tells the story of how the christian Churches in Europe were incapable of holding back the tide of secularism and the rise of powerful civic structures that ended the church's dominance in civil society.  Another strand in the narrative is how the major political movements of the 19th century, republicanism, nationalism, socialism, came to be imbued with a quasi-religious fervour. Much attention is given to how Catholicism tried to act as a bulwark against this type of "religious" secularism. 

Religious fanaticism of a different kind is the subject of a review by Paul Baumann of Opus Dei: The First Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church that appears in the Washington Monthly.  I get the impression that the book would be a good source of information but is vitiated by trying too hard to be balanced and fair, which leads to a lot of reportage of the "he said, she said" variety.  This probably leads the author to be less critical of the organisation than would be warranted both by the facts and by the author's liberal Catholic stance.  Personally, I still cannot get over the fact that there is a member of Britain's Labour cabinet, Ruth Kelly, who is a supernumerary of the organisation. 

Tom Garvin, a Legend of Irish Political Science

There's a delightful interview in last weekend's Sunday Business Post with Tom Garvin, Professor of Politics at UCD.  Garvin at his most enjoyable, as anyone who has ever had the pleasure of his company will testify, combines great erudition with a certain bibulous conviviality.  He's damn good in the lecture theatre too.  I learnt more about political science and a good deal about other subjects talking to Tom and reading the many books he kindly lent me than from anyone else.  His latest book Preventing the Future has just issued in paperback and it's vintage Garvin.  I can hear his voice when I'm reading it.  In fact Gill and Macmillan have just reissued all his previous books in paperback and at €12.99 a pop they're excellent value.  Buy 'em all!

At one point in the interview Garvin says that the hands of our politicians are tied by "an extraordinarily populist" electoral system.  He means the single transferable vote system of proportional representation or PR-STV.  While most democracies use some form of PR, the only lower house to be elected by STV is the Irish.  The key feature of this system is that it allows voters to vote across party lines.  Therefore it means that candidates of the same party must compete with each other as well as with candidates from other parties.  This encourages an intense localism as candidates of the same party cannot compete on the basis of policy and instead urge the voters to, in effect, shop local. 

Garvin's solution is to have two votes for the Dáil - one for a constituency as at present and the other for a party list.  I have believed for some time that this would be of great benefit to the political system.  I have never been bothered by the actual size of the Dáil and cannot see much merit in the argument that say having 80 seats would somehow make for a better legislature than one composed of 166 members. 

Having half of the Deputies elected from party lists would have two positive effects: it would insulate some deputies from constant direct local or clientelist pressures and allow them to carry out their role as national legislators; a different kind of politician might emerge through the lists.  Establishing a reputation for "getting things done" in local areas places great restrictions on the routes of entry into the political system.  There must be many people who could ably serve in the Dáil but who are put off by the localistic and clientelistic nature of our political system.  If we want to broaden the social composition of the political class then list systems are the way to go.