Gilmore is Adamant: He Will Continue to Destroy All Hope “There is no doubt about that. That will be done”
“There is no doubt social welfare spending has to come down. Joan Burton has already done a huge amount of work on addressing the area of welfare fraud and overclaiming,”
“She gave the Government a briefing last Tuesday on the very significant progress she is making on it. In addition to that there is a whole welfare reform agenda that is being pursued. Expenditure has to come down. There is no doubt about that. That will be done,”
“I am under no illusions that we have some very difficult days ahead in terms of decisions that we have to make. But we have to be clear in our heads what it is we are doing and what we are doing is leading a process of recovery”.
Eamon Gilmore - 05 September 2011 in an interview with the Irish Times
It is nice to hear that Eamon Gilmore feels that he is under no illusions. What he is advocating and planning for then is a conscious and deliberate attempt to increase the shock caused by the recession.
Michael Burke has a post on Socialist Economic Bulletin which highlights a new pamphlet called ‘A Brighter Economic Future for Britain‘ which he has co-authored with Professors George Irvin and John Weeks. They have an article in today’s Guardian about it:
‘The UK depression has already lasted three years, and NIESR argues that is likely to last five years or more - longer than that of 1930s.
Yet economic debate is dominated by counterproductive attempts to reduce the deficit through cuts in public spending, which are now the single most important cause of the depression.’
You can read the full Guardian article here.
Although about the UK economy, ‘A Brighter Economic Future for Britain‘(PDF) is of great relevance to the situation in Ireland as the strategy taken by both governments is the same. Of course, Michael Burke has written extensively on the Irish economy, so many readers will be familiar with his points.
But as we are now entering yet another political season - the by now traditional run up to the budget when, after an incredibly prolonged period of austerity with no discernable improvement in the domestic economy, the politicians prepare us for the ‘bad news’ in advance: the proposed cuts in public expenditure will not be enough. These decisions will be difficult, they tell us, but we just have to remember that we are doing this to bring about a ‘recovery’.
I’m sure everyone reading this is as sick of this bullshit as I am. Sickened by it to begin with, and sick of it three years on. That it comes from the mouths of Gilmore, Burton, Howlin, Rabbitte and Quinn doesn’t surprise. They are the agents of the comprador class - those who control whatever can be sold off with the profits pumped back into speculation.
Except that with speculation, the speculators sometimes expect to lose. Not in Ireland. Here rewards of speculation are guaranteed (even when they are not “guaranteed”) to provide a profitable return.
So, for the Eamon Gilmore’s of this world the point must be made again and again. From the pamphlet:
“Public deficits increase either because expenditure rises or revenue declines, and the size of the gap depends either on a conscious change in policy or an automatic adjustment. Automatic declines in revenue and automatic increases in expenditures following an economic downturn are what economists call ‘automatic fiscal stabilisers’; ie, they serve to dampen the domestic shock caused by a recession.”
This is true in Ireland as it is in the UK. As Michael says of the Tory/Lib Dem strategy:
“The Coalition policy of expenditure cuts is, therefore, a programme to increase the shock caused by the crisis. The Coalition’s obsession with the public deficit is a thinly disguised strategy to reduce and dismantle the public sector.”
In the Irish case however, we should add “what there is of it”. Gilmore and the rest argue that they are ‘being realistic’ and that the current strategy is necessary in order to bring about recovery in the interests of the Irish people. One must assume then that it is a deeply held belief on their part that the only way for the economy to recover is by providing the means for a very small section of the population to benefit and that this may, at some point, trickle down to everyone else. Basically the economy should be run in the future in exactly the same way it has always been run.
Image of Eamon Gilmore taken from his Workers’ Party 1991 local election pamphlet. Courtesy of Irish Election Literature.
Discussion
We welcome and encourage lively discussion from the public about articles on Irish Left Review. You can leave a comment using the form at the bottom of the page. Please read through the existing comments before posting your own.
Comment by: Michéal
Sep 5th 2011 at 17:09
As I read your article, I am reminded that the leadership of the Labour Party are sitting down to a sumptuous repaste at the Luxury Mount Wolsley Hotel (brainchild of developer Donal Morrisey) in Tullow Co. Carlow).
I am sure that the dinner conversation between courses will stretch to the necessary hardships to be inflicted on us in order to continue bailing out their speculator friends.
Comment by: vincent wood
Sep 5th 2011 at 18:09
Gilmore and co are choosing to play hard cop/hard cop along with FG then. This is so much more dangerous than what we endured during the Thatcher era. Now, the current meltdown is the key to unlock the floodgates that will roll back so much of what ordinary people have fought for and gained in the last 50 years.
If Labour are eplicitly calling for the abadonment of ‘old’ ideas like investing in society, then they are championing the end of history and that there is no alternative to Thatcherism.
In Britain, senior Trade Union figures are floating the idea of another political party, as the current Labour party there is failing to uphold those ‘old’ values. Would like to hear more from SIPTU/ICTU on all of this.
Comment by: Alan Rouge
Sep 6th 2011 at 16:09
Gilmore’s speech could be summed up with a paraphrasing of the final line from Back to the Future: “Where we’re going, we don’t need an economy, or politics, or democracy”.
There’s a great moment in episode 11, Series 3 of The Wire (Middle Ground) when Bunny Colvin takes Carcetti, likely to be the next mayor, to show him the effects and results of “Hamsterdam”. Colvin suspects Carcetti is a slimey two-faced rat and recounts an anecdote of a funeral home manager who used to refuse to bury black people. After the Jim Crow bill was being dismantled someone asked if he’ll change his policy and now bury black people to which Stryker, the proprietor of the funeral home, says “Yeah, but only if I can bury them all at once”.
Colvin says that he had a lot of respect for this Stryker character for even though he was a disgusting racist, “you always knew where he stood”.
Eamon Gilmore is Carcetti.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_92A_Z9YCg#t=38s
Comment by: Des Derwin
Sep 6th 2011 at 16:09
I always opposed the idea of disaffiliaton from the Labour Party. It opened the door for the expulsion of all politics from union discourse.
The JLCs, equality for agency workers, the maintenace of waste collection by Dublin City Council, and, perhaps not as preciously, the rentention of the ESB in state ownership, were trade union icons, last ditches for the unions. I refer to SIPTU in particular. An attack upon these by the Labour Party in government is surely the crossing of several Rubicons, placing the Labour Party outside any arguable connection with the labour movement and placing disaffiliation on the agenda.
The agenda of the SIPTU Conference in October? Anyone?