Is the real issue in Ireland one of competence?

[Purple]

Everyone is blaming the banks for reckless lending and rightly so but to whom we assign blame for the root cause of our problems seems to depend on which side of the Left/Right divide.

The right blames the social partnership approach in which the construction industry and unions gave each other the nod; the unions got their pay rises and the builders kept their tax breaks and they both kept quiet about what the other got as long as both sides played the game. The government just took a back seat and let it all happen, buying off all and sundry as credit fuelled tax receipts bulged from the state coffers.

The Left blames political corruption, light-touch regulation and the tent and the Galway Races. To them it was all about unbridles capitalism and the takeover of the state by big business vested interests and their FF cronies.

Maybe the real problem is simple one of competence at the top levels of our political and civil institutions.

Social partnership worked fine when the government was in charge and they were taking advice and hammering out consensus on each point of discussion. It stopped working when the government took a back seat and they guys representing their own special interest groups carved up the pot to suit themselves.

Light touch regulation works fine as long as the people doing the regulation are competent and sufficiently removed from the people that they are regulating to be objective and ruthless with those who transgress.
A high level of regulation is useless if those doing the regulation are not up to the job. Not being up to the job also means not being able to get government to listen to what you are saying and not being willing to resign if you aren’t allowed or able to do what’s needed.

Tax breaks are fine as long as they are targeted and continuously examined to make sure there is a net social benefit. It was not unbridles capitalism that caused the housing bubble; it was caused by state interference in the market in the form of unnecessary tax breaks and a lack of political will to legislate to counteract the international credit bubble.

In short well meaning fools in positions of power can be as bad or worse as those that are self serving but competent. That applies to politicians and civil servants as well as those in the private or semi-state sectors, or unions, who are in a position to make as impact or have an influence on a national level.

We need leadership but we also need competence and oversight from the top so that the pain that most of us will have to feel over the next few years will net a long term gain.
That leadership cannot just take the shape of one person, be that Enda Kenny, Brian Cowan or Eamon Gilmore (or another). We need a cohesive strategy that is centralist enough for the three major parties to buy into. The plan needs to be cohesive and straightforward enough for people to understand and then (the hardest part) we need literally hundreds of people across the whole gambit of government and state bodies to step up to the plate and show a level of competence that has been absent for upwards of two decades.

A mediocre plan implemented well is better than a good plan implemented badly.

Does anyone believe that this can or will happen?

 

[Latrade]

I think it's hard in the current circumstances to look beyond our own back yard, but this is a global issue and we must look at it in that context.

First, the caveats. Ireland's problem was different, our economy was different, our social partnership was different, etc and we'd already hit a decline.

But, the sudden global scale of the downturn really messed everything up. Germany had a great economic model in fair taxes, good efficient public service, neither buisness nor citizens went credit crazy, a sustainable property market, etc. Yet they were hit just hard too.

The point of that is irrespective of where we were and what we had, we'd have been hit and probably just as hard. One question is how have we handled the problem in comparison to other comparable states? As we go on, there's an argument to say that the Government actually did it better here.

Slight diversion for a second for a very poor analogy. I remember a lecture by a Paramedic regarding first aid and their response was in a serious injury the important thing was to stop the bleeding by any means. If all you can find is an oily rag, use that, they can deal with any infection at the hospital, but you must stop the bleeding.

The models to stop the haemorrhaging of the economies in the UK, US and Ireland are interesting. There are similarities as all three went along with the new "risk free" banking model and deregulation.

The Irish approach was to stop the bleeding, no matter how painful in the short term, stop the bleeding and we'll deal with the other issues later. The US and UK went for model that effectively stuck a couple of plasters on the wounds and decided to support the loss of blood by blood transfusions. It artificially supported the economies, but couldn't last.

In short, we've taken the biggest part of the pain and the bleeding has halted or is under control. The bailouts and NAMA were the oily rag. The next step is to fight the infection. That's where tax, social welfare and public sector, banking and finance reform, is needed.

The UK and the US went for the reduce taxes and get people spending. As we saw in the US as soon as the support for the car industry stopped, the market dropped. This is seen here too, for most of the last few months retail has had huge sales. The volume of sales increased as a result, but the value of those sales dropped more or less off the chart. And what happened in September when they stopped the sales? People stopped buying.

The UK did the same with its VAT and other routes. The fact is the UK and US are now going to have to do the pain. More taxes and all that. Ours is done.

I know our recovery will be slower one because of who we are and the reality we are a tiny country, but also because of the general mess we were in in the first place. The thing is those economists that were quick to rub salt in last year and most of this about Ireland's state are now having to concede that maybe the government actually handled things the right way.

I know your overall point is competence leading up to this, but then the Irish government wasn't on its own in being very short sighted and popularist. What does this say about politicians in general across the world?

I guess on a micro scale, the politicians weren't the only ones who got carried away. Apart from Germans, so did everyone else. Now they can blame the banks for putting temptation their way or they can look within themselves and admit they lost their heads.

We should expect politicians to be above this, but we have a system where their jobs are always up to us. Politicians asking for sobriety and frugality, politicians looking to rebalance tax, politicians looking for social welfare reform, politicians looking to reform the public sector, politicians saying they're going to make it harder for us to get loans during the good years wouldn't have lasted in their jobs.

They didn't do it because most of us didn't want to hear it.

 

[Mpsox]

There is absolutely no doubt that competance (or lack of it) was one of the main reasons behind what has happened in this country. However, in my view, there were also 3 other main reasons

Morality went out the window, I don't mean the religous definition of sin or anything like that, I mean a basic understanding/realisation of when something is simply the wrong thing to do. Take John O'Donaghue as a classic example, what he actually did was possibly not in breech of any rules, but did he ever stop and ask himself as he got into his limo at Heathrow, "is this right"? or did he just sit there and think, "it''s great to be me"?

Secondly, we got greedy as a nation. How many people who bought a SUV actually really needed it, or were they bought because everyone else was doing it? Is there anything in Brown Thomas that is actually worth the price that is charged for it?. When people were building McMansions out in the country, with more bedrooms then they will ever fill, did they ever stop and think, " I don't actually need this". We need a fundamental change of attitide and reprioritisation of what are the important things in life

Short-termism. Part of the reason banks lended so recklessly was because as a company the market expected them to beat the previous quarters/years results the next time around. Staff were incentivised to meet short terms goals, no one stopped to think if a deal was in the best long term intereest of the bank and the borrower. Risk management went out the window in the effort to meet the next month's target. I'm all in favour of performance related pay, but it should be linked to long term performance, not short terms goals

 

[shnaek]

I knew a lot of people who were part of the students union when I was in college. And many of these people went in to politics. I would say that a tiny percentage of those were top class. Most were well meaning -but were of average competance.

In an ideal world, average competance wouldn't get you a ministry - but as we're seeing, this is no ideal world. Ministry's are given out based on political concerns, not based on competance. As long as this is the case, there will be a competance deficit in politics.

We must also ask: What type of people get in to politics? I was listening to the radio yesterday, and all the talk about Brendan Drumm's 70k bonus from 2007.
70k from 2007?!
We're borrowing 500m a week to keep the country going!
So it made me think - who would go into politics when every debate you're going to have is going to be dragged down to this level? And who is going to go into politics when you are going to have to justify long term actions to an electorate forever concerned with the short term? And who is going to go into politics when politicians are held in such low regard?

We need to continually improve our system of democracy in order to encourage competance, decisiveness and long term thinking from our politicians. We also need to ensure that we as the electorate are knowledgeable and educated, and that we take responsibility for our actions, and for those we put in charge.

 

[VOR]

We need to continually improve our system of democracy in order to encourage competance, decisiveness and long term thinking from our politicians. We also need to ensure that we as the electorate are knowledgeable and educated, and that we take responsibility for our actions, and for those we put in charge.

I agree with the idea that competence is what is required. However, competence gets trumped by pragmatism all too often. As long as we have a local outlook to our political system we will have political pragmatism.

The way to overcome this is to elect the Taoiseach & Tanaiste and no other representative. I propose a 100 seat Dail. Labour, FF, FG etc should put forward a manifesto outlining their respective plans and their candidates for the cabinet.
The general election should decide which of the leaders we want as in charge. That party leader would then pick the TDs he/she can have based on the % of overall votes e.g.
FG get 35% - 35 seats
Labour get 28% - 28 seats

No gombeen men who only want to look out for their own "parish". So if Enda got the most seats he would pick the best people from his party for health, education, finance etc.

What we have at the moment elects people with no qualifications, experience or competencies to represent the county. Every quack who gets the local GAA vote gets in. And when they get elected they build useless swimming pools in their home towns and roads to no where. Very few can operate on a national and international level and even fewer want to.