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Irish general election:
A battered austerity regime returns to power
On Friday 6th May Enda Kenny was appointed
Taoiseach and the government of the 32nd Irish Dail established. Kenny
and his Fine Gael party had been roundly trounced in the polls and his
Labour party coalition partners decimated. Now, after 70 days of horse-trading,
he had been returned to power. The austerity programme of Irish capital,
enforced on behalf of the Troika, although slightly dented, remains in
place.
The broad outlines of the Irish process
will be familiar across Europe. Grinding austerity has stoked popular anger,
eroded political structures and led to a greater instability. However,
the absence of a working class party means that austerity continues, though
a great cost to the stability of capitalist rule.
One former casualty of the workers anger
was Fianna Fail. Their programme of populist nationalism had made them
the party of government for most of modern Irish history but they were
decimated for bankrupting the country. One consequence of the absence of
a convincing opposition is that Fianna Fail has returned in this election.
It was the turn of the traditional alternate government of a right-wing
Fine Gael supported by the Labour party, to be smashed up and Labour ground
into the earth.
There was an obvious way to resolve the
crisis. The two opposition parties of the Irish civil war, Fine Gael and
Fianna Fail, could form a national government. Both were keen to avoid
this as it would confirm a widespread sentiment that there was only one
party of capital and point up the need for a working class party.
It is also worth noting that the election
was fought on the claim of sustained Irish recovery. If this were true
then the capitalists would be fighting for a place in government to bask
in the new era of prosperity. The fact that most parties fought to avoid
office tells us everything about their own belief in an ongoing recovery.
Confidence and supply
In the event the two parties agreed a
"confidence and supply" arrangement that would allow a minority Fine Gael
government to operate while allowing Fianna Fail to reserve for itself
the safer seats on the opposition benches. Another set of protracted negotiations
produced a programme for government and the signing up of a gaggle of independents
to provide the number of votes that allow the daily operation of the government.
When the dust settled and the new government
was elected Michael Noonan, architect of the last five years of austerity,
emerged yet again as the minister for finance. He remarked complacently
that the various deals and manoeuvres had no budgetary significance. That
is that Irish capital, despite a few bruises, is proceeding with the next
round of austerity.
No-one has as yet drawn attention to the
"Right2Change" union leaders and leftists who pushed an electoral alliance
as the mechanism that would defeat austerity.
Semi-colonial state
The details of the various agreements
illuminate the nature of Irish society. The confidence and supply arrangement
between the major capitalist parties began with a declaration that the
new government would remain within the fiscal space allowed by the Troika.
The other major agreement was that both will stand with the Lansdowne Road
agreement that enforces continued austerity, with job speedup and wages
cuts in the public sector.
Irish capitalism will continue to act
as agents for imperialism with their chief aim the continued impoverishment
of the working class. Hardly surprising that public support for the new
government, on its first day in office, hovered around 20%!
The full programme for government involved
a suspension of contentious water charges and a rejigging of unpopular
taxes. It was spiced with a range of bribes in terms of resources for constituencies
aimed at winning the votes of independent TDs, beefed up with government
appointments for those who signed up.
The reality of Ireland's semi-colonial
status is evident. Ireland, with 1% of the European population, took responsibility
for 42% of the banking debt. The finance minister declares that the government
would not dream of asking Europe to honour promises to reduce the debt.
All economic plans are within the fiscal space allowed by the Troika.
Internally civic society is bound together
by a dependent nationalism, leavened by endless corruption. Basic services
such as health and housing lag far behind advanced capitalist economies
and are now in ruins following years of austerity.
Political patronage
Everyone knows that basic services are
not guaranteed and that political patronage may be required to gain
access to them. Known criminals are elected and re-elected in the hope
that the "cute hoor" can steal some resources for their constituents.
TD's selling their vote to achieve advantage
for their region is considered commonplace. One TD got improvements to
a regional airport. Another asked for a cardiac hospital (he got his way,
with the figleaf of a review of medical need). The former health minister
remarked in despair that these deals made impossible a national health
service. He is undoubtedly right, but given that the health service is
the most expensive and inefficient in Europe and is in a state of collapse,
the free-for-all for resources is to be expected.
So capitalism continues in a more unstable
form. The government is a patchwork of conflicting interests, held aloft
by the abstention of the main opposition party. On the opposition benches
Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein jostle to present themselves
as defenders of the people while presenting identical policies. The
socialist groups are pushed to the sidelines. They were unable to join
in the haggling for government positions and were restricted to the fantasy
task of keeping Fianna Fail honest on the issue of water charges.
Water
Fianna Fail, who originally began the
water privatisation process, were aided in their recovery by calling for
a suspension of charges and the abolition of the water company. Part
of their agreement with Fine Gael is to kick the issue down the road, with
a nine month suspension of charges. A Dail motion to abolish Irish Water
and scrap charges immediately was defeated after Fianna Fail TDs abstained
on the vote.
The issue will continue to cause problems
for government. Popular opposition is based partly on exasperation with
endless austerity, growing more acute as workers are told the economy is
in recovery. Alongside this exasperation was endless bribery, corruption
and outright theft in the setup of Irish water and the use of public money
to install water meters – a corruption that is everywhere and that goes
on with impunity.
There is no easy way out. Europe insists
that Ireland must privatise water, but is unlikely to directly enforce
regulations, rather relying on financial pressure and on providing Irish
capital with an alibi when they continue water privatisation. A decision
to reverse privatisation would add significantly to government costs.
The total cost fits exactly into the fiscal space under government control.
However continuing with water on the state books would weaken Ireland's
credit rating and absorb monies needed to mitigate other elements
of austerity and maintain social peace. In the discussion ahead the
capitalists will not be slow to ask which aspects of housing, health and
education should be sacrificed. An opposition unwilling to step outside
the Troika budget will have little in the way of an answer. Sinn Fein have
squared the circle of opposing water privatisation while staying within
the troika programme by pleading exceptionalism – water is
so important to life that it must remain a public resource. What
then of the right to Housing? health? Education? Decent wages?
The narrow space of Troika rule
Water privatisation is a single part of
a much wider process of selloff and the demolition of public resources.
A big ideological element of the offensive is the argument that there is
no alternative - and in fact there is not within current Irish society
and the financial constraints of the Troika.
The capitalist class are foursquare behind
water privatisation. They fear working class mobilization and hope to defuse
anger with a fudge that preserves the privatisation process. Fianna
Fail and Sinn Fein want to pose as an opposition, but have signed up very
firmly to responsible budgets inside the terms set by Europe.
And a perfect storm is coming. The books
were cooked in a ploy to win Fine Gael election victory and will have to
be adjusted downwards.
Economic indicators show a fallback in
the Global and European economies. Yet the trumpeting of Irish economic
recovery has led workers to believe that wages cuts negotiated by the union
leaders will be reversed. They are especially concerned about "pulling
the ladder up" - setting lower rates of pay for new entrants to the workforce.
Bitter industrial disputes are building up in transport, education and
retail, with more disputes to come.
A major crisis is emerging in health.
The service has been cut to the bone. Every year major expenditures have
to be added to the health budget simply to prevent total collapse. Some
services, such as mental health, have effectively been withdrawn. A recruitment
crisis is growing as staff choose migration rather than accept the wages
and conditions on offer.
Teaching unions in the secondary sector
are seeking to step outside the extra hours imposed on them by the Haddington
Road agreement. The issue is explosive, because the agreement contains
an emergency finance act that allows government to withhold pay and pensions
from non-compliant workers. The clause is a massive scabbing mechanism
supported by the Irish Congress of Trade
Unions and would expose the role of the leading bureaucrats in suppressing
workers resistance.
Housing
Yet looming over all these issues is the
housing catastrophe. Workers are caught between NAMA, the agency in control
of property bought with the workers money to save speculators, and the
ruling class, comprising many landlords and property speculators.
The role of NAMA is to garner foreign exchange
by selling off property at knockdown prices to New York's vulture capitalists.
The recovery has seen working class disposable income shrink while the
rich use their gains to fuel a housing boom that puts both housing and
rental properties out of their reach. Single people are forced onto the
streets. Every day sees another family pushed into emergency
accommodation in a single-room bedsit.
Last year 75 social housing units were
built in the Irish state. The ruling class of landlords and speculators
are petrified by the scale of the threat but can see no solution from inside
the cage of their own class interests. Proposals include making houses
smaller, more tax breaks for speculators and tearing up housing regulations.
Former labour minister Alan Kelly claims that a comprehensive solution
would breach the constitutional right to private property.
The first initiative of the new government
is to announce a major housing development in Dublin. Yet it is no
different from past projects. Public land is to be handed over to private
developers for open-ended development. The developers will make money hand
over fist and the scheme will contain hotels and retail developments. Only
10% of houses will be reserved for social housing. The big new idea is
to scrap all democratic accountability and fast-track the development so
that only developers and state officials are involved.
In case we had forgotten the endemic government
corruption, a report into Garda malpractice reverses an earlier report.
The Garda commissioner did nothing wrong and neither did the minister.
The Garda did nothing wrong but there were problems with systems and resources.
The whistleblower did nothing wrong but may have overstated the problem.
However the sleepy-gas backfired when it emerged that the commissioner
and the Garda generally had run a campaign of slander and vilification
against Garda McCabe, who made the complaints.
Crisis of perspective
Yet a crisis of perspective paralyzes
the socialist groups. They have sunk everything into winning a few Dail
seats only to find that they are largely irrelevant inside the chamber.
They are not prepared to sell their votes to the capitalists or to sanctify
Sinn Fein as the nucleus of a new left party, yet the only role open to
them is to operate as the “right2change” group – Sinn Fein in drag, backed
by the left union bureaucracy and the socialist groups providing cover.
Their own pretence at unity has proved a hollow sham. In the multiple crises
facing Irish workers electoralism and reformism are wearing thin.
Outside the Dail real struggles are broadening
and intensifying. In education, health, transport and retail stores
workers are moving into confrontation with the bosses. Housing is a timebomb
ready to explode. The militants who struggle in the workplaces and the
communities must be convinced of the need for a unified working class movement,
of the need for a working class party. |
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