Cowen has left this rudderless nation adrift on a sea of incompetency...
It took a while to fully comprehend what was actually going on. This was, perhaps, because it seemed so unlikely. Of course, the more we learn about these things, the more we know it is not that unlikely at all. But those were more innocent times. Those were times when we had that cosy assumption that the people in charge vaguely knew what they were doing.
Even if we have no respect for them or their intelligence, even if we disagree with their politics, in this country we generally assume that someone up there in government is vaguely managing things at some level of competence. If we don't think it's the actual Taoiseach or minister, we suspect that there are civil servants who've been running things for years and know what has to be done. After all, this is not some third-worldy banana republic. This is a well-turned-out, internationally accepted, sophisticated 21st century country. Someone must know what they're doing here.
But last week, over the course of a few days, that comforting illusion of some level of basic competence somewhere in the machinery of the state that would at least keep the country functioning from day to day disappeared. The phrase "staring into the abyss" has been overused in recent months. But in the last week, in Ireland, it really has felt as if we've been staring into the abyss. Because it became blindingly clear in the last week that the people running this country don't know what they're doing. Worse again, it has become clear that they don't know what to do.
That's a fairly serious state of affairs. It leads to only one conclusion; and that is that this Government must go.
The final straw was when it became apparent that the Government had even lost their ability to do the kind of basic book-balancing exercise that has been their response to every crisis they have faced so far. We had long given up on expecting any kind of vision, or leadership, or solutions, or imagination from these guys. We didn't even expect any political judgement. But if we thought there was one thing they could do, we thought they had that dull-but-worthy art of book balancing down to a fine art. Though they were lawyers on the surface, we knew they were at heart petty clerks, and we thought that at the very least they would be able to sign off the ledgers when their civil service overlords presented them. But it seems they're not even up to that anymore.
Of course, the unsettling feeling that there is no one in charge is nothing new to us. You will recall the peculiar, rudderless summer we had. The Government seemed to resolutely ignore the growing crisis in our own, and the world's, economy, and there was a very real sense over the summer that no one was in charge. The main political metaphor of the summer was of a Digestive hovering over a cup of tea, seemingly paralysed.
Of course, this kind of avoidance of reality could have been down to the kick in the balls that was the Lisbon Treaty. Lisbon was the Government's first big test. They turned it into a referendum on them, by wrapping their own reputations around it. This meant that the subsequent resounding No must have hurt their pride. Of course, it was probably this same pride, which looked to some like arrogance, that lost them Lisbon.
Refusing to get involved with anything as petty as a debate; refusing to credit ordinary people with the intelligence to comprehend Lisbon; and refusing to really respond to people's very real fears until it was too late, lost them Lisbon. In short, bullheadedness.
All Lisbon indicated was that Brian Cowen didn't seem to have Bertie Ahern's common touch. The full weight of the incompetence was yet to dawn on us. But there was worse to come.
The ensuing summer then seemed odd and slightly concerning but still we assumed that someone somewhere had a plan. After all, how could they all be so calm, off for the summer, while the world was falling part, if they didn't have something up their sleeves that made them very, very confident?
So, we waited, curious as to what would happen next.
In between all this, there were various other bits and pieces of sideline action that gave cause for concern. Mary Coughlan increasingly appeared like someone who should be locked up for her own protection. Brian Lenihan appeared like someone out of his depth and unhappy in his job, a job he seemed to like to publicly admit he didn't want and wasn't qualified for.
But still, our intrinsic faith in the fact that people must know what they're doing if they're running the country prevailed, and we waited expectantly for their summer holidays to end so they could unveil their big plan for salvation.
True, before they went, there was an announcement of the saving of half a billion, which was presented as the solution to everything, and which only a bunch of petty clerks like they are could have been so pleased with.
And then they came back. And the rest, as they say, is history. There was the triumphant securing of a pay deal, which involved offering the already largely overpaid and underworked public sector a 6 per cent pay rise, when what they were supposed to be doing was reforming them. As the rest of us wondered if we'd have a job in a year's time, the poor Government thought it was a great coup to get these guys to agree to a 6 per cent pay rise.
The bank guarantee was hailed a triumph too, though details of what it involved were slow to emerge. Despite initial all-night urgency -- again presented in heroic terms -- it took another few weeks for the deal to be clarified, and by then it seemed as if things had moved on. The bank deal certainly didn't unlock credit in Ireland, though it did, apparently, keep one, two or possibly three banks from having to shut their doors, for now at least. Lenihan has also managed to avoid nationalising the banks for now, which could be a good thing.
Like the old French Revolution, it's probably too early to say whether the bank guarantee has been a success or not. What would be safe to say, is that if it does prove a better idea than the plan being pursued by the rest of Europe, then that will come down to luck, rather than any genius on Lenihan's behalf.
All of which brings us neatly to the budget. While we had managed to keep believing that someone was half in charge up to the budget, it was that slow unravelling that really laid it all bare. Even when it came to their forte, petty clerkdom, these guys didn't know what to do anymore. They could now not be trusted with the most mundane of tasks. Never mind that the budget showed zero political judgement; never mind that it was a depressive budget geared towards contracting the economy when what we needed was expansion; never mind that it lacked any grand vision. The budget didn't even work at the most basic level. They hadn't figured out the details of half their wheezes, the savings from various capers were constantly chopping and changing.
There was no real commitment to the budget either. They backed down to practically every interest group who asked nicely. There wasn't even any real uproar about the lower-paid workers having to pay the 1 per cent levy. All it took was for one union official to call in to Leinster House and bang, it was sorted. Over the last week, and apparently it's going to continue for another week or two, various people just picked off the main points of the budget one by one.
Now, to the feeling that we have had for quite a while -- that we are ungoverned -- has been added a new feeling: that we are ungovernable. We just refused to accept their authority and they backed down. A Government that had already proved itself afraid of the public sector now showed itself to be afraid of everyone else as well. Not only did we lose confidence in them, they seemed to lose confidence in themselves. And it's not a pretty sight.
And now it is over. This Government, which never had a mandate in the first place, has lost whatever acquiescence we afforded it. We cannot afford them at a critical time like this. We know they can't govern and they are pretty much admitting it themselves now. Now it needs to end quickly, before things get even worse.
It would be easy to say we told you so. The media in this country could not rest until they dispensed with Bertie Ahern and got this current lot in. Some of us were ridiculed for not sharing this enthusiasm. They rest of them are starting to catch up with us.
You know how any time we contemplate changing the government, this voice in the back of our heads tells us not to bother, because there's no alternative? We need to override that voice this time. Of course one is reluctant to tell the Government to go, given the lack of any promising alternative. But surely now we must all agree that the devil we don't know couldn't possibly be any worse than the devil we know. It's not just all that they've done wrong, it is the fact that it is difficult to point to one thing, no matter how basic, that this Government has done right.
Report by Brendan O'Connor - Sunday Independent Newspaper.
It took a while to fully comprehend what was actually going on. This was, perhaps, because it seemed so unlikely. Of course, the more we learn about these things, the more we know it is not that unlikely at all. But those were more innocent times. Those were times when we had that cosy assumption that the people in charge vaguely knew what they were doing.
Even if we have no respect for them or their intelligence, even if we disagree with their politics, in this country we generally assume that someone up there in government is vaguely managing things at some level of competence. If we don't think it's the actual Taoiseach or minister, we suspect that there are civil servants who've been running things for years and know what has to be done. After all, this is not some third-worldy banana republic. This is a well-turned-out, internationally accepted, sophisticated 21st century country. Someone must know what they're doing here.
But last week, over the course of a few days, that comforting illusion of some level of basic competence somewhere in the machinery of the state that would at least keep the country functioning from day to day disappeared. The phrase "staring into the abyss" has been overused in recent months. But in the last week, in Ireland, it really has felt as if we've been staring into the abyss. Because it became blindingly clear in the last week that the people running this country don't know what they're doing. Worse again, it has become clear that they don't know what to do.
That's a fairly serious state of affairs. It leads to only one conclusion; and that is that this Government must go.
The final straw was when it became apparent that the Government had even lost their ability to do the kind of basic book-balancing exercise that has been their response to every crisis they have faced so far. We had long given up on expecting any kind of vision, or leadership, or solutions, or imagination from these guys. We didn't even expect any political judgement. But if we thought there was one thing they could do, we thought they had that dull-but-worthy art of book balancing down to a fine art. Though they were lawyers on the surface, we knew they were at heart petty clerks, and we thought that at the very least they would be able to sign off the ledgers when their civil service overlords presented them. But it seems they're not even up to that anymore.
Of course, the unsettling feeling that there is no one in charge is nothing new to us. You will recall the peculiar, rudderless summer we had. The Government seemed to resolutely ignore the growing crisis in our own, and the world's, economy, and there was a very real sense over the summer that no one was in charge. The main political metaphor of the summer was of a Digestive hovering over a cup of tea, seemingly paralysed.
Of course, this kind of avoidance of reality could have been down to the kick in the balls that was the Lisbon Treaty. Lisbon was the Government's first big test. They turned it into a referendum on them, by wrapping their own reputations around it. This meant that the subsequent resounding No must have hurt their pride. Of course, it was probably this same pride, which looked to some like arrogance, that lost them Lisbon.
Refusing to get involved with anything as petty as a debate; refusing to credit ordinary people with the intelligence to comprehend Lisbon; and refusing to really respond to people's very real fears until it was too late, lost them Lisbon. In short, bullheadedness.
All Lisbon indicated was that Brian Cowen didn't seem to have Bertie Ahern's common touch. The full weight of the incompetence was yet to dawn on us. But there was worse to come.
The ensuing summer then seemed odd and slightly concerning but still we assumed that someone somewhere had a plan. After all, how could they all be so calm, off for the summer, while the world was falling part, if they didn't have something up their sleeves that made them very, very confident?
So, we waited, curious as to what would happen next.
In between all this, there were various other bits and pieces of sideline action that gave cause for concern. Mary Coughlan increasingly appeared like someone who should be locked up for her own protection. Brian Lenihan appeared like someone out of his depth and unhappy in his job, a job he seemed to like to publicly admit he didn't want and wasn't qualified for.
But still, our intrinsic faith in the fact that people must know what they're doing if they're running the country prevailed, and we waited expectantly for their summer holidays to end so they could unveil their big plan for salvation.
True, before they went, there was an announcement of the saving of half a billion, which was presented as the solution to everything, and which only a bunch of petty clerks like they are could have been so pleased with.
And then they came back. And the rest, as they say, is history. There was the triumphant securing of a pay deal, which involved offering the already largely overpaid and underworked public sector a 6 per cent pay rise, when what they were supposed to be doing was reforming them. As the rest of us wondered if we'd have a job in a year's time, the poor Government thought it was a great coup to get these guys to agree to a 6 per cent pay rise.
The bank guarantee was hailed a triumph too, though details of what it involved were slow to emerge. Despite initial all-night urgency -- again presented in heroic terms -- it took another few weeks for the deal to be clarified, and by then it seemed as if things had moved on. The bank deal certainly didn't unlock credit in Ireland, though it did, apparently, keep one, two or possibly three banks from having to shut their doors, for now at least. Lenihan has also managed to avoid nationalising the banks for now, which could be a good thing.
Like the old French Revolution, it's probably too early to say whether the bank guarantee has been a success or not. What would be safe to say, is that if it does prove a better idea than the plan being pursued by the rest of Europe, then that will come down to luck, rather than any genius on Lenihan's behalf.
All of which brings us neatly to the budget. While we had managed to keep believing that someone was half in charge up to the budget, it was that slow unravelling that really laid it all bare. Even when it came to their forte, petty clerkdom, these guys didn't know what to do anymore. They could now not be trusted with the most mundane of tasks. Never mind that the budget showed zero political judgement; never mind that it was a depressive budget geared towards contracting the economy when what we needed was expansion; never mind that it lacked any grand vision. The budget didn't even work at the most basic level. They hadn't figured out the details of half their wheezes, the savings from various capers were constantly chopping and changing.
There was no real commitment to the budget either. They backed down to practically every interest group who asked nicely. There wasn't even any real uproar about the lower-paid workers having to pay the 1 per cent levy. All it took was for one union official to call in to Leinster House and bang, it was sorted. Over the last week, and apparently it's going to continue for another week or two, various people just picked off the main points of the budget one by one.
Now, to the feeling that we have had for quite a while -- that we are ungoverned -- has been added a new feeling: that we are ungovernable. We just refused to accept their authority and they backed down. A Government that had already proved itself afraid of the public sector now showed itself to be afraid of everyone else as well. Not only did we lose confidence in them, they seemed to lose confidence in themselves. And it's not a pretty sight.
And now it is over. This Government, which never had a mandate in the first place, has lost whatever acquiescence we afforded it. We cannot afford them at a critical time like this. We know they can't govern and they are pretty much admitting it themselves now. Now it needs to end quickly, before things get even worse.
It would be easy to say we told you so. The media in this country could not rest until they dispensed with Bertie Ahern and got this current lot in. Some of us were ridiculed for not sharing this enthusiasm. They rest of them are starting to catch up with us.
You know how any time we contemplate changing the government, this voice in the back of our heads tells us not to bother, because there's no alternative? We need to override that voice this time. Of course one is reluctant to tell the Government to go, given the lack of any promising alternative. But surely now we must all agree that the devil we don't know couldn't possibly be any worse than the devil we know. It's not just all that they've done wrong, it is the fact that it is difficult to point to one thing, no matter how basic, that this Government has done right.
Report by Brendan O'Connor - Sunday Independent Newspaper.