Is the Celtic Tiger nearing its end

dublin | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Thursday March 02, 2006 23:08 by jim travers

Prepare for the crash

Has the Celtic Tiger finally reached its end and are we looking out for the signs of decline.

Is the Celtic Tiger Nearing its End

It was 1972 and the country was hanging on a thin thread of economic collapse and the total failure of a state emerging from the uncertainties of independence, two world wars and a country striving to have its roots securely placed within the global society. Trade unions controlled the recruitment of those who strived to secure apprenticeships in the many trades and placed as many obstacles as possible in front of those who did not come from the traditional blood stock of those already employed within the industries under their control. ANCO the new training authority gave hope to all those young trade seekers who wanted to secure a trade but had nobody within the trades to drag them in. Work was there if you could get into it, while the old reliable jobs in the automobile and general operative industries provided the hope of long term jobs and financial security for all those who were lucky to get their feet inside the gates of the companies that were in full thrust. The Brittain Group in Portabello, Rathmines provide hundreds of jobs in the automotive assembly industry while companies like Hickeys Fabrics in Inchicore, Irish Printers and Players Wills on the South Circular Road, opened their gates to white and blue collar workers. CIE was always looking for staff, while Iarnrod Eireann was operating like a fisherman guaranteed of catching a fish once he cast his line. Politicians and the clergy played their active parts as those in the know and to who you must pander too in order to secure a character reference so that the employer seen favour in your application. That representation did not come cheap as politicians sought their famous brown envelope donation and the clergy scrutinised your church attendance records like the Gestapo interviewing you under bright lights.

1973 seen Ireland change from a country very slowly moving out of economic disaster to a country sliding down a hill at full speed. The visible sign of recession was beginning to show with increasing numbers of for sale, or to let, signs springing up all around the city. A plan that would give the masses long term hope while at the same time hide the real facts of mass unemployment needed to be conceived so that the political system appeared to be working and the slide to extreme left ideologies by the masses was contained in the efforts of the accepted and elected political party system to resolve the problems. Enter the belief in the need to train up people for better times ahead. All those who signed up to this new training drive trained and trained and trained and found themselves securing more employment interviews but no jobs. ANCO was in full swing but needed to be upgraded to accommodate this new found industrial training business which gave people an imaginary job called training while diverting the unemployment payment to a newly designed training allowance and therefore another figure less on the unemployment register. Thousands of people trained and trained and trained, became knowledgeable in the field they chose but could not practice the new found skill due to lack of employment experience. Homes up and down the country had families and the next generation of families in this training frenzy but with little or no hope of securing the prospect of permanent employment. An add-on to a training scheme was needed and this emerged under the guise of a Community Employment scheme.

Employers and especially the clergy flocked to sign up to a scheme where they could secure cheap labour, have no need to guarantee any job security and could work the masses till blood flowed into the drains. The state paid the menial training allowance while the worker worked his or her arse off in hope that the employer would find favour in their efforts and give them a permanent job. Employers with the help of the political system exploited the abundance of free labour while at the same time dashing the hopes and aspiration of those who struggled to improve their living conditions. The clergy for their part had now no need to employ gardeners, general workers or trade workers because of the free pool of labour handed to them in the form of a Community Employment scheme. They exploited this free labour pool to its maximum and treated those under its control no better than slaves. The threat of receiving a very, very bad work reference was always dangled like a carrot to a donkey.

Ireland was training-up and gearing itself for the birth of a Celtic Tiger that was allegedly brought about by the emergence of Intel and the establishment of the Financial Service Centre. What kicked off Ireland’s economic prosperity was the willingness of government to provide big business with massive tax breaks combined with a workforce desperate to secure permanent employment at any cost. The British and American governments rolled in behind this new push by Ireland to become and to be seen, as a new emerging and prosperous economy. Northern Ireland was a noose around the neck of the British establishment. Britain had to continue its support to a state that boasted its loyal Ulster allegiance to the crown but in reality was alienating itself by its loyalist political intransigence to power sharing and economic co-operation with the Republic of Ireland. Resistance to a British and American solution to the Irish problem was becoming more anti-British by those who proudly flew the Union jack over Stormount Castle. A vibrant and progressive Republic would eventually draw loyal Ulster people south for work, therefore providing them with first hand experience of the open and welcoming southern society which was contrary to what their political leaders had been saying and preaching to them since the foundation of the Northern state. Britain was on a winner, a way to rid itself of the northern problem by allowing the cake to bake in the oven of those who opposed British rule for so long. The Celtic Tiger was constructed and executed so that a two-bit trumped up Republic that resembled a society from the dark ages, could progress and develop into an economy attractive to all who looked at its birth and rapid development.

The Slide back to Recession

Ireland was on a high, politicians were spending money as if there was no tomorrow. The Celtic Tiger gave every man and woman in the state the new found ability to borrow and borrow and borrow until they could borrow no more. The old days of the pawn shop was replaced by a flexible friend who could provide you with all your needs at a price.
IIIIIII change my carrrrrrrrr every two years. Oh do you. OH yes my husband and I dine every week in the Berkleyyyyyyyyy Court Hotel, What does your husband do for a living? Oh my husband has just opened up his own paperrrrrrr trashing compannnnnnny and business is booming. Is must be difficult getting the finance to get the business up and running. Oh no my husband is a friend of our bannnnnnnnnk manager(credit union) and he had no problem providing the funds.

People sought to have all the things they would have only dreamed about when our economy was in the dark old days. Instead of taking a high speed ferry to England we may be still queuing up to board the cattle ships, reluctantly accepting the demeaning treatment handed out to us by our now friendly Ireland loving British neighbours. Ireland was booming, growing, seeking well educated and skilled people from abroad to quell the rising tide of job vacancies (where the hell has AnCo or FAS been all these years) that overtook the car for sale advertisements in the national newspapers. We needed more people, and we needed to build accommodation for them, so we needed and got a booming construction industry that in itself contributed to the Tiger getting stronger. The construction industry built and built and built. It built modern replicas of the slums that condemned Irish citizens to poverty in Dublin so many years ago and it built these replicas all over the country and then enhanced those replicas by the lack of amenities and services for the people it wished to implant in this concrete future slum jungle. Demand for housing caused higher costs to build housing and higher costs to purchase land for building houses, which in turn caused higher prices again.

At the same time politicians were looking for as many ways possible to spend tax-payers money, therefore indirectly enhancing their own financial gains through corruption, salary increases, perks and brown envelope payments from big business. Funny, nearly every politician starts a consultancy business when he or she eventually leaves political life.WHY? It’s payback time. Its payback time where a hammer that costs 15 Euro can now be invoiced to a corporate business for 2500 Euro and that does not include VAT.
Its payback time where personal donations that would otherwise have been given openly but for the electoral donations regulations, had to be postponed until the game was over.

We now find a government and state in serious financial crisis because its spending is going through the roof, the savings and investments that should have been planned by an elected government on behalf of the people is now wasted and squandered on ill-taught out and planned projects. We allowed thousands of people into the state, provided them with accommodation, medical care and welfare payments that financially burdened every aspect of the Irish welfare and social services system, that will have serious reprocussions in the ability of the state to provide its own people, citizen and taxpayer with a proper comprehensive system befitting of a country at the height of an economic boom.

We now have a situation where central government funding is being increased through more and more direct taxing of goods and services while local government is hampered by central governments desire that local government should increasingly secure funding through services charges and other methods of revenue generation. What we have is a two-tier, twin system that is taxing both people and the economic future of the country out of existence, The Celtic Tiger will cease to exist if people from all social classes find themselves hampered and excluded in being part of any future economic growth. The willingness of multinational companies to remain in Ireland thereby allowing people to spend their money within the Irish economy and generate further job opportunities is now governed by the tax incentives other countries are willing to offer and the total cost of labour in that country. Former eastern block countries now have the advantage of having their location in the heart of Europe thereby servicing the vast European market by road and rail. They have low labour costs and a vast pool of young and educated people eager for work and financial prosperity. Rings a bell, does it? Oh yes Ireland had young and eager people, educated, green (don’t forget the green grass we sold to the Americans for so long) and the friendliest in the world that attracted so many companies to Ireland.

The day countries from the former eastern block became part of the European Union was the day Ireland’s economic boom was destined to falter and decline. Politicians continuously express words of sorrow and regret when a company decides to call it a day in Ireland but these displays of concern are hidden by their quiet acceptance that Ireland is on the slope downwards. They are worried and concerned by the slow decline in the economy and the EU insistence that we now become both self sustaining and increased contributors to the emerging development of the new EU states. They have spent and squandered money as well as opened our doors to anyone who wanted to come to Ireland with the result that we now have a country that is incapable of looking after its own people’s interests.

The economy is contracting with the visible first stage signs of major companies moving their location from locations around the country to other countries in Europe. Counties all around the country have reported companies reducing staff or production and sometimes both. This process eventually ends up with companies moving out of Ireland to greener pastures offered by the emerging European countries. Stage two is seen by medium size companies experiencing difficulties as their source of revenue shifts its source of low cost production to the newly booming economic eastern countries. This can be seen every day of the week as traditional Irish based companies begin to make the move out. Jacobs biscuit factory in Dublin, Tayto, Cadburys, Fruit of the Loom, General Motors and all the other companies that have moved their operations to other countries while maintaining just an office presence in Ireland so that their product interests are maintained within the country.

Politicians have acted like an irresponsible housewife withdrawing the last 20 Euro out of the family account thereby leaving nothing for a rainy day. The housewife can be fully forgiven as she is forced to survive on what the state has left her to spend on living essentials but politicians have totally mismanaged, badly planned or envisaged a day when our economy would be in decline and we needed to manage our economy with care before that day came. During the economic boom politicians secured their guaranteed salaries and future security for the eventuality of a massive economic recession. So while you and are once again being told to tighten our belts by corrupt politicians, spare a thought for all those people during the last economic recession who struggled and scrimped to survive while our politicians of the day lavished themselves in the benefits of corrupt practices at the expense of the people. It still goes on to this day. When you pay your bin taxes or receive a bill from a hospital, a fine for speeding or a parking ticket, just remember that its all part of the governments way of squeezing more out of its own citizens because it mismanaged the benefits of a booming economy for the benefit of a small few within our society. We are now being asked and told to pay for mistakes that loyal party supporters and sections of the general public seem to find agreement in a state that constantly asks for more. When your daughter or son cannot find work or are unable to secure their own accommodation, just remember its too late complaining, you have already contributed by your support to a state that has conspired to bring about your families downfall. When the Garda with a speed camera stands on a road that is capable of handling speeds of 120KPh but the signs say 80KPh, just remember the state is extracting from you revenue that is secured through deceipt and that therefore is EXTORTION. Spare a thought for the Garda who is asked to stand and enforce a law that was concocted out of a state need to secure financial gain rather than a priority for road safety and to which the Garda knows is wrong. There are numberious locations around this country where the speed limits set for those roads are totally inconsistent with the speeds set on similar or minor roads. For example side roads showing 80KPH while the main road ajoining that road is set at 60KPH.

Ireland is sliding downhill, if your have faith in your political representatives then you have no need to worry. If you judge them on their past records then you will know that deceit, corruption and blatant mismanagement has been part and parcel of Irish political life and now you need to worry.

When Dell decides to either reduce operations or leave Ireland, do not hold your breath because Intel will be very quickly hot on its trail with great speed. And when the major multinationals decide its time to go then why not show this comment and opinion to your local political representative and say that a small, unimportant but concerned individual seen the writing on the wall long before the elected representatives of this country were willingly prepared to inform the people.