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The number crunchers won’t vanish entirely
By Business Editor David Murphy
Gerry Adams’s infamous expression about the IRA that “they haven’t gone away you know” is a fitting description for the role of the Troika after Ireland leaves the bailout.
The spectacle of suited economists clutching laptop cases scuttling into the Department of Finance to pore over the books will be less frequent than before.
But the nameless number crunchers won’t vanish entirely. Instead of four “review missions” every year there will be two. That will continue until Ireland has repaid 75% of its Troika borrowings.
Many people take the view that the EU, ECB and IMF poorly designed the loan programme for Ireland. Indeed, the appalling bailout of bank bondholders is a stain on their track record.
However, that does not mean everything they say should be ignored.
The European Commission makes some recommendations in its latest draft report which could help ordinary people.
The document briefly acknowledges that Ireland “has come a long way”. But it lists areas where the Government has missed targets and long-fingered commitments
Social Protection Minister Joan Burton unveiled a host of reforms to reduce unemployment last year under her Pathways to Work plan.
But the Commission says targets will not be achieved to establish so called one-stop-shop facilities for people looking for work. It says there is only one case officer for every 1,000 unemployed people and new case officers will lack training.
It says 30% of spending on job support programmes goes to Community Employment schemes which don’t get people back to work.
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton has lauded the progress made under his Action Plan for Jobs. But the Commission says its impact is unknown.
In a scathing assessment it says schemes to get people back to work, including those aimed at re-skilling and up-skilling the unemployed, “have not been very successful in returning people to regular employment.”
Ireland knows from bitter experience of the 1980s that fixing long-term unemployment is a prolonged and difficult task.
There is a benefit from an outside organisation coercing the Irish authorities to put its efforts into solutions which are effective.
The ministers have been handed a system which isn’t equipped to fix the unemployment crisis.
While Ireland will leave the bailout at the end of the year high unemployment will remain. Politicians and public servants should listen closely to the criticisms of the Troika because much of it is in the public interest.
Should intelligence agencies be able to access stored personal data?
By Will Goodbody, Science and Technology Correspondent
@willgoodbody
Hands up how many people were surprised to learn that US security authorities have access to the phone records and the server traffic of the biggest telecom and internet companies in the world?
The “revelations” in the Washington Post and Guardian this week that the National Security Agency is trawling data relating to non-US citizens on the systems of giants like Microsoft, Google, YouTube and others may have made for strong headlines.
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Thousands of people are in mortgage arrears
By Business Editor David Murphy
They say history repeats itself for those who weren’t watching the first time.
Thus there is a lesson to be learned from the larger-than-expected number of people who registered for the Local Property Tax by last week’s deadline, compared to the poor figures for the €100 household charge.
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It looks like a tablet but feels like and ultrabook
By Will Goodbody, Science and Technology Correspondent
@willgoodbody
Watch the review at: http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2013/0530/3540933-will-goodbody-reviews-microsofts-new-surface-pro/
Is it a tablet? Or is it a laptop? It’s a perplexing question that users of Microsoft’s new Surface Pro are likely to ask themselves.
And one which Microsoft itself is likely to welcome, given that it could potentially allow it place a foot in both markets.
However, there is a danger that a device which looks much like a tablet, but feels and is priced more like an ultrabook, could end up falling between two stools.
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Tim Cook defended Apple's Irish tax status at a US Senate hearing
By Business Editor David Murphy
On my desk is a computer with a Google search engine (European HQ, Dublin) and Microsoft software (European HQ, Dublin). Beside my PC is an Apple iPhone (European HQ, Cork).
My desk happens to be in Dublin. But it could be anywhere in the world.
About 700 US multinationals employ 115,000 people in the Republic. They are part of the tapestry of the Irish economy.
But now somebody is pulling at the thread and there is a danger it could all unravel.
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Ajai Chopra has suggested how the ESM could be used to help Irish banks
By Business Editor David Murphy
Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan are getting ready for their lap of honour when Ireland exits the EU/IMF bailout.
But there is still one unresolved issue – it is becoming clearer that banks will need more capital.
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The question of CO2 emission targets is central to debate on the climate change bill
By Will Goodbody, Science and Technology Correspondent
@willgoodbody
Amid the hullabaloo surrounding penalty-point-gate this week, another event in Leinster House, with arguably far greater long term consequences for our future, and the future of our children, got overshadowed.
On the day the people of Moore, Oklahoma began counting the human and economic cost of a terrifying weather event, the Oireachtas Joint Environment Committee began discussing the heads of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill.
This long awaited piece of legislation sets out to deliver on the government’s stated objective of balancing the challenges and objectives of a low carbon future, with delivering on both environmental and economic grounds.
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By Seán Whelan, Economics Correspondent
Michael Martin has just made an important speech staking out radically new policy territory for Fianna Fáil on Europe, Britain and Ireland. In it he says:
- The economic crisis is so deep the EU can no longer keep watering down agreements to find the lowest common denominator.
- If that means a two speed Europe, the so be it.
- Britain’s in/out debate cannot be allowed to paralyse decision making for the next four years – important decisions must be taken now to restore the economy.
- The EU needs economic stabilisers like the US federal transfer system – if that needs a direct EU tax to fund it, he will support it.
-Â Ireland must get ready for a British exit from the EU – every government department should be preparing action plans now.
- Ireland should spell out what it wants from the EU and work with other countries to advance this agenda – it is no longer good enough to drift along with other people’s ideas and tinker at the edges.
Above all he said the Ireland “needs to stand up to the British Tory view of Europe”.
Micheal Martin told the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin that he is convinced a reformed EU is vital to Ireland’s future. But he says the Union is not working the way it is now. He said the EU does not have an agenda for overcoming the recession, and doesn’t even recognise there is a grave fracture in the union, that its debates are far behind the reality on the ground, and that the EU is fast losing legitimacy among the populations of Europe.
It wasn’t just the British who were targeted – without naming them explicitly it was clear he is ready to have a cut at the German view of the crisis and how it should be dealt with as well. He said the EU must stop expecting universal austerity to deliver growth. The policy is not working and needs to change.
As for Ireland, he says it needs to adopt a new role in Europe – that of critical friend – not afraid to speak out when it sees things it doesn’t like, and not afraid to advance its own policy ideas and seek out allies to progress them. This would be a radical break with past Irish practice at EU level.
“Our gradualist and conservative views worked for us in the past, but now we must define what our ideas are”.
The price of keeping Britain in the EU and satisfy the Tory Eurosceptics may well be too high, and this country should be prepared for a British exit. In communicating to the Irish people he set out a clear party line of opposition to the “British Tory view of Europe”.
He said the idea current among some in London that Britain can leave the EU and enjoy all the benefits of the single market was not on. And he said the EU risked damaging itself if it allowed Tory policy to dominate debate.
“If we allow those looking for re-nationalisation of powers to dominate the EUÂ agenda there will be a huge opportunity cost”, he said. The risk is that too much time and energy is spent trying to deal with the British view when it should be poured into dealing with the economic crisis – by developing the Banking Union among other things – as well as dealing with the undermining of democratic legitimacy of the EU, which is being eroded by the poor efforts to deal with it.
“People will be too focussed on trying to keep Britain in rather than deciding what price is worth paying. We need to focus on how the EU can be the driving force for social and economic developments over the next 20 to 30 years, not following the British Tory agenda for hollowing out the EU.”
This new European policy is likely to feature in next year’s European Parliament Elections, when Fianna Fáil will face its first countrywide electoral test since it lost power – and challenges from the left and right that may try and surf on the Eurosceptic waves coming from London. With some very selective “Brit bashing”, Fianna Fáil will be trying to be both nationalist and European at the same time.
After years of living in the slow lane it appears broadband in Ireland is about to improve
By Will Goodbody, Science and Technology Correspondent Â
@willgoodbody
When you see the long running campaign for better broadband, Ireland Offline, offering a hearty welcome to an announcement from Eircom, it’s a pretty clear indication that something positive has happened. And that was the vocal lobby group’s reaction yesterday to news that the Irish telco was ready to begin offering high speed broadband to up to 300,000 homes and businesses in the first phase of its fibre optic network rollout. For those potential customers who choose to avail of the service, it will mean access to up to 70Mbps up, and 20Mbps down, with a pledge of up to 100Mbps later this year as the technology evolves.
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ESRI research has called into question the way growth is measured in Ireland
By Economics Correspondent Sean Whelan
Few in Ireland have really taken GDP to be a serious measure of the Irish economy, because of the very large impact that the activities of foreign owned multinationals have on the numbers.  GNP has always been regarded as a more relevant measure.
But now it seems we can’t rely on that either.
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