There are very few public servants who are household names; fewer still whose death would make front page news. So why was T.K. Whitaker, who died yesterday at the age of 100, different?
I was asked this question by Rachel English on Morning Ireland today, and am not sure I gave a very coherent answer. So here's another stab at it.
The main reason, I think, is that he was and is associated in the public mind with the ground breaking study Economic Development.
This was published in 1958 and, most unusually, it was published under his own name. Generally, when a public servant has a good idea, her or his political boss takes the credit; which is fair enough, because the deal is that if they have a bad idea, the politician is supposed to take the blame.
Why was Economic Development important? Well, it is regarded (in retrospect, though not at the time) as a turning point in Irish economic policy.
It signalled a change from the protectionist policies followed since the 1930s, to free trade and the encouragement of foreign investment. It was the basis of the First Programme for Economic Expansion, during which economic growth soared to just under 4.5% a year, up from a measly 1% per year in the period 1949-57.
Economic Development did not convince politicians of the need for a change in policy – many of them, including Fine Gael Taoiseach John A. Costello, and Fianna Fáil Minister for Industry and Commerce Seán Lemass – were already convinced, and had taken steps to open up the Irish economy.
What it did do was give the political establishment, and particularly Fianna Fáil, the political cover to do what they knew needed to be done, and to face down the vested interests which, then as now, were usually able to shout down much needed change.
What was introduced under the First Programme was not "economic planning" per se – it would be better described as "economic programming". Economic planning has the great advantage that it allows the Government to set very specific targets for output and investment in each industry; it has the disadvantage that it doesn't work.
Programming is about setting much broader targets, indications of how the economy should develop. Whitaker himself said: "“I am convinced of the psychological value of setting up targets of national endeavour, provided they are reasonable and mutually consistent.” [I don't have a reference for this quote to hand – it comes from the recent biography of Whitaker by Anne Chambers.]
And that is the kernel of the importance of Economic Development - its value was psychological, rather than strictly economic.
Dr Whitaker himself often talked of the air of gloom and despondency in Ireland in the 1950s, which was so bad that some wondered if Ireland even had a future as an independent State.
This wasn't surprising – in 1957, just under 2% of the entire population of the State emigrated. There was every reason for people to worry about the future.
What Economic Development and the First Programme did was give people hope – not necessarily the general population, but certainly those who were trying to run the country, and who needed both a roadmap for the future, and some hope that it might work.
And, as Dr Whitaker noted, this "new psychological stimulus to national effort might, strangely enough, come most effectively from the most improbable and least revolutionary of places, the Department of Finance". [Business and Finance interview, 1969, quoted by Chambers]
Dr Whitaker is sometimes praised by people who want to denigrate politicians – they contrast his benign influence with the failure of the political class.
There is no doubt that the political class did fail in the 1950s – but then, so did the civil service.
And it was politicians who gave Ken Whitaker his chance – first, Fine Gael's Gerard Sweetman, who appointed him secretary of the Department in 1956, at the age of just 39, and ahead of a more senior colleague (unheard of at the time).
And it was Fianna Fáil's James Ryan who encouraged him in his work on Economic Development and managed to get it accepted by Cabinet.
Ken Whitaker did many other things in his life – important things which deserve to be remembered: helping to arrange the historic meeting between Seán Lemass and Terence O'Neill in 1965; acting as a voice of moderation in the early days of the Troubles as an informal adviser to Jack Lynch; spending twenty years as Chancellor of the NU;, contributing to the formulation of policy on the Irish language, fisheries, and prison reform.
But the reason his death is front page news is Economic Development, and we should remember that contribution with gratitude.
