A major recession is looming on the Mayo and national horizon

by Dr. Richard Martin

The job of government isn’t an ongoing therapy dynamic with the electorate.

"I want this, give me that." And so on. Once a government is formed in a democratic society they have one sole purpose and one only and that is to govern.

The gates of government buildings shouldn’t just magically open for some disaffected citizen who has a grievance and who in a fit of pique parks up his tractor on O’Connell Street, blocking traffic and bringing Dublin city to a standstill.

Getting positive feedback on social media posts doesn’t make you a politician. Putting your name on the ballot paper and being successfully elected by a democratic mandate makes you a politician. Alarmingly, a lot of people in Ireland today struggle with this concept.

What we have witnessed over the past while is total and absolute insanity and an attempted subversion of our State. Our whole country was held to ransom over the actions of a very selfish minority.

Government buildings are for elected politicians with a democratic mandate only. Politicians aren’t elected to serve the whims of unelected social media warriors.

It’s a dangerous thing to listen to the whims of the electorate. We should know it. In 2004, FF polled poorly in the local and European elections. FG experienced a resurgence. The roar of the Celtic Tiger was beginning to whimper.

Charlie McGreevy was the then Minister for Finance. He saw the need for belt tightening and fiscal restraint.

And guess what? The public didn’t want it. This was a new Ireland. The then electorate weren’t interested in restraint and thrift. Once you’ve experienced caviar, it’s hard to go back to the sausage.

And the Irish people in 2004 wanted caviar, holidays, shopping trips in NY, houses, new German cars and, let’s face it, cocaine. Cocaine really took hold in this country in the early noughties.

That grip has tightened. In short, in the early noughties the people of Ireland wanted one thing and one thing only. They wanted MORE.

The then leader of FF, Bertie Ahern, made the fatal mistake of listening to the electorate. Instead of listening to his finance minister and the virtues of belt tightening he decided to listen to the people.

Charlie McGreevy was packed off to Europe to the European Commission and Brian Cowan was moved into finance. The directive from Bertie was simple. Spend. Give them what they want. And he did.

That’s when the real damage was done. In a few short years the state was bankrupt and FF imploded.

There’s a lesson in this. Listening to populism leads to catastrophe. Of course, when the whole thing blew up, the electorate immediately blamed FF, the bankers, the lack of regulation, Alan Greenspan, the property developers, and so on and so on. That last thing the people of Ireland did at the time was blame themselves.

It’s a brutal truth. No-one was forced to go to the Aintree Grand National, or buy a house in Cannes. In the crash of '08, a lot of people in Ireland lost money and went bankrupt, but here’s another truth.

Not everyone lost money. Not everyone went bankrupt. Those of us amongst us who knew their limits and cut their cloth made to measure were fine.

It’s easy blame Anglo Irish Bank and all the other banks, but anyone that bought shares did so of their own free will. That’s the nature of capitalism. Some businesses make it. Some don’t. If you back a loser, you lose your money. End of.

And I come to the thrust of my argument. No government at that time in Ireland could’ve governed that electoral cohort. The island was consumed with greed and envy.

And it had to fall off a cliff. Bertie Ahern's fatal mistake was to give in to the unrealistic demands of the public. In the end it led us off a cliff.

What has that got to do with today? The here and now?

This island imports 80% of its energy. We are totally at the mercy of market forces. The war in Iran has wreaked havoc on the world energy markets.

The price of crude oil has risen from 70 dollars to 100 plus. This means that the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene that’s produced from the crude oil base has exploded. The price of green diesel has doubled. This is the worst energy crisis since World War Two.

Hauliers, agri contractors and farmers have been mauled by the price increases. The old age pensioners who rely on kerosene for heating oil have been hit also.

But there’s a difference between protest and anarchy. Blockading the Whitegate Oil Refinery isn’t a heroic gesture on behalf of the Irish people. It’s economic treason. National sabotage plain and simple.

There were ships off the coast of Cork and Galway which couldn’t disembark and unload millions of litres of crude oil simply because an unelected minority took it upon themselves to blockade the ports.

They had no mandate to hold the whole country to ransom. Patients who require time sensitive treatment couldn’t reach our hospitals across the island. The selfishness and arrogance of their behaviour is astounding.

Instead of behaving in a mature and respectful manner when the overwhelming majority of the electorate could see that they were suffering and needed assistance from the government the protests became increasingly anarchial.

In the end the government buckled. On top of the €250 million euro package, an additional €505 million was added to the scheme. Ok, so the protestors got their way. But at what cost? Is it enough? The oil markets are unpredictable. When does our government just say no.

We can’t keep throwing money at this. The entire package is €755 million, and still the opposition complain. It’s eerily reminiscent of the noughties when all the FG and Labour opposition could say was FF aren’t spending enough.

I appreciate the emergency situation but I’m concerned. Not just about the serious fault lines developing in our society but this level of public spending isn’t sustainable.

Professor John Fitzgerald, Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, said as much on the Virgin Media Tonight Show.

“I think people are living in a fool's paradise and believing that Donald Trump will sort things out. Unless he sorts it out and the straits open, you're looking at the worst energy crisis since the Second World War.

"If the straits don't open, you're looking at a probable recession in Europe. You're looking at rising unemployment. You're looking at a very substantial rise in inflation.

And the government could face a huge loss of billions for next year. And they've already frittered away €750 million, giving it to people who are generally better off rather than keeping their firepower to deal with people who are worse off.”

The bottom line is this. We are headed for a major recession. This will get worse before it gets better. Do we keep giving package after package or do we behave responsibly =and engage in fiscal restraint?

Do we listen to the calm reason and wisdom of Prof. Fitzgerald or do we listen to unelected rabble rousers on X? Real governance is making unpopular decisions for the greater good. That’s the real test of leadership.

And by the way, where are all these windfall profits that SF keep talking about coming from? They come from American multinationals that came to Ireland for a multitude of sound business reasons, the main one being low corporation tax, 12.5%.

Guess who brought that in? Charlie McGreevy. The FF Minister for Finance in the 97-02 government.