And now the weather

It has been a tough month.

The arrival of the IMF has changed everything.

That’s why we decided a fortnight ago that an election is required at the first opportunity.

Before that happens we want to approve a budget and the accompanying legislation that allows it to be implemented. Governing requires the making of decisions, and tough ones at that. Currently we’re borrowing two out of every five euro that we pay public servants in wages, and that has to change. The €85 billion in monies from the EU and the IMF gives the State the breathing room to make these adjustments in how Ireland is run in future years.

Some of the measures mark a move away from the dangerous boom-time revenues such as stamp duty on housing that we became over-reliant on during the Celtic Tiger years. I'm glad that the Four Year Recovery Plan includes a Site Valuation Tax to fund local services, as well as an increase in the price of carbon that will allow us to decrease our dependence on carbon. These reforms can help ensure that Ireland is better placed to weather future economic storms.

Meanwhile, as Ireland freezes, it has been a mixed-bag of a first week at the Climate Change talks in Cancun in Mexico. Hopefully week two will lay the ground-work for a comprehensive agreement in South Africa next year. The Guardian has a nifty online calculator allowing you to reduce the UK's carbon footprint here. Closer to home I'm hopeful that our own Climate Change Bill will be published this side of Christmas. Ireland's emissions reduced significantly last year, but the Bill will put the onus on all Government Departments to identify and tackle reductions in emissions in their respective sectors. Over on the "Think or Swim" blog John Gibbons discusses whether climate change is contributing to the big freeze.

I'm heartened by the amount of discussion in recent times around the theme of political reform. This morning I was alternating between listening to Irish Independent Editor Gerry O'Regan receiving a grilling from Ivan Yeats on Newstalk, and Fintan O'Toole on RTE Radio One discussing his petition to reform Irish politics. O'Regan was getting a hard time for the role of his paper in fueling the fire of property speculation, but he seemed to sidestep the issue by saying that his principle role was to increase newspaper sales which seemed like a fairly honest admission. O'Toole was being pushed as to why he wouldn't run for office himself, but stated that he was happier stimulating debate. I'm in broad agreement with the ten points on O'Toole's petition, and feel his proposal to end clientilism is a good one. The New Zealand electoral system seems similar to what he is proposing. Half the Parliament there are elected on a list system where you vote for the Party rather than the individual, and half are elected on a system broadly similar to our own, and I feel something along similar lines is appropriate.

Perhaps the additional radical step of rewriting the constitution is needed to help draw together the many threads of discussion that are currently taking place on the airwaves and elsewhere. It is something that the people of Iceland have embarked upon, and could be a way to tackle parliamentary reform, as well as enshrining ideas around equality, property and family rights that have been much debated over the last few years.

In the meantime 7th December is Budget day, and I'm hoping that Brian Lenihan will carry through on some of the reforms that we've been discussing with him that were mentioned by the Tanaiste on the Week in Politics last Sunday.

Medical card changes

Sorry.

That's the only word I can use to respond to the hurt and difficulty suffered by so many older people and their families over the last week.

The changes announced this morning (Tuesday 21 October 2008) have involved raising the income limits to €700 per week (€36,500 pa) or €1,400 per week (€73,000 pa) for a couple. Older people on this income or under will receive a full medical card. In addition, those with incomes above the threshold experiencing difficulty in meeting their medical needs will be eligible to apply for a medical card under the discretionary medical card scheme.

A huge amount of the debate in my head has been about means testing. Just what should the State provide to everyone, regardless of their income or assets? Whether we like it or not, that answer has to change, depending on the state of the economy.

One thing is certain; this is only the beginning of a huge challenge to tackle the economic difficulties of Ireland Inc. There may be a ten billion hole in the finances, and the hundred million euro mentioned in the context of medical cards is perhaps only 1% of the gap in the nation's finances that will need to be filled in the near future.
It begs the question as to whether we should continue to provide tax relief at source on mortgages and also on private medical insurance. The sooner we have a full reality check on the state of the nation’s finances, the quicker we’ll recover.
People have remarked on Brian Cowen’s ability to hold the line in the past, but this issue was different. This was unscripted, un-choreographed and straight from the heart. Many of the phone calls and emails have been from people who had difficulty sleeping since Budget day; people who have a State Pension, and sometimes only €2500 or even under €500 a year on top of that. Ironically, many women have small pensions because they had to leave their jobs due the marriage ban and only returned to work when that was reversed. That means they only contributed to a private pension for the last ten or fifteen years of their working life. Their pensions are small, and their fears are real.
I hope that today’s changes go some way towards meeting their concerns.

Remembering the Leinster

Fr. Mangan had the best line in St. Michael's Church this afternoon.

"We'll have a collection now, for the banks."

It brought the house down. It was a touch of levity at a poignant occasion, the 90th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Leinster, the old mail boat. 501 was the official death toll, but it was probably higher than that. It was the greatest ever loss of life on the Irish Sea and it occurred just a month before the First World War ended.

There were familiar faces at the commemoration, and many had lost a grandparent or some other family member in the tragedy. Saddest of all was the mention of the postal sorters. They hadn't a chance - sorting the post below deck, many of them would have died instantly when the torpedo hit. They were four miles east of Kish lighthouse at the time, and although Captain Birch ordered a 180 degree turn in the rough seas a second torpedo led to the ship quickly sinking. He was injured in the attack and drowned when his lifeboat foundered.

The U-boat UB123 that fired the torpedoes never made it back to Germany. Commander Ramm and his crew perished in a North Sea minefield a week after the Leinster sank and thirty six more lives were lost. They too were remembered today.

After the inter-faith ceremony we marched down to the anchor monument on the Queen's Road and wreaths were laid by schoolchildren.

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Meanwhile the world's stock markets have had one of their worst weeks on record. It makes matters all the more challenging for Brian Lenihan and the rest of the cabinet as they prepare for a tough budget on Tuesday.

"Bheidh an cáin fhasinéis ro-dheachair" was the view of our Oireachtas Irish class this week. The budget will be tough, and that was before this weeks downward slide of the world's markets.

More than beer and biscuits

Good to see reports in today's Irish Times that the Taoiseach has appointed Prof. Peter Clinch as a special advisor. He has a BA and MA degrees in economics and a PhD in environmental economics as well as a Diploma in environmental impact assessment.

What better man for the job at this point in time than someone who holds the Jean Monnet Professor of European Environmental Policy! Jean Monnet was the architect of European unity, but I'd imagine that Peter will be dealing with issues closer to home than picking up the pieces from the Referendum.

Peter is 'an outspoken critic of decentralisation' according to the Irish Times, and if that is true, I'd tend to be of a like mind. Two years ago I stated that decentralisation threatened the National Spatial Strategy, and I also suspected that pork was being doled out from the barrel. Devolving power to a proper system of regional governance would be great, but shifting jobs around can be counter-productive, particularly when the need for senior officials to meet face to face may result in mileage claims hitting stratospheric levels.

What annoys me most about the decentralisation programme isn't the 110% parking requirements for new government offices, or the so-called sustainable offices at Ireland West Airport Knock, or the way McCreevy slipped it into a budget speech, but the lack of any enthusiasm for cities having a place in Ireland's future. In my mind cities are the powerhouse for Ireland in the twenty-first century.

Back when I was at school, our geography book -'The World' by Sir Dudley Stamp highlighted Dublin for its production of beer and biscuits. Even then that sounded dated. Since then Dublin has played a crucial role in the development of Ireland's economy. It would be foolish not to ensure that cities like Dublin, Cork and Galway benefit strongly from government planning policies, and not just the Gateway Cities initiative. Since decentralisation was announced, I've been to packed-out meetings of angry Bord Iascaigh Maire staff who don't want leave Dún Laoghaire for Clonakilty, and architectural staff from the OPW who aren't impressed with plans to move them to Cork, Meath and Mayo. As the Trim Co. Meath information from the OPW puts it - "There is no active rail link between Dublin and Trim at this time." For BIM, the quote in the info pack about Clonakilty must have rubbed salt in their wounds: -"A place of choice for the many and home to the lucky few". I can understand why DIG the Decentralisation Implementation Group (awful acronym) stated last year that "some elements are continuing to prove challenging, especially those relating to the State Agency sector."

Minister Éamon Ó Cuív appears to be no great fan of urban life, and in his speech two days ago to the Rural Development Forum in Charleville in Cork, he quoted Professor Seamus Caulfield, "…'Perhaps the most unsustainable thing about rural housing is the case that is made against it.' " He also states that "rural residents expend less energy and produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions than their urban counterparts." Harry Magee cites Clinch as stating that greenhouse gas emissions reductions are one of the government's biggest challenges, and that Mr Cowen is very committed to making decisions based on sound evidence and research. Somehow I don't think that if we all head off to the dispersed village or baile fearann it will reduce emissions, unless we're all growing our own, and not driving anywhere, an unlikely prospect for the foreseeable future.

Some number-crunching is clearly required to produce clear figures for urban and rural commuting times and CO2 emissions, and maybe that'll come under Prof. Clinch's job spec. Government clearly has a role to play in ensuring that citizens are encouraged to make the choices that are best for the environment.

There can be a thriving future for rural Ireland, but in my mind employment growth lies in areas such as agricultural diversification, forestry, properly resourced and marketed farm tourism, and vibrant towns and villages creating jobs and providing services. It's a bleak future were it to rely unduly on the back of jobs reliant on long distance car commuting to distant towns, agricultural subsidies, or the construction of one-off housing. There is a touch of irony to Ó Cuív's contention that pressure is "forcing rural people to move to towns and cities" when the reality of decentralisation for urban dwellers is the exact opposite. In my mind it shouldn't have to be an 'us versus them' debate, and with the right policies in place both urban and rural areas can thrive.

Clinch is also the co-author of 'After the Celtic Tiger',published back in 2002, and well worth a read, 'as the building boom is coming to a shuddering end'. It wasn't the Greens what talked down the economy, it was the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance! in fairness, I'm taking Brian Lenihan's quote out of context, and he did correct his quote to suggest that only the housing sector was suffering.

I wouldn't be downbeat, and from our perspective, I'd be talking up the new green economy. There's going to be more sunrise than sunset industries over the next few years, and a lot of green collar jobs will come our way if we play our cards right. To do that though we need to rethink decentralisation, and put cities, and improving the quality of urban life at the heart of Ireland's future.