THE GOVERNMENT has implemented “bold, ambitious measures” to address the current financial crisis, NUI Galway economist Dr Alan Ahearne has said.
“No other country in the world has taken that amount of fiscal leadership,” Dr Ahearne told the Cúirt literary festival Leviathan debate, which was chaired by RTÉ journalist John Murray in Galway last night.
Dr Ahearne, recently appointed special adviser to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, said four measures initiated by Government since last July had amounted to an €8 billion adjustment to the economy. These had prevented the current gross domestic product (GDP) from reaching 15 per cent.
Much depended now on the global situation and there were two types of economists – “those who know they don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know”, Dr Ahearne said.
Aer Arann chairman Pádraig Ó Céidigh said political leadership was “quite weak”, but there was also a collective responsibility on the electorate. Mr Ó Céidigh confirmed that he had been approached by Fianna Fáil and one other political party to run in the forthcoming European elections and he was “tempted to give it a try”.
Ireland should forget about multinationals now, he added, as the future depended on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Paul Sommerville of Delta Index, who has worked abroad for 21 years, said Ireland was “sleepwalking into a financial Armageddon” and he had not seen any politician capable of leading the State out of this. He wondered why Irish people “weren’t more aggressive” about what had occurred.
North American poet and former hedge fund banker Katy Lederer said the current situation reflected the “apotheosis of capitalism”.
Irish Times journalist and author Kathy Sheridan said there had been a “failure of communication” by economists and politicians to transmit their message.
The country had been “taken in by a culture of greed” and a “lack of altruism at the top” which had “seeped poison into the lifeblood of the nation”, Ms Sheridan said.
During questions, Galway West TD Michael D Higgins said it would be “very valuable” if the public knew the level of toxicity involved in the banking sector.
