Heart Beat Maurice NeliganYesterday was as if winter had returned, cold and wet with a bitter wind from the north-west. It did not seem right to turn on the heating in July but it was either that or freeze. There is little of the stoic in me and hence the house soon warmed.
Twelve hours later there was a complete transformation; breakfast outdoors on a warm sunny morning, followed by a swim on a rising tide. I felt that the world had returned to normal and that things were ordained as they should be. Sadly I knew that to be a delusion.
I have been intrigued by other delusions. "We must not talk ourselves into a recession." One may ask to whom this refers. Some years ago I wondered what would happen when the cranes of Ireland's building boom started to fly away. To me this seemed inevitable, and so it has proved. I wonder how it is that I, a doctor, and thousands like me in all walks of life could clearly see this coming and yet those responsible for running the State could not and apparently still cannot. Many, including this writer, have pointed out for years that we are over reliant on the construction industry and that in the medium to long term this was not sustainable.
We are now told that employment in home construction can be switched to the infrastructural undertakings of the National Development Plan. Maybe some can, much cannot and in any case the funding of the NDP is predicated on growth rates in the economy which are unlikely to be realised. Now we are being told we must not talk ourselves into trouble. We are being told this by those whose short-sighted actions, or worse, indolent inaction led us dismally in this doleful direction.
Yesterday I received a letter from an American doctor in Connecticut telling me that the house of a late colleague which was for sale had been reduced in price to $525,000 or less than €400,000. It had 20 acres, a large pond, mature trees, a perfectly maintained colonial house c.1740, approximately 2,500 square feet and one and a half hours from New York. On a recent visit to Ireland this Irish American had entertained the idea of purchasing a property here. He was appalled at the prices for even the most mediocre houses. He sent me the above, as he put it "a reality check" and wondered "if you folk never heard of the word, value".
Our now ailing, but not yet moribund Celtic Tiger made some inordinately wealthy and created an illusion of national prosperity. Benjamin Disraeli writing of similar times in our neighbouring isle wrote: "In those days England was for the few, and for the very few." I am afraid that it has been so here also. Increasing inflation and energy prices, rising interest rates and consequent mortgage increases, the endeavours to maintain private health insurance in view of a failed health service; all these place intolerable burdens on ordinary mortgage- paying citizens struggling to stay afloat in increasingly choppy waters. Betty Jane Wylie wrote: "Poverty isn't being broke; poverty is never having enough." It is into this limbo that many are being propelled by rising costs on all sides.
My worst enemy would not accuse me of being a Marxist, but Karl Marx wrote a lot of sense too. "The devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation with the increase in value of the world of thing." Materialism is very much the creed of our times. This is coupled with blind unthinking hope that the good times will roll forever. The breakfast roll man of David McWilliams probably epitomised this in the recent election. This genus and indeed many others seem to live on the basis of carpe diem. It seems to go unnoticed that we have to produce goods and sell them in a very competitive world market, one that appreciates and requires value.
In many areas, including vital ones like tourism, we do not give value. We know this but we seem to do nothing about it. There is no leadership from the top. Quite the opposite indeed as the citizenry are scarcely edified with secret deals with backbenchers designed to keep the Government in power, additional junior ministerial appointments (needed like the proverbial hole in the head), and innumerable placemen installed. It matters not a whit that some of these lucky folk have no discernible or relevant ability for the posts they may fill. It's jobs for the boys, business as usual.
We are told that we are creating a "knowledge-based economy". Fine words indeed and would this was true. Inadequate investment at all educational levels and particularly in the university sector gives the lie to this platitu- dinous deception.
The getting and holding of power at all costs is what it is all about, and this is not commensurate with the common weal. Nonetheless, the pressures now crowding from all sides are going to make it very hard for our own Houdini with his three election trick, to square this particular circle. Meanwhile, the rest of us who should be enjoying the fruits of our much vaunted economic success; a superb educational system, wonderful hospitals, whatever you can think of yourself, the trappings of a modern caring society, are left with but a pittance and the certainty of harder times coming.
In the good times unfortunately there was neither the will nor the ability to ensure the future. We could power windmills with endless talk and discussion; now the time for talking is over. We require action to salvage what we can.
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon