Madam, - Who made the Celtic Tiger? Well, generations of Irish parents, who struggled for a better education for their children. Trade unionists and business leaders, who developed social partnership. Civil servants, who procured vast grants from our (frequently socialist) European partners. Politicians, who built the Northern peace process. Tory Euro-sceptics, who ensured that the Irish would be the English-speakers in the Euro zone. These people (even the Tories) thought in terms of national interest and the general good.
Missing from my list are Irish capital and enterprise. They were, with some honourable exceptions, busy doing what they have always done, like forming cartels and ripping off the State. The profit-seeking of native capital, moreover, was one of the major foes of native enterprise. None of this is surprising. Ireland is a small open economy and, in all but very good economic times, the native firm has it tough.
This is why we need a strong State presence in the Irish economy. If our property is to keep its value, if our infrastructure is to have users, if young people are to have their opportunities in Ireland, the State must play a large part in the economy. We should not heed economists who chant voodoo about competition. Those people are clowns pretending to be ringmasters.
Seen in this light, the most ruinous actions of this Government were ideologically driven ones that abdicated responsibility for the economy.
The Eircom privatisation took the key strategic sector in any modern economy out of State control, and left it a plaything of speculators.
Charlie McCreevy's later tax cuts fed into a deadly inflation, which was bad enough. His real blunder was to jam tax rates at the lowest politically acceptable level, during a boom. He disarmed future Ministers for Finance, who in harder times may need to cut taxes, or fund support for the economy. Mr McCreevy, whose gift was to make electoral tactics look like economic policy, may yet be remembered as the worst Minister for Finance ever.
The Irish State sector is and will be the bulwark of the Irish economy, while an Irish economy exists, but this Government is weakening it to the point of catastrophe.
Anyone who sees these views as eccentric - i.e., anyone who buys into current economic orthodoxy - should think about this: A Swiss state company is buying out our telecoms sector; a Norwegian one is set to profit from our gas. What will we do if the Americans move on? - Yours, etc,
ANNE O'BRIEN, St Kevin's Parade, Dublin 8.