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FORMER TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has compared the onset of the 2008 economic crisis to a series of plane crashes, all taking place at the same time and each for different reasons.
In a speech delivered at Georgetown University in Washington, Cowen argued that the simultaneous banking and sovereign debt crises that began under his watch were not solely the fault of international factors, but also down to the design of the euro.
“In some respects the Euro crisis is like multiple plane crashes occurring at the same time where manufacturing design faults, exceptional conditions, pilot errors and mistakes by air traffic controllers all led to disastrous and unexpected results,” he said.
The former taoiseach and minister for finance said that while some would expect him, as a former European leader, to blame the crisis on international factors like the collapse of Lehman Brothers, this was not solely the case.
There were European factors to blame too, he argued – such as the euro’s failure to accommodate the “great divergence in the strengths and weaknesses of individual countries”.
“For example, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and France all have very different problems and very different prospects,” Cowen said, saying the European crisis was “result of the interaction between the global market factors and weaknesses in individual economies”.
The former Laois-Offaly TD told his audience that similar problems could be prevented if governments were encouraged to build greater surpluses instead of increasing their spending in line with tax.
He added that this had not been encouraged in Ireland, however, because there was no political appetite anywhere in Ireland to cut down government spending as long as exchequer revenues remained solid.
“With the benefit of hindsight, budgetary policy should have leaned more heavily against the wind – but let’s be clear about what that would have meant.
It would have meant higher income taxes, lower levels of employment, and higher unemployment. It would have meant less spending on education, healthcare, research and development, infrastructure, and social welfare. These expenditures at the time were widely seen as highly desirable. [...]A countercyclical policy stance would probably have required budget surpluses of 5-6 per cent of GDP and an unemployment rate around 7 per cent. The question we ought to reflect upon is whether the political system could have come up with such an outcome in the context of strong economic growth and widespread confidence about continued strong performance.
In Ireland’s case, he said, this had not been put forward by political parties – who instead wanted to debate “how best tospend the extra resources that were coming in to the Exchequer”.
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What a country Ireland is at last growing into to. Its starting to mature at last… Excellent idea
Its about time Irish heroes who fought in the great war, world war 2 and other wars for foreign armies, namely the British army are remembered. Credit has to be given to Myles Dungan and Kevin Myers for their continuous writing on this topic over the years and of course Mary McAleese for the fantastic work she did in her time as president.
There was great economic pressure at the time of this recruitment, jobs were scare and people thought that the war would be short, It was a bit of an adventure for a lot of them. Unfortunately it did not turn out like that and the Irish suffered the greatest proportion of fatalities per capita of any people in the allied forces. They were treated as cannon fodder, there was nothing noble or heroic about being ordered out in your thousands to climb up a sea cliff while thousands of Ottoman soldiers shoot at you or charging across a bare field at German artillery. I certainly feel pity for them and how they were used. Like Ireland at the time, most of the men from the south in uniform were pro independence and freedom. Some were not, several of the RIC men that opened up on Bloody Sunday had done their service at the front in WW1. Countless men in the IRA, like the great Tom Barry had fought for years in WW1. My own Grand Uncle fought in WW1 and brought back weapons and grenades for my Grand Father’s IRA unit.
There is nothing heroic in dying in mud at the hands of an enemy miles away in your thousands for a side that had no trouble with you going over first but nor do I despise them. Money was tight, jobs scare and the pressure to join up was massive. I’m just sad that they died the way they did, same as if they had fought for the Czar or the Kaiser.
cannon fodder is all the Irish were in the trenches!!
Indeed and a poignant point was that Unionist regiments and Nationalist regiments were both seen as Irish by the British colonels and used for first waves attacks.
A man from Galway or from East Belfast was viewed as just as useful as stopping a German bullet, whatever flag he doodled in letters home.
Bloody nonsense…
“how Irishmen were recruited into British Forces… ” I really get fed up with this lazy post independence language that suggests the irish were dragged into some foreign army. We, like the English, Welsh and Scots simply joined THE Army.
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