Notes on the Front

In these recession days we will be inundated with a carnival numbers and percentages.  They will come so thick and fast it will be almost impossible to deal with every sleight-of-hand and three-card trick. But we have to start setting the record straight somewhere so I want to start with Fine Gael’s manipulative use of expenditure figures

Their critique of Fianna Fail’s handmade Exchequer crisis comes from starboard.  A recent example comes from Richard Bruton, TD, their Finance spokesperson, during a recent Dail debate on the Government cutbacks.  He claimed:

Wow, expenditure growth doubling economic growth.  No wonder we’re in the poorhouse.  This is not sustainable.  This cannot stand.  Except, this is all nonsense.  Here’s an example of how these stat games are played:

Between 2003 and 2007 the number of trips by Irish residents to Africa increased by 77 per cent, whereas trips to other EU countries increased by only 29 per cent.  So are we abandoning Paris for safari hunting in Botswana or grooving to the vibe in Senegal?  Actual trips to Africa increased by only 800 while trips to other EU countries rose by 9,000.  The difference is that the African trips rose off such a low number.

Fine Gael does the same thing with expenditure figures.  Let’s put it in another, more truthful context.  Voted current expenditure (that is, the day-to-day expenditure voted by the Dail and which Fine Gael uses) was 24.7 per cent of GNP in 2004.  Four budgets later, that same expenditure was 26.7 per cent.  An increase, yes but hardly one to go to the barricades over – even if you’re a neo-liberal. 

If you go back to 2001, the increase in expenditure, as a percentage of GNP, actually declined by half a per cent.

See, how fun it is to play these games.  Except this is no laughing matter and there is another story to be told.  The recent NESC report shows that Ireland lags near the bottom of current expenditure among EU-15 countries.  We’d have to spend nearly €12 billion more per year just to reach the average.

The question I have for Fine Gael (when it raises its head above these neo-liberal obsession with fractions of percentages) and all other supporters of a low-tax, low-spend economy: how in the world are we going to achieve a European level of services without a European level of expenditure?

In recession times you don’t expect everything to get better overnight.  But in the temporary darkness we should expect some honesty.