Notes on the Front

This debate – you wouldn’t know whether to laugh, cry or bang your head on the asphalt repeatedly.  Following the rejection of austerity parties in Greece and France, the Taoiseach says:

‘I welcome the fact that president-elect Hollande has been talking about growth and investment which is what Ireland has been talking about along with a number of other leaders for the last number of months.’

Indeed, since the Treaty debate began Government Minister have been talking so much stimulus you’d fear that the economy will explode with all that dosh the Government intends to pump in.

The Government says one thing.  And then it does the exact opposite.  Let’s look at what the Government actually intends to do – it is anything but ‘investment and growth’.

First, the Government intends to continue cutting public investment.

The Government cut public investment by three-quarters of a billion Euros last year.  This reduced employment by approximately 7,000 direct jobs (and more when demand is factored in).  Next year they’re going to cut over a half-billion of Euros more from investment and even in 2014, they’ll be hitting it again. In total, that another 7,000 direct jobs cut from the economy over the next two years.

Over the period of 2011 to 2015, the Government intends to cut investment in real terms (after inflation) by 32 percent.  The Taoiseach welcomes ‘talk’ about investment – but at the same time his Government is gutting its own investment budget.  I leave you to find the word to describe that.

Turning to current expenditure, we find even higher levels of austerity being planned.  Please note – there are primarily only two categories of current expenditure:  public services and social protection (there’s also interest payments but there’s not much the Government can do about that short of debt restructuring).  What has the Government in store for us?

 In 2012, the Government cut €1,450 million from the current budget.  They intend to increase these cuts in 2013 and increase them yet again in 2014.  Even in 2015 the Government will be cutting.

This will have a major impact on the economy.  The ESRI found that for every 1 job lost in the public sector, the Live Register rose by 1 in the short-term (with the hope that emigration would reduce that impact in subsequent years).  Cuts in private sector procurement contracts could put more pressure on indigenous enterprise and their employees.  Cuts in social protection could feed into rising levels of inequality and reduce demand in the domestic economy. 

Using the Government’s own estimates, the cuts in public investment, current expenditure and tax increases will reduce GDP by over €6 billion by 2015.  Given that GDP is expected to grow by only €22 billion, that’s a big hunk.

So let’s recap:  the Government welcomes French ‘talk’ of investment and growth.  That’s because they, too, are ‘talking’ investment and growth.  Meanwhile, despite all this chatter, the government intends to cut public investment by 1/3 while cutting expenditure on public services and social protection by over €6 up to 2015, resulting in a considerable loss of growth and employment creation.

That doesn’t sound like an investment and growth strategy.  But maybe something got lost in translation.