I saw that film “The Departed” on TV recently, just after the real-life arrest of suspected organised crime boss, James “Whitey” Bulger in California, after 16 years on the run from the FBI. “The Departed” wasn’t the greatest film but oddly enough won its director Martin Scorsese a Best Director Oscar, his first – previous films like “Casino”, “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull” went unrewarded in terms of a Best Director Oscar. “The Departed” was based in part on the life of James Bulger and told the story of how the Boston police tried to infiltrate his gang and secure a conviction. It features a female psychiatrist who starts a relationship with an Irish-American cop, and on the first date teases him by asking what Sigmund Freud had said about the Irish. And the cop, played by Matt Damon, impresses her by replying that Freud said “this is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever”. There seems to be some debate about whether Freud did in fact ever say this, and whether it was meant positively or not, but regardless, it’s sometimes nice to be marked out as special or unique.
We are unique in another way as well. As far as I can tell, we are the only nation on this planet whose population has not risen in the past 170 years, by which I mean the population of this island (the Republic and Northern Ireland) was recorded as 8,175,000 in 1841 and in 2011 is estimated to be 6,370,000. Mainland Great Britain by comparison had a population of 18,500,000 in 1841 and its population stands at more than 60m today. For a traditionally Catholic country such as ours which frowned on contraception and where families with 10+ siblings weren’t unusual a generation ago, where there is an abundance of natural food resources with a sometimes too-good supply of water, where we don’t have volcanoes or sit on a tectonic plate boundary; for a country where internal strife has largely consisted of a brief civil war which claimed the lives of about 3,000, a war of independence (or liberation) which claimed the lives of 1,500 and of course the so-called Troubles which claimed the lives of 3,500; for a country which sacrificed a relatively little 50,000 in World War 1, and in the Republic, was doggedly neutral in World War 2 – for all of this, you would expect our population on a Malthusian basis to be in the order of 250m today. Of course, we did have the Famine in the 1840s which killed over a million and a further million emigrated to escape conditions at home. And the Republic was under British rule until 1921, and there is limited evidence of the Industrial Revolution which transformed other countries in the 18th and 19th centuries. But for all of this, it is truly wondrous that the population of this country hasn’t grown in 170 years.
I don’t know if Freud in fact did say we were impervious to psychoanalysis but we do seem to be a curiosity in terms of a vanishing national population, our very own “The Departed”. Of course we haven’t really vanished, we just emigrated and didn’t come back. So we have a diaspora scattered around this world and we are oftentimes reminded of this scattering in quite stark ways. That President Obama, Mohammed Ali and Mariah Carey are all part-Irish, is testimony to past decades and centuries of emigration. And emigration has positive aspects, particularly in the mix and acquisition of skills but those aspects are positive if the emigrants return. And in Ireland’s case, the experience of the last 170 years is that mostly, emigrants don’t return.
Today, there are question marks over whether emigration has returned to Ireland. The preliminary Census 2011 results published in June 2011 revealed that we had net inward migration of 124,000 between 2006-2011; but because there is no breakdown of that 124,000 by year, there is debate as to present migration levels, with the ESRI and the CSO suggesting net outward migration has returned. Truth be told, because we don’t measure population annually and have limited means of measuring migration in intercensal years (there’s a shaky quarterly household survey), we won’t get to find out conclusively what is happening with migration until the census is taken again in 2016. That lack of information might be something worth remedying given the effect of migration on the social and economic life of this country.
What inspired this entry was a commenter yesterday asking for a view on whether or not there was hope for this country. If you’re reading this from abroad, you might wonder at the pessimism suggested by that question. But living here, we are confronted almost daily by talk of cut-backs, losses, insolvencies, loss in asset values, price increases and interest rate rises, contraction of credit, high unemployment, austerity, bailout, cuts to public services and new or increased taxes. On top of the bad news, we have the added salt in the wounds of sections of society left relatively unscathed and indeed in some cases, making out like bandits. It saps positive energy and undermines society. It has probably also led to a return to net outward migration.
We have a nasty budget deficit – what we take in, in tax is a lot less than what we spend on social welfare and the public sector. The primary deficit, excluding bank and interest costs, is presently €15bn a year, in other words we take in €41bn in tax and we spend €56bn on running the country with health (€11bn), social welfare (€14bn) and education (€8bn) being the biggest outgoings. And at this stage, we know inside-out the reason for the deficit: during the boom years of the 2000s, we matched our expenditure with our revenue, we reduced taxes, increased welfare rates and public sector spending. And the engine which largely drove that growth in the 2000s, banking and property, has suddenly and disastrously ground to a near-halt. So we have spending left high-and-dry at Celtic Tiger era levels but tax revenue has taken an immediate hit. We know we must balance this budget so that as a country we can economically stand on our own two feet. We have agreed to cut at least €3.6bn from the budget in Budget 2012 to be unveiled in December 2011 and an additional €3.1bn in Budget 2013. At this stage it is unclear what further adjustment will be needed in Budget 2014 and Budget 2015 but the view on here is that is will be a total of €3bn. And these adjustments depend on a level of economic growth that some say is optimistic.
On top of the adjustment to balance our budget and eliminate the deficit, we need also repay bondholder debt in our insolvent banks (or at least they were insolvent until Minister Noonan shoveled in billions last week).
Is the level of national debt sustainable? At a peak of 118% debt:GDP or 140% debt:GNP there are many that think it is not sustainable and that there will need to be some element of default on bank debt. Others think that the debt:GDP % is no worse than the mid 1980s and that the peak interest paid on the debt will be about 20% of tax income, which is less than the 30%+ in the 1980s. Debate continues about differences in our circumstances today, for example as a more integrated part of theEurope, particularly in terms of our currency union.
But in answer to the commenter yesterday, yes the view on here is that there is hope. Although balancing the budget is, to put it mildly, a challenge, it is a necessity; indeed there are some that say that taking eight years from our fiscal shock in 2008 to balance the budget just shows a lack of leadership and political ability. If done correctly and if we have mechanisms to ensure living expenses fall in line with our circumstances, and to deal with legacy debt, then as a society we may go back to the living standards of the early 2000s before the property/credit bubbles took hold. The early 2000s where our costs were competitive, where we were growing at 3%+ per annum, where there was little more than the frictional unemployment rate.
Foreign direct investment continues at an heightened level despite the IMF/EU bailout; exports, particularly those by foreign companies based in Ireland, continue to expand; we’re regaining the competitiveness lost in the days of the banking and property bubble; interest rates are rising but are still low by historical comparison, and by reference to total savings and GDP and GNP, we are still a pretty prosperous country even if we do have high levels of personal and national debt.
So to the commenter yesterday, indeed yes, there is certainly hope but we have a test here inIreland today. The evidence of the past 170 years is that allowing others to control our fate as well as sometimes having very weak political leadership means we may muddle through but at a cost to our most important resource, our people. One of the key indicators of success in the next four years is whether we can overcome this financial crisis without seeing a return to traditional emigration.
(It’s a bank holiday inIrelandtoday, tomorrow we will be back to business as usual)
NAMA Wine Lake 
To answer the question in the title from my point of view….
I am following this drama closely since I returned from a photo shooting in Ontario’s national parks in October 2008. I engaged on a variety of levels where possible, but stopped all political activities in that respect since the end of June this year. Why?
It is extremely demoralizing to observe the democratic deficit in this country, the disconnect of the political class with the citizens is significant, but perhaps my main reason for stepping back is the my own insight into the social fabric of this society. I perceive Irelands political reality as deeply reactionary, essentially a 1 tier political landscape with marginal differences.
Then there are the rest of us who are not on the inside, and it is here where I can not but describe the public as indifferent at large, too docile and submissive.
The many layers of secrecy and insider politics has ruined this country for generations to come, and my personal hope for change has diminished in the past three years down to zero.
To brown nose the Troika demands was FF/GP politics, it has been continued by FG/Labor without interruption, serving the few and destroying the many.
The extortion politics of re distributing wealth to the top layers is at the core of my grievance with this system, neglecting the very people of this nation for the benefit of a few, and this has not changed a sausage.
Now, you might be astonished to hear my closing statement, yes, there is hope. There is always hope, and it remains with…. THE PEOPLE!
Best
Georg
@Georg R Baumann.
Good post and hard to disagree with your analysis.
Your conclusion is pehaps more hopeful than the facts would warrant.
Any country or polity that cannot stand up for the vast majority of its own citizens, under attack by vested interests groups from within and under attack from outside by the most powerful of financial interests, stands bereft of hope.
The fundemental issue as you have pointed out is the democratic deficit that has allowed that situation to occur.
Wow NWL! This heartfelt post hits the mark, straight between the eyes. Your point about the sections of society which have been left unscathed is valid and has influenced my decision to return to Germany at the end of this year; for work related to the construction of wind farms in the North of that country. I have experienced some of the players of the boom and bust first hand and observe that failure is constantly rewarded. This culture is bleeding the remaining life blood from the Nation and the continued existence of NAMA is commensurate with the perpetration of this culture.
on yer bike……………….
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/flash-brash-johnny-becomes-ronan-reborn-2829952.html
Treasury loans are in NAMA
This morning IT front page……
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/0801/1224301686670.html
Return to Ireland………
in case anyone forgot this is why he is on his bike…………
http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/peter-bill/2010/03/glenda-johnny-fight—then-he-runs-off-with-miss-world.html
great to find that the Irish are still a source of amusement and derision in the UK can you blame them !!!!
Nicely put.
No here’s a thing: ‘the Irish Diaspora.’
I see McWilliams and others telling us that we need to harness the Diaspora, to leverage the broad good-will that the world has for Ireland, or the Irish. This is like borrowing someone’s car, crashing it, and then asking the owner, opf the prospective owner, of the car to help pay for the damage.
Sounds a bit off? Well not really, when you excavate the bunk that the, ah, ‘disapora leveragers’ put out. They tell us that it is our Ireland too, that we can come an dance in it (with them), and that we’re always Irish. That means, they tell us, that we are part of Ireland, and we own it imaginatively, or emotionally or something the like. It’s a bit like Nabokov’s Unreal Estate, but without the brain to understand that nice irony of his. It’s also without the awareness of the offence offered to Irish people abroad… that we should be so gullible, so needy, so bound to their notion ‘Ireland’ that we race to attend to, with spondulicks galore.
Uh uh. That Ireland ain’t my Ireland. It sure as hell isn’t the Ireland that my parents and ancestors worked for, believed in, and walked the walk for either. And what’s more, doing this – jaysus, I don’t know what I’d call it – disaporic soft-shoe shuffle is degrading the ones doing it, and degrading to those Irish outside Ireland who would fall for it.
For people of Irish ancestry, or emigrants, who come back to Ireland of the Welcomes, the greeting is extortionate prices, condescension and mockery, the discounting of reasoned criticism, and that stubborn hewing to the same old closed society that has led to this train-wreck.
Irish people are so smart, quick with their minds and their words? Not so: easily gulled, addicted to self-righteous sophistry, hand-on-heart posers.
Irish people are courageous non-conformists, who’ll stand up for themselves and the underdog? Far from it: more tribunals, more inquiries, and a self-stroking class who exempt themselves from capitalism behind their occupational cartels and their public service make-work, all the while maintaining a sinister obsession with Israel, or the manufactured outrage of a few Irish Times columnists, or the task of choosing a nice chianti at the off-licence.
The world needs (more) Ireland? When we make BMWs maybe, or come up with something better than the (Google) ‘Double Irish.’
When yis have cleaned up the stables, let me know.
As always a thoughtful and interesting blog.
As any investor knows the future growth of any organisation is dependent on its management. While we have seen some signs of courageous leadership in recent times:taking on the Catholic Church, Dr. Reilly taking on the medics the pension levy. The amount of change required is gargantuan.
Let’s look at just one relativity unknown organisation. The ACCI, probably after the farmers the most powerful lobby group in the country. Wasn’t it strange that we could take money from the blind but we not even countenance burning the bondholders to protect the FDI lobby. The ACCI ran a beautiful undercover campaign so that increasing corporate tax rates was not even discussed. It’s a strange country that can take money from the blind but does have the decency to ask the likes of Google to pay an extra 1% in tax.
I’d argue that the real contribution from FDI is overstated. Once the factory is built and employees are paid the contribution is negligible. The wages are undoubtedly important although the massive secret subsidies provided by EI are often ignored. The economic theory is that sub suppliers would grow up around the FDI’s and a multiplier effect would justify the massive subsidies.
In my experience there is very little manufacturing sub supply in Ireland with virtually all materials imported. Ask any FDI how much of their supplied materials are actually manufactured/processed in Ireland. Most figures quoted say the total cost of supplies purchased in Ireland. Since many orders are placed with importers this is misleading. Virtually all the capital equipment purchased by FDI companies is imported. One reason Germany is doing so well is due to its shipments of manufacturing equipment to China.
I see little hope for country that is so dominated by it’s vested interests that we cannot even discuss an issue lest we upset the sensitive souls in U.S. headquarters.
If we are to have we have to make massive changes that means some vested interests have to loose out. The pop at the Vatican was a good start but it was at low clout lobby. The signs are not good:
* NAMA will share profits with the developers after a ~ 50% write down. The same idiots who got into this mess.
* NAMA pays the professions full whack for fees. The auditors and accountants whose true and fair view was that our banks were healthy. The same Valuers who told us that having the highest property prices was good for the country.
* Media still peddling property porn.
* Property tax for the little people but no asset tax for the wealthy. So if I own a house I pay but if I live on my yacht……
* The pension lobby that charge 1%+ management fees screaming about 0.6% tax.
* Water tax when 60% is lost in the ramshackle system.
* Legal system that takes to 3 years to charge a person with share fixing.
I’m sure others could add to this list….
This will require courageous leadership.
We will live in hope…..
Countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia, have benefited greatly from the hard work, patriotism, and entrepreneurship of Irish immigrants. Surely, there was a corresponding negative affect on Ireland. Is there an opposite to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest?”
There’ll be no hope until there is nationalism. Nationalism is looked upon with disdain in Ireland. Irish people (in particular the media) hate Ireland. How can there be patriotism and strong leadership without nationalism? Look at the way the Germans paid for the reunification with East Germany. The Irish would say no if taking back the North cost money.
Here is a letter I sent to the Irish Times back in June 2004. Sadly, much of it is IMHO as valid today as it was then.
We have a booming economy for which everyone takes credit for but which is based largely on inappropriate cheap credit rates ordained from outside the State.
We have completely inadequate services in health, law and order and for the disadvantaged and deprived but unending promises of improvement that are rarely delivered.
We have a strong foreign industry base thanks to transfer pricing, generous tax rates and light regulation but stagnating indigenous industry due to escalating costs and lack of development.
We have a service sector that is manifestly over-pricing in many areas which blames everyone but its own greed for causing the high prices.
We have a Government that is unwilling to raise taxes to improve services but very willing to give tax breaks to wealthy tax payers and impose stealth taxes.
We have a public sector that accepts politically-inspired benchmarking awards but offers little in return other than interest in further similar awards.
We have an administration that expends enormous sums on capital projects but is incapable of managing them on budget and time without selling major rights to private interests.
We have a national pension fund which sucks up 1% of national wealth every year to invest throughout the world but is unwilling to make any significant investments in Ireland.
We have a political philosophy which seeks to impose greater use of our historic language in Ireland and the EU but fails to adequately protect our heritage, constitution and nationhood.
We have a Cabinet that is unable to make timely decisions on key issues – airport terminal, health service reform, housing, traffic and social equality – but very fast to decide on unimportant matters like post codes, decentralisation and e-voting.
We have politicians who transfer hundreds of millions of tax receipts to lawyers to probe corruption and wrongdoing but who are unable to accept their responsibilities and often pay scant regard to the truth and ethics.
We have a legislature which generates noise and spin but operates for less than half the year and, even then, is very poorly attended and regularly ignored by its proponents.
We have an “establishment” which pursues a liberal economic agenda but fails to appreciate that the economy is only one element of a strong, satisfied State.
I know of no source for the Freud remark. I cannot think of any Irish people he knew or any occasion he would have had to make it. Sorry, folks!
Marcus ….James Joyce for one
Freud & Joyce never met. (Proust & Joyce did meet once.) Far as I know Freud never read a word of Joyce. Joyce did not have a high opinion of psychoanalysis, but never had first hand experience of it.
@Marcus, you may well be right and I did say above that the claim was subject to dispute because the London museum home where Sigmund died says that there is no record of him ever having said that about the Irish. The link to the museum site is attached to the term “some debate” above.
Having said that, who is to say that Sigmund didn’t have his driveway in Vienna tarmacadamed by a crew of lads from down Limerick way and when the material melted or gave way a couple of days later, the Limerick boys were nowhere to be found. Maybe that prompted him to say the Irish were impervious to pyschoanalysis because they’d buggered off when called to account. And before you say his home in Vienna was an apartment (1) the use of the film “The Departed” above was a device to introduce emigration and a curiosity about the Irish and (2) you don’t know how persuasive those Limerick boys can be!
Anyway, we may or may not be impervious to psychoanalysis but apparently we’re not prone to joining up for audits with the Scientologists
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0802/1224301719186.html
I would hold that the Irish political and state apparatus has been profoundly influenced by this continuous drain. Only those who remain set policy and decide how the country should be run. Only those who remain have influence over the such things. Only those who remain can set Ireland’s future.
Thus the great class divide in Ireland is not between rich and poor, educated or uneducated, urban or rural. Ireland’s great class divide is between the emigrating and the non-emigrating classes. It is the latter who decide policy in Ireland.
And they have decided that policy will be the protection of the non-emigrating industries-legal, political, public service, property, banking, medical–at the expense of every other “emigrating” industry, e.g. construction. Anyone who wouldn’t be able to find work abroad will be looked after, anyone who can will be made to go look for it. This policy can expect support from all who remain, whom it has indeed protected and benefited.
The decision making process is governed from tip to bottom by those who appreciate the importance of the status quo, and how essential the fire-break of emigration is in maintaining that. Capable people are driven abroad to find better work. Conscientious people who would recoil from such decisions are likewise excluded. Emigration acts as a perennial political salve, gentling disgruntled electorates, and even reinforcing their support for existing policy.
And so, with the best driven out, Ireland is left to the care of the inept, the unethical, and the complicit. The fact that we find ourselves paying exorbitant salaries and pensions to the clearly undeserving is no accident of fortune. It is the natural outcome of governance by such a class of people; by those who saw their future as a part of that system.
The net effect of this is the continued status of Ireland as a sparsely populated, poorly managed island, whose major contributions to the world are cattle, morose prose, and able bodied workers. It has always been this way and the mistake during the boom was to think it was ever going to be any different. Ireland has simply returned to form.
Brilliant and thought-provoking post from NamaWineLake.
As someone who comes from a long line of nationalists (grandparents had to flee their house during the War of Independence and later the Civil War having chosen the anti-Treaty side) I have, in spite of this, come to the reasoned conclusion that we are simply incapable of governing ourselves. I don’t say this in a self-hatred form of way. Now, we do have some distinctive national characteristics such as our irreverence, our love of words, our imagination, etc. and I missed all of these when I lived abroad. But, the single most indicative feature of our failure to manage our own affairs is exactly what NWL has pointed to: our emigration. The Dutch have built a thriving economy of over 16million people on what is basically a flood plain of the Rhine and a land just the size of Munster. Imagine what they would have done with a land as fertile and bountiful as the island of Ireland.
The problem with saying that Ireland has failed is, exactly as NWL has pointed out, many in Ireland do far better than they would in any other country in the world. Just think of some hospital consultants, judges, barristers, civil servants, TDs, Semi-state bosses, farmers, and various other professionals. But is this at the continued expense of high emigration?
I may be one of the few who actively welcome the involvement of the Troika. I think our best chance of good governance is through foreign agencies. And, even if they imposed 50% corporation tax there are so many things that are still under our control. We should have the cleanest water in Europe and be the foremost supplier of organic food products to Europe and the world. Not to mention being surrounded by some of the richest seas in the world. We should also have the cheapest land and houses in Europe given our low population density. The most depressing document I read in the last few years was the Buchanan Report of 1968. This gave a blueprint for economic success but it was never implemented. It outlined clearly that the counties with the highest emigration rates were those with the lowest urban density. Yet we have persisted in a model of extremely low urban density which makes government services very expensive and very inefficient. Does anyone know of any emigrant from Donegal, Mayo or Kerry who emigrated to a rural environment in another country? I bet not. Such emigrants moved to Boston, Sydney, London, etc. (and were happy to do so) i.e. to an urban area. But, I bet if they remained in their respective counties, they would have argued and voted in favour of policies favouring rural life over urban life.
The future? As someone who was previously anti-British it may now be the time to consider closer union with the UK. Equally, direct rule from Berlin might be no bad thing. I have ‘skin in the game’, i.e. a young family that I want to see get a good education and have good prospects in their lives.
I wish this debate opened by NWL was more widespread in the country. It may well be once the cuts in coming years start to bite.
Marcus this is a NAMA blog………..he as well aware of Joyce and his view of physchoanalysis ……hence the comment in the movie….
http://www.lacan.com/frameXI3.htm
i can direct you to many lietary blogs sites etc……..
from the movie………
Colin Sullivan: What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-v-freud.html
way more relevant and interesting than Joyce v Freud
http://www.cmalert.com/headlines.php?hid=152704
The process of temporary emigration and return is necessary and healthy for a small island nation to keep abreast of global skills and norms. The important thing is sustain an inflow at least as big as the outflow.
21st century Ireland has proven itself the unsinkable ship. During the worst years of its worst recession, Ireland did not lose population through emigration contrary to the predictions of every bandwagon hopping naysayer.
Ireland has endured and survived a 100bn loss on its banks and a 100bn jump in deficit inspired national debt, a loss of all commercial lines of credit, the wipeout of its stock market, and a spike in unemployment.
Yet there are still 1.8m people working. GNP grew last year despite savage austerity cuts. The pace of FDI has quickened. Bond yields are narrowing. The deficit is falling in line with targets. One bank is through the hoop, the other is fully recapitalised. Wages and rents have reverted to realistic competitive levels. Labour and capital have been re-oriented toward productive activity away from from amateur property speculation.
The population is burgeoning. A lost national humility has been rediscovered. There is an urban surplus of infrastructure in communications, transport, energy and housing. Crime and alcohol and drug consumption have fallen.
The legal and political systems have proven stable. So stable, in fact, that only the most keen observer could discern a difference in policy from the previous government to the incumbents.
There is a change in people’s conversations. No more credit fuelled expenses to maintain appearances. No shame in frugality. Education is back in vogue.
Our role in the European project is now paying a fat dividend with the value of the cheap bailout funds, the backstopping of NAMA by the ECB, the provision of supercheap ECB funding to our banks and access to European export markets far exceeding the cost of making bank bondholders whole.
These are the worst years so imagine how well positioned we are with our young population, our mild climate, our language, our education and our pivotal position with links to the US, UK and EU.
Ireland will rebuild in a sustainable way.
Kirsten Delaney, I state without exaggeration that your post is more slanted than the average Pravda article, and well nigh offensive in its portrayal of the state of this country and the plight of the Irish people.
Manifestly false, from the census figures. Since the non birth increase in population over 2006-2011 were only ~118,000, and since the net inward migration for 2006 alone matched that number, it is clear that there has been significant emigration from this country since 2008. To claim otherwise is to salt the wounds of emigrants and their families up and down the country.
It is iniquitous to mention this figure without referring also to 450,000 people who are unemployed, a massive 20% unemployment rate, itself reduced by emigration. So too must be mentioned the fact that most of those still employed have seen their pay rates reduced, and tax after tax heaped upon them to pay for someone elses debts. Yea, even unto their pensions are they taxed.
I can say with certainty that this is the most egregious insult to the plight of the Irish nation that I have yet read on any blog, foreign or domestic.
I take the opportunity once again to refer back to the Famine. One of the exacerbating factors in the famine was the denial on the part of the native Irish “middle” and upper classes to even acknowledge that a famine was occurring. Ireland remained a net exported of food throughout, and when finally confronted with the emigration figures, many Irish declared that those leaving were better off abroad.
The unaffected native Irish never pressured Peel’s government to act and even campaigned against the prospect of port closures lest it impact their lifestyles. Their complaints centred on the starving migrants into Dublin and other towns, who presence they felt was unsightly, and whose burial costs the rate payers crudely begrudged. Indeed, the British press was deeply critical of the Irish ruling classes, whom even they regarded as monstrously inhumane.
A similar set of dynamics would again be seen during The Emergency.
Sometimes, I think Ireland hasn’t changed at all in 170 years. We’ll blame the British for or troubles, or the Germans, or whomever is convenient. But I think the first place fingers should be pointed is at those much closer to home, particularly this time around.
Eurostat and the CSO disagree with your migration estimates for 2006. Perhaps you have a higher source.
Number in employment is still 400K above the figure in the mid 90s (CSO)
Ireland is far better off in 2011 than it was before the celtic tiger in 1995 by any measure of economy, health or education you might choose.
Having a few percent knocked off your take home pay and paying tax at a similar level to the rest of Europe is not the same as starving to death from lack of spuds. A little perspective please.
@Kirsten, our population remained flat/declined between 1926-1971
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/why-we-need-17000-extra-houses-a-year-and-it%E2%80%99s-not-to-do-with-population-growth-or-building-obsolescence/
@OMF, I blame the CSO for this and have called on this to be changed
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/forget-the-messiah-we%E2%80%99ll-have-to-settle-for-enda/
But we have 290,000 unemployed in this country and that is a 14.2% unemployment rate. The 450,000 represent those on the Live Register and include all sort of benefits. The 450,000 is frequently cited here and abroad as number of the unemployed. The CSO should be ashamed of itself – that’s you Gerry OHanlon, the Director General of the CSO – for placing in the public (especially the prospective business world’s) mind that our unemployment is higher than it actually is.
Yes, common mistake. But the 450,000 might not be so far off the mark if we were to add in recent emigrants and those staying in education or having temporaily withdrawn from the labour force simply because there are no jobs.
@Brian, I have no problem in Ireland having a secondary measure of economic inactivity or benefits. But on a like-for-like basis we are continually giving the wrong message both at home and abroad.
Not sure that it is necessarily negative from the perspective of a possible FDI. The 450,000 points to a large labour pool, young people hitting higher educational standards and the possibility of tempting back emigrants with broader skill set etc. Anyway, 290k is the official figure.
@Brian, “Anyway, 290k is the official figure”
True but ask the man in the street or OMF below or the BBC (see below) and they all think it’s 450,000 which I’d suggest indicates a basket-case rather than a large labour pool
https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/forget-the-messiah-we%E2%80%99ll-have-to-settle-for-enda/
“Consider the following reporting from the BBC on our election “Unemployment in the Republic currently stands at 13.4%, meaning 450,000 are out of work. Unemployment benefits have recently been cut back.” This of course is rubbish – although the unemployment rate is indeed 13.4% that translates to approximately 299,000 unemployed. If you ask the man in the street though, how many are unemployed in the State, he will probably reply in the 450-500,000 range. And indeed there are some 442,677 on the Live Register which includes all sorts of recipients of employment benefits. On an International Labour Organisation (ILO) basis, our unemployment rate is 13.4% however, the number available for employment as at the end of the Q3, 2010 was 2,150,500 and the number unemployed on an ILO basis is 299,000. Each month the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reports the Live Register and gives an estimate of the unemployment rate. And every month, the man in the street believes there to be nearly half a million unemployed. And those looking at our small country (like the BBC above) believe that there are 450,000 unemployed. Given that we have a population of 4.47m and a famously young population, you can hardly blame the conclusion that we are a basket case if we truly had 450,000 unemployed which would equate to over 20%.”
@Kirsten Delaney
About as smug a commentary as I have read on Ireland. Clearly you far removed from the difficulties brought on by the recession.
“The process of temporary emigration and return is necessary and healthy for a small island nation to keep abreast of global skills and norms.”
So that is what the emigrants are doing. “Keeping abreast of skills and norms” while the rest of country enjoys the “fat dividend” the Europe is bringing.
As for your statistics statement:
“Ireland is far better off in 2011 than it was before the celtic tiger in 1995 by any measure of economy, health or education you might choose.”
Try the following statistic in your leisure time.
Public debt per capita in 1995 and projected 2014.
Private debt per capita in 1995 and projected 2014.
And just one more statistics point.
The main difference between the live register (approx 45oK) and the the unemployed figure per CSO (approx 290K) is accounted for by part-time/short time workers.
From you comments I doubt that you are a member of either of those groups.
As for not losing population, people who make this point, should remember that the most serious impact of the Irish recession was felt by those who lost jobs in the period appr from Summer 2008 to April 2009.
Ignoring the fact that the 2006-2011 period is split definitively into two totally different economic experiences, does little credit to those expostulate on that period as if it were a period with single definable economic characteristics.
Most people, particularly those who work in non-State sponsored private sector, will testify to that.
“Public debt per capita in 1995 and projected 2014.”
It is meaningless to compare the per capita public debt figure in nominal terms between 1995 and 2014. We would need a ratio like
debt/gdp or debt/govt revenues
or perhaps
debt per household vs gross income per household
to compensate for inflation and increased wages and the increased number of people in the workforce. in 1995 GDP was only about 50bn while national debt was about 38bn.
Sustainability of national debt is determined by inflation, interest rates, growth rates and debt/gdp ratio. The interest burden in 1995 was 7% of national debt whereas that figure was projected @4% in 2014 before the recent interest rate reductions. Public debt is certainly a weakness in the Irish economy now and in the future. Worst case scenario is that some of our creditors would have to take a writedown as happened in Greece.
Private domestic debt is reducing every quarter according to the ICB as people pay down their mortgages and loans.
hope, along with one dollar 25 cents, with get you a ride on a bus.
It’s difficult to have hope in a country that is willing to invest 7 million euro in a dilapidated building http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0801/1224301686074.html
while we throw autistic children to the wolves over 100,000 euro http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0730/1224301619198.html
@Kirsten
“political systems have proven stable. So stable, in fact, that only the most keen observer could discern a difference in policy from the previous government to the incumbents.”
Your comment is 100% correct. The electorate voted for change and all we got was the other side of the same coin. We will be bled dry in order to pay back French & German banks. Once this is done the core will cut the periphery adrift and we will be handed our balls on a plate.
No hope here. Just pain.
“We are unique in another way as well. As far as I can tell, we are the only nation on this planet whose population has not risen in the past 170 years, by which I mean the population of this island (the Republic and Northern Ireland) was recorded as 8,175,000 in 1841 and in 2011 is estimated to be 6,370,000. ”
This is bizarre stuff NWL.
First off, why take a time-frame of precisely 170 years? Wouldn’t 100, 150, 200 or 250 make more sense…. unless of course you are looking for a question to an answer.
Regarding the 8.2m peak, well, that’s not much different from saying that house prices were 400k at peak, but now look at them now. It was unsustainable growth. It was not a broad based agricultural revolution that supported this growth.
Finally, the whole premise that bigger population somehow equates to ‘success’ is a bit mad. By that logic Germany is struggling but Zimbabwe is rocking..
@Diarmuid,
Now I did look at a few countries beyond Britain before writing “as far as I can tell” we are the only country on the planet etc
Germany seems to have had a population of 40m in 1840 against just over 80m today (the population in 1939 was also around 80m but then the war had a devastating and depopulating effect)
http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/germany.htm
I didn’t look at Zimbabwe but I would be shocked if the population there was less today than 1840.
Of course a big population doesn’t equate to success but you’d have to be curious at least about a country that failed to grow in population size over nearly two centuries.
“Of course a big population doesn’t equate to success but you’d have to be curious at least about a country that failed to grow in population size over nearly two centuries.”
This is my point… if you go back two centuries the population HAS grown. Cherry picking 170 years – a timespan solely chosen to find a point when the population was higher – is nothing more than confirmation bias.
Re Zimbabwe/Germany – Far too simplistic to suggest that a growing population equates to a healthy or ‘successful’ society.
@Diarmuid, I’m afraid we’ll have to disagree in interpreting our population (lack of) growth in the past 170 years. The only bias in choosing 1841 is that it was the eve of the worst single calamity to befall the country in the shape of the Famine. The Famine is understood to have cost 2m people (1m died and 1m emigrated) but the population had fallen by 1.6m in 1851 when births were taken into account. 1851 was a few years after the Famine but still the emigration continued, including in that year Barack Obama’s forefather Fulmouth Kearney. And the emigration didn’t stop. That’s the curiosity.
Diarmuid, going back 200 years itself constitutes cherry picking. The population has only just grown by that figure, and going back any farther takes us into the early modern period of history.
http://www.mapspictures.com/ireland/history/ireland_population.htm
I think in 2011 that NWL selection of the post Napoleonic Wars period is entirely reasonable.
OMF – I didn’t choose that 2 centuries cherry, NWL did. If you go back 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, ad infinitium, the population is now higher. You need to be very selective to find otherwise. There is a valid question regarding emigration post-famine. But taking the eve of a massive catastrophe as a starting point is ridiculous.
IMO there are two big reasons for emigration. The Jared Diamond one – lack of critical resources. At a time of industrialisation and urbanisation Ireland had no edge.
Secondly, geographical size. If someone moves 1500 miles from Oklahoma to California they don’t ’emigrate’. But if someone leaves Dublin for another large city, even if it is 100 miles away in NW England, they do.
Merge the two and you have mass transport in the form of trains and ships making people mobile at the same time as industrialisation in resource rich countries provided opportunities for people that were not available in agrarian societies.
This is not an apology for poor governance, which we have been plagued with, but there is a lot more besides governance that hugely influences a country over the course of a couple of centuries.
@Diarmuid,
Guess what other part of Western Europe is up there when it comes to emigration – Southern Italy. It too, is an agriculture based economy that never developed indigenous industry. Some also say that it’s a little corrupt!
I think it would help Ireland if there was some justice in terms of the chaos that has been visited on the population by the powers that be, as regards the fact that Ireland was turned into the financial tart of Europe. Complicit politicians, no effective bank regulation, downright fraud, law breaking & nobody held to account for it.
Here’s an article from a blog that tells the story of a whistleblower who worked for Unicredit Ireland whilst they were using illegal practises ( breaching liquidity regulations by 1,900 % ).He resigned his position because of this & has since tried to bring this situation to light. He has been ignored by the so called bank regulator, threatened with imprisonment by the central bank & pushed to one side by Michael Noonan.
http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/08/guest-post-whistleblowerirl-show-must.html#comments
Incidentally Ireland in isolation would certainly get back on her feet, but remember the rest of the world is still mired in a mountain of toxic debt which will spread especially through Europe & the Irish banks are still exposed to debt from other countries. A world of austerity is not likely to be a good market for organic food.
FF/FG/Labour are married to the EU both idealogically and politically.The rejection of results of the first Nice and Lisbon treaty referenda by the above Troika has resulted in a massive population increase from Eastern Europe and a collapse in our economy.
The only thing any politicians from the three parties have been passionate about has been the safekeeping of our Corporation tax.
Given we are almost completely ruled by the EU/ECB/IMF the only valid reason for the continuance of FF/FG and Labour is the preservation of Corporation tax and once that goes there is no reason for their continued existence.
In some respects they resemble the castle Catholics under British rule with one difference that Brian Lenihan,Cowen and FF freely surrendered the States Sovereignty without ever coming under threat of invasion or war being declared….
In my view change will not occur until the the Irish political system and its parties are completely swept aside.
This is more than just an economic crisis imo.Its an existential crisis for the Irish State and its people.
I personally am very pessimistic about our future.
What happens if the economy does not grow over the next 4 years?
Does this mean we will have cuts / tax increases of 4 bn every year for the next 4 1/2 years?
It just does not bear thinking about.
@Sporthog, part of the reason for deferring cuts and increases to taxes is that growth in the economy might cushion the need for cuts and new taxes. If GDP grows by 3%, then the tax-take should approximately increase by 3%, or €1bn from €32bn to €33bn. So without changing income or corporation tax rates or increasing VAT rates or any other tax rate or introducing new taxes like the houshold tax or making any cuts to services or welfare, we should close the deficit by €1bn just with 3% economic growth in one year.
And of course if that economic growth (2.5% next year and 3% in 2013 and 3% in 2014) doesn’t materialise then yes, there will be further taxes and service/welfare cuts. Remember though that we had real annual GDP growth in 2000s of
2000 9.20%
2001 6.10%
2002 6.10%
2003 4.40%
2004 4.60%
2005 6%
2006 5.30%
2007 5.60%
So 3% isn’t completely off the wall. The question is whether with legacy debt and a deficit, we can close the deficit and get debt under control AND get a return to strong growth.
@ NWL,
Thank you, however considering the rest of the W. world also has its problems, ie. USA + UK, then I am afraid our ability to grow will be curtailed. Unless we can start supplying growing markets like the BRIC’s etc.
Time will tell, however growth for this year is already looking feable is’nt it?
A quick scoot on the www pulls up this link to Mr Hennigan’s site.
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1022192.shtml
Here’s hoping we stay on target.
There is no hope for us as a sovereign entity. We have completely “blown” that independence because of our debt binge. Germany has achieved by the pocket book what it could not achieve by the sword.
Under the EFSF, a new class of bond will be issued, upon which PIIGS will totally depend and which the Germans will totally control. For Ireland, almost all of our future financial existence will be dominated by the EFSF.
Accepting this EFSF assistance means accepting a surrender of financial autonomy to the German commanders of the EFSF. That means accepting German-designed austerity programs and German influence.
Germany can now usurp huge amounts of our national sovereignty. Rather than constraining Germany’s geopolitical potential, the European Union now enhances it; Germany is on the verge of once again becoming a great power. This hardly means that a regeneration of the Wehrmacht is imminent, but Germany’s re-emergence and dominance of Europe does give pause for thought.
@NWL
Today, Bloomberg touches on your theme with “Irish modern history has been marked by emigration since the Great Famine, which began in 1845. The population shrank by more than a third to 2.8 million in 100 years through 1961.”
More at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/irish-diseases-return-to-economy-as-jobs-scarcity-spurs-exodus.html
@Brian, many thanks. There will be an additional entry on population/emigraton next weekend based on more extensive research. It seems that the starkness of Ireland’s history of emigration and lack of population growth wasn’t adequately communicated in the entry above.
@ Bunbury. “I may be one of the few who actively welcome the involvement of the Troika. I think our best chance of good governance is through foreign agencies.”
Yea, same thoughts crossed me mind when we joined the EEC, ERM, EU etc. that evolved into the new currency – and look where that has got us. I don’t share your enthusiasm.
@ Kirsten “Ireland has endured and survived a 100bn loss on its banks and a 100bn jump in deficit inspired national debt, a loss of all commercial lines of credit, the wipeout of its stock market, and a spike in unemployment.”
“Endured and Survived” A wee bit early to be coming to such a definitive conclusion.
“Our role in the European project is now paying a fat dividend with the value of the cheap bailout funds, the backstopping of NAMA by the ECB, the provision of supercheap ECB funding to our banks and access to European export markets far exceeding the cost of making bank bondholders whole.”
Lets take that erroneous sentence in reverse…
– the cost of PRIVATE bank bondholders whole.
-access to European export markets that we already had access to since 1972 and access to our biggest trading partner the UK is so historically entwined that it will never be broken…
the unfortunate provision of supercheap ECB funding to our banks so as to repay their private bond debts and then putting us the taxpayer on the hook for it,
the backstopping of our government by the ECB and IMF so we can merrily go along the same road…
has and is now paying a fat dividend externally to others and lumbered us with unsustainable bailout funds…
Our role in the European project has been reduced to not standing up for ourselves and holding out the begging bowl….
I’m all for a bit of optimism but lets keep our feet on the ground and not loose the run of ourselves (again).