Letter from Ireland : John Gormley
THE CELTIC TIGER
County Connemara. Photo: Bruno Barbey/Magnum
Ireland is the perfect case study of what can go wrong very quickly when those in power fail to distinguish between standard of living and quality of life
"IT’S NOT WHAT you are, but what people think you are, that matters."
As a politician I can sometimes appreciate Joe Kennedy’s words to his son, Jack, who later became President of the United States. Perception is very often more powerful than reality. Those who market Ireland’s image abroad know this only too well. Ireland is still presented as clean, unspoiled and friendly. But lately the image-makers have added new dimensions. Ireland is now modern, youthful, vibrant, innovative and an attractive location for foreign investors. This new "competitive" Ireland is experiencing an unprecedented economic boom.
Our growth rates are phenomenal — the highest in Europe; real unemployment is a thing of the past, resulting in net immigration, and there are even labour shortages in certain sectors. The country has a huge trade surplus and the government’s coffers are overflowing with added tax revenue. Our industrial and political leaders boast that Ireland is now the economic model for the rest of Europe.
This is the Ireland of the "Celtic Tiger", a phrase that was coined to show how closely we resembled the Asian Tiger economies. My political colleagues find it mildly irritating when I tell them that tigers are an endangered species and that the Asian economies have had their own dose of feline ’flu. To question the success of the Celtic Tiger is to be immediately labelled an old-time begrudger and, indeed, a heretic of sorts.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC Church may be in decline but Ireland has embraced the new religion of economic growth with all the zeal of fresh converts. It is an article of faith that economic growth is a good thing. To claim otherwise is to stand in the way of progress. I have always believed that measuring the progress of a society by means of gdp is a little bit like judging the quality of a piece of music by how loud it is. Successive Irish governments have simply pumped up the volume and then boasted about the noise. Caught up in this cacophony, people’s senses have been dimmed to other realities.
If things are so good, why is the gap between rich and poor widening? Why do we have rising levels of poverty and homelessness? House prices have escalated, with houses in Dublin now costing more than in London, New York and Paris. Prices in the rented sector have also risen dramatically. We have increasing levels of depression and suicide, especially among young males. The Samaritans, a group who provide help for people in crisis, have complained that they cannot get volunteers, as people are more interested in earning money elsewhere.
Violent crime and drug abuse figures continue to rise. We have witnessed increased family breakdown and divorce rates. Car sales for January were twice that of the same time last year and car volume is expected to increase by at least sixty per cent in the next ten years. Already commuting times have almost doubled within a decade and Dublin is caught in continual gridlock. Environmental protection has been viewed as an impediment to economic progress, resulting in the accelerated destruction of the Irish countryside.
The pace of change has taken most of us by surprise. I believe I am of an age — I turned forty last year — to give a balanced assessment of where we are at as a country. I belong to that generation that rebelled against the terrible isolationism, parochialism and narrow-mindedness that typified Irish society in the fifties and sixties. Those were the terrible days of stagnation, institutionalized brutality and inferiority. Like many I have no wish to revert to that.
But I do remember Ireland as also a very beautiful, kindly and spiritual place. Pollution was something that happened in other countries. We didn’t even have a single motorway. I grew up in Limerick on the banks of the river Shannon. It was an idyllic spot with a small forest and fields that stretched for miles. Summers were spent swimming, boating and fishing in the clear, clean water. It was a river rich with fish and bird life. Now, signs have been erected along the river warning members of the public not to swim. The river is poisoned and dead, polluted by industrial, domestic and agricultural effluent.
Just thinking about this fills me with sadness. Those river signs stand as an indictment of our Celtic Tiger economy. They are a reminder of what we have lost. The pollution of the Shannon is not an isolated incident. Last year’s Environmental Protection Agency report on key national environmental indicators showed a steady increase in river and lake pollution and worsening air pollution in our cities. Our failure to comply with eu drinking water directives has resulted in legal proceedings being instituted by the European Commission this year. Species and habitat destruction continues unabated.
The boom has also resulted in a waste crisis and huge CO2 emissions. Such is the demand for electricity that more and more power stations are being built and we have no chance of meeting our commitments under the Kyoto Agreement. In short, Ireland is the perfect case study of what can go wrong very quickly when those in power fail to distinguish between standard of living and quality of life, or, as economist Herman Daly puts it, when they fail to make the distinction between economic growth and economic development.
IT HAS ALWAYS been my hope that we would learn from the mistakes of other countries, but that does not seem to have happened yet. There are, however, some encouraging signs of change. A major protest against a road-widening scheme in the Glen of the Downs nature reserve in Wicklow caught the public imagination. Survey after survey showed that the majority of the public supported the protestors. Arguments made by the government that the road-widening was needed to reduce commuting times to Dublin made little impact, particularly when it was discovered that journey times would improve by a mere forty seconds. There was similar public support for those who destroyed gm crops in Wexford. Meanwhile, community groups throughout the country are resisting government attempts to promote hazardous-waste incineration as the answer to our waste crisis.
There is a growing awareness that Ireland is losing something special. People are beginning to recognize that we have enormous potential to develop along different lines. Traditional farmers realize that organic farming is the way of the future. There are serious plans for offshore wind-farms which will help reduce CO2 emissions. There is far more interest in complementary medicine and a strong eco-village movement is developing.
All of this is very positive indeed, but it remains to be seen whether the political and industrial establishment will follow the lead given by ordinary people. Here I am not quite so optimistic. The establishment political parties have no difficulty in "stealing green clothes" at election time, but these fashion accessories are quickly discarded once people have voted. "Greenspeak" is "in" in political circles, with particular emphasis on the new buzzword, "sustainability". Yet they never do explain how ecological sustainability can be reconciled with infinite economic growth. Such is our blind allegiance to this failed paradigm that the question never arises.
I became very aware of this unquestioning attitude at the Whips’ Meeting in the Irish Parliament. The Whips arrange the business of the House and I attend on behalf of the smaller political parties. When I suggested at one meeting that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment should be part of the schedule, it was seen as a bizarre proposal. Politicians of the right and the left believe that our small open economy has benefited enormously from globalization. Globalization feeds our Celtic Tiger. But the truth is that the Tiger has become a fat cat, and is getting fatter as he devours everything of value in sight.
John Gormley was the Mayor of Dublin. He is a Green Party member of Dáil Eireann, the Irish Parliament.
back
to top