(The Nationalist, 14 January 2000)
Between the years 1994 and 1999, the number of people at work in the Irish Republic increased by 338,000, about 20% of the workforce. That development was as welcome as it was unprecedented. It means that those people are now working at home instead of being unemployed or else forced to emigrate as were so many previous generations of Irish people. It also means that older people will have their children and their grand-children near them instead of having to live in loneliness and to say, as people used to say so often about their children in the past, ‘They’re all away’.
Much of the credit for this new situation must go to the efforts of successive governments and the agencies of the State. The IDA, not the IRA, were the real patriots of the twentieth century.
A lot of the credit, too, must go to the partnership process which began in 1987 and has given us not only new prosperity but – more importantly – better industrial and social relations than we have known for decades. Does anyone in their right mind want a return to the bickering, the anger, the stupid selfishness of the 1970’s and 1980’s? Just for a moment, cast your mind back to what it was like then trying to do something as simple as make a phone call – it was an exercise in frustration.
At the moment a new partnership agreement is being negotiated. The threats to its success lie in greed and short-sightedness. Are we going to kill the goose that has laid the golden egg? But think about this: a person working a 40 hour week on the soon-to-be-introduced minimum wage of £4.40 an hour will earn £176 a week, while last week it was reported that TD’s are considering giving themselves an increase of £250 a week. Will TD’s urge that wage restraint must be an essential part of any new agreement?
According to the UN, Ireland has the second highest level of ‘human poverty’ in the industrialized world. By ‘human poverty’ the UN means not money so much as human factors, of which one is literacy. 20% of Irish adults are functionally illiterate, meaning that they cannot read and make sense of a simple notice, such as a train timetable or – more importantly – the label on a medicine bottle. Public housing is clearly inadequate to meet the need and hospital waiting lists are long – while wards remain closed in order to reduce costs.
If we keep cool heads and recognize that choices have consequences, if we continue to choose cooperation over confrontation then there is every chance that social problems such as those above can be effectively tackled. A welcome side-effect to this will be that people’s sense of hope in the future will be strengthened, their sense that it is possible to overcome problems, that there are better responses to challenges than cynicism.
An economy isn’t just about money but about people and how they relate to each other and the sort of society that they build together. The economy exists for the sake of people, not the people for the sake of the economy.