Mopping up after An Bord Guillotine

Mopping up after An Bord Guillotine


Liamy MacNally

IT should be renamed An Bord Guillotine according to one Covie wit. “You can still have fun after the snip but this is a guillotine job!” The report highlights the usual suspects and the easy targets but also holds up the obvious to scrutiny, most notably, the quangos. These are the unelected ‘jobs for the boys and gals’ brigades. This is the land of the gravy train where expenses and subsistence are deemed first class passengers. At least the report shines a light again on this lucre chain gang.
From a western perspective the implementation of the Guillotine Report means the abolition of Minister Éamon Ó’Cuív’s department. This is ridiculous from most perspectives. Éamon Ó’Cuív is one of the few delivery men for Mayo since the foundation of the state. Over the boom years it was through his department that Mayo, especially the islands and rural projects, benefited most. Its demise would be the death knell for rural Ireland and Mayo. This is not an apologia for Dev’s lad. He is well able to fight his own corner and will be the first to admit that he is not perfect (but working hard at it!)
Fine Gael instituted the Junior Minister for the West. Bertie refused to appoint a Minister for the West when he was saddled with leadership of his party and the country yet through Éamon Ó’Cuív’s department infrastructural investment in rural Ireland has been substantial. His department has committed considerable investment in micro projects, like the ‘small is beautiful’ concept of EF Schumacher. People and communities have benefited directly from many of the investments in more ways than financial. The financial supports have enabled people to live in rural areas and develop rural communities. ‘Upon mature reflection’ the department should be enhanced rather than abolished. The ripple effect of that department will have much greater significance in ensuring the longevity of rural communities than most other departments put together. What is interesting is that several Ministers are hiding behind the swing of ‘fear an guillotine’ by claiming that all proposals will have to be looked at. Where were all these overpaid economists when we were heading towards financial destruction?
One of the most powerful men in Ireland, SIPTU President Jack O’Connor, (with Claremorris family connections!), also reacted to the Snip Report. He wants a general election. By any stretch of the imagination Jack O is not a happy camper and when Jack O is upset then the ripple effect runs far and wide. He says the Snip Report is “one of a glut of recipes for the economic crisis that all contain the same essential ingredient of solving our problems at the expense of workers and the least well off in our society. No one has promoted this agenda more relentlessly than the hawks in the Department of Finance who have shown no prescience in anticipating our problems or any capacity to solve them, except to fall back on the same remedies as those that led to this crisis in the first place.”
He singles out the Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, for his attack on the minimum wage. He says attacking “the basic income of the poorest workers in the country is a cynical move which targets the weak while ignoring those rich people who are most responsible for the banking and financial crisis which threatens to destroy our economy.”
He is hard on officials in the Department of Finance and takes no prisoners when he claims “already they have consistently sabotaged every initiative put forward by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, IBEC and the Construction Industry Council to put in place measures to protect and generate jobs, to restore people’s confidence and create the basis for recovery.”
Jack O puts it up to the Government, saying, “the Government has no mandate for the slash and burn policies it is pursuing and if the Taoiseach cannot rein in those elements in the Department of Finance who appear determined to wreck the economy, and the country, then he should call it a day and call a general election…”
He says the Snip Report is another recipe of reprehensible remedies. “It follows the transfer, or socialisation, of the massive bank debts on to the ordinary tax payer and the constant call for workers across the economy to take wage cuts.” Jack O calls for honesty and says that SIPTU will engage in discussions on pay, public service and taxation, accepting that job reductions in the public service are possible but reform must start at the top while essential front line services must be maintained.
The publication of the Guillotine Report with the Dáil closed for holidays ensured that Ministers were not around when heads could roll. Who wants another Reign of Terror?