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IRELAND: If anyone was under any illusion that the mere detail of a
general election would have made any difference to the prospects for the
Irish economy and for unemployment in the state then by now their
illusions will have been severely tested. The European Commission recently
reduced its expectation for Irish economic growth to 0.6% for 2011.
Unemployment is predicted as reaching 14.6% this year, falling to 14% in
2012. Most significantly the report finds that the effect of emigration
has not had a significant effect. In other words, without emigration
running at maybe 1,000 a week unemployment would be rising even faster.
The government’s budget deficit is expected to hit
10.5%, which is higher than expected also, the reason for this being
lower than expected tax revenues. In other words the economy remains
very weak; it’s quite likely that the economy will continue to stagnate
for a considerable time to come. House prices remain 40% lower than 2007
nationally, whereas the figure for houses in Dublin is 45% and the
figure for apartments 52%.
All of this means that the new FG/Labour coalition
isn’t starting with a clean sheet. In fact the situation today is quite
the opposite. All of the pressures and tensions that contributed to the
slow death agony of Fianna Fáil still exist, except for the
fact that there are now the additional pressures of the IMF and the
European Commission. Irish capitalism is at an impasse, this isn't
merely a political crisis courtesy of Messrs Cowen and Lenihan, the
whole sytem is rotten from the inside out.
Under these conditions the calls by Enda Kenny,
Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin to reschedule the debts are likely to
fall on stony ground. Central to the IMF’s side of the bail out is a
vicious austerity programme. Unless the economy picks up and the
government hits its targets in terms of “reform” in the public sector,
then its unlikely that the government will get much out of the
IMF/European Commission.
From the perspective of the trade union movement
there is precious little comfort. Eamon Gilmore’s claim that coalition
with Fine Gael would give Labour the opportunity to defend workers seems
a little hollow in the light of his support for the government’s new
pension levy, ostensibly to support the government’s jobs initiative.
While there may be clear differences between the
outlook of Fine Gael and Labour behind the scenes, workers are going to
be most interested in what the government actually does. The problem for
Gilmore is that there is no room for manoeuvre, no space for reforms
that might be sold to working people. The Labour leaders have walked
into a trap. Over the next few years they will be hung out to dry by
Fine Gael. Labour will end up carrying the can, when in reality Labour
should be leading the opposition to Fine Gael, alongside those lefts in
the Dáil who are prepared to build a united front against the IMF/EU austerity programme.
The next few years will also be a period of
intensified class struggle internationally and across the island of
Ireland. There will be big pressures building up within the trade union
movement and among the youth which will need to be expressed
politically. That means that the stresses and strains within Labour will
inevitably increase, but it also means that the ideas of Marxism will
gain an increasing echo.
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