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Quality, not just quantity.

by Village 29 December, 2014

Don’t forget the biggest lessons of the last 20 years (editorial Nov 2014) November’s Village contains several disconcerting pieces about the state of housing and the property market (Michael Smith on the new Planning Bill [p 26], Paul Newsome on our obsession with Landlordism [p38] and Ronan Lyons on the social imperative to reduce costs for beleaguered young purchasers [p24]). Meanwhile a whole generation of first-time buyers is reeling from recent news that the Central Bank will require lenders demand prohibitive 20% deposits before purchase. We need dynamic solutions. Nevertheless, clearly caution is necessary. We need to avert the danger of repeating our calamitous property bubble and remember what it was like at its now embarrassing height: it’s not so long ago that bubble apartments were selling for more than €400,000 in the Gas Works development near Google’s South Dublin headquarters, and bicycles had to be stored on balconies – evoking in one image our inattention to ‘liveability’. Ronan Lyons makes the ostensibly persuasive case that Dublin City Council’s policy of trying to maintain elevated standards for apartments undermines the beleaguered first-time buyer and those on below average pay. John O’Connor, chief executive of the agency set up to advise the Government on housing policy and help local authorities provide housing, is urging Dublin City Council to reduce permitted sizes of one-, two- and three- bedroom apartments to restart construction and make homes more affordable. He is also seeking the introduction of a category of ‘studio’ rental apartments that could be 40sq m – more than 27 per cent smaller than the smallest one-bed apartments allowed by the council, and similar to the lowest sizes allowed in the late 1990s – the average floor area of an apartment granted permission in the first quarter of this year was 96.9sq m. The smaller units would suit a “young mobile workforce”, Mr O’Connor has said. A study commissioned in 2007 when the dust was settling from the first shocks of the crash after a decade of boom, ‘The Changing Face of Dublin’s Inner City’, belies the wisdom of the standards-reducers for it suggests low standards create social ghettos and risk leaving a legacy of slums: “The repopulation of Dublin’s inner city since the onset of urban renewal policies in the early 1990s was as swift as its previous decline. Between 1991 and 2006, its population grew by exactly half. A survey undertaken by the Society of Chartered Surveyors in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin found that the residents of the new inner city dwellings are largely single persons, childless couples or students (92%), a mere two per cent of residents surveyed had children and the residents were generally young (average age 27 years) and well-educated (74% have achieved a degree or professional qualification). Serious questions have to be asked about the long-term sustainability and particularly about the prospects of these complexes developing into stable communities. By virtue of the high proportion of one-bedroom apartments in most of the new developments, the accommodation that has been created is inherently unsuitable for accommodating families. The physical constraints of the vast majority of recent developments effectively imposes the perpetuation of an ever transient population, making it impossible for community relationships to develop. There is a distinct danger that at least some of these developments will become the slums of tomorrow, especially if there should be a serious downturn in Ireland’s economic fortune. What has emerged from this period of rapid expansion is an inner city residential community that is now clearly divided between those traditionally living in public housing and the new residents located in private apartments, with limited interaction between the communities and more apparent differences in wealth and poverty at a neighbourhood level”. Another survey suggested very few of the ‘blow-ins’ in new apartment developments had any loyalty to the area, or expected still to be living there in two years. Lyons betrays his market-orientation in his assumption that builders must add their standard rate of profit to the price enhanced by the heightened standards. Builders, many of whom were bailed out by the state or went bankrupt owing money to the state or others, made supra-normal profits during the boom. Let’s bring down the profits to sustainable levels. Alternatively the lessons of twenty years of tax incentives, for anyone prepared to listen – to take the public rather than a private interest – is that incentives of any sort, and the government is mooting a range of incentives, must be linked to a clear message of quality standards for developers. Build housing with sustainable materials, adequate green and public space, appropriate aspects, appropriate mix of retail, commercial and residential, and an appropriate percentage of social housing and get a generous tax benefit. Or … Build the sort of housing which creates ghettos – of class or family type – and get fiscally hammered. Ireland has a dysfunctional development ethos with most local authorities facilitating over 70% of their developments as one-off housing in the middle of the countryside, an anti social antipathy to high-density (high rise is another matter) in our towns and cities, unwanted sprawl into Counties Meath, Wicklow and Kildare; and the death of rural towns and villages. This should not blind official voices who know the virtues of high density, high-quality development served by excellent infrastructure and public transport, to the imperative to keep standards high and developments socially-balanced and integrated into the community, in our towns and cities. Follow Village on Twitter

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News

Safe pair of hands

by Village 29 December, 2014

Laura Harmon is on the phone when I meet her outside the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Trinity College. She finishes, apologises gratuitously, and we make our way into the Arts block to locate an empty lecture theatre. A sensor notes our presence and the lights beam into action as we find seats at a desk on the podium – a vantage point Harmon is likely to be quite familiar with from her campaigning. I’ve interviewed a number of student sabbatical officers and have been often struck by how invariable and institutionalised their answers tend to be. Will Harmon be any different? To open, I ask her how good she thinks the Irish education system is. Her answer surprises me: “we have a very good education system in Ireland – certainly”. Mentally I note that only Trinity is ranked in the top 100 universities in Europe according to the most recent QS rankings (UCD ranked 139, UCC 230, NUIG 280, DCU 366). For a president of a lobbying body that has been so critical it seems an unnecessary concession. I ask Harmon how important she thinks USI is to students in Ireland. “I certainly think that we need to ask ourselves if we didn’t have a national students’ union what position would we be in”. With fees [‘contribution charges’] having risen by €250 during each of the last three years, it’s a question that UCD students were asking when they voted to leave the USI last year. Harmon claims that student supports were protected “by and large” in the budget, something that she thinks wouldn’t have occurred if USI hadn’t been lobbying for it. USI doesn’t get too involved in secondary education but she says she would “personally favour transition year to occur after the Leaving Cert so that you could get support and tutoring through that year and a lot of career guidance”. She agrees with former Eduation Minister Ruairi Quinn that philosophy should be taught in schools. She’s strong on student loans: “In Ireland in particular we have very high levels of personal debt as it stands so I don’t think that a loan scheme would be the option. Graduates already pay, on average, 75% more tax during their lifetimes than non-graduates so a graduate tax would, I think, create an intergenerational inequality as well where you have graduates, now, who wouldn’t be paying that graduation tax and when you introduce it you’d have a new cohort of grads who would be paying a much higher tax band than anyone else and I think it could act as a disincentive to go to third-level education”. In terms of educational exemplars, the Nordic model is a repeating conversational reference in line with her self-description as a “social democrat” (one who has “no party I particularly want to sign up with right now”). Germany and Scotland, as other providers of free third-level education, are also mentioned. As to how free third-level education might be funded, Harmon argues that, even at present, free education is possible and could be achieved by “progressive taxation” and strict tax enforcement so that the likes of Apple pay “the amount of tax they should be paying”. No doubt this is fair, if easily populist, but I want to know what makes her leadership any different from past USI leaders’. She humbly believes that that is for others to decide but believes her successful election “seems to have been because I’m a campaigner, I work hard for the causes which motivate us and I’m straightforward”. That characteristic doesn’t come across in our interview and I’m reminded of past encounters with student leadership. Later, I offer her the opportunity to differentiate herself by asking if she favours equality of opportunity or equality of outcome and what she believes the role of private money has in the provision of education. Harmon believes that without equality of opportunity you cannot achieve equality of outcome as you “miss out on a cohort of people who can’t access the system”. Many on the left would claim something very different – that equality of opportunity fails to address the inherited inequalities that make the equality of the opportunity less meaningful. As to private money, while initially she states that “ideally you have to have it all completely public if you’re going to create real equality of opportunity for everyone”, she later amends this to “private colleges offer a choice and a valuable option – and the diversity of options for students keeps the quality up in the private and public sectors”. Harmon is no slave to the iconoclastic traditions of USI. Middle Ireland can sleep comfortable in the knowledge that its educational system is not under threat from the leadership of its most influential student body. •

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Editorial

Watered down (Editorial November 2014)

by Village 27 December, 2014

If a policy goal is legitimate it is legitimate to use taxation to further the policy. It is legitimate to tax junk food, to tax plastic bags and waste, and to tax water. It is not double taxation to impose charges for any of these any more than it is to exact road tax or bus fares. And all are legitimate. This message has been lost as Ireland’s water tax has been introduced in a furtive and unprincipled (Hoganesque) way and then altered in ways that make it useless. The water charge should have been a substitute for a component of income tax. Indeed income tax hits the ‘good’ of work in general, and there should be a move towards taxing ‘bads’, like water profligacy. The problem is that many people simply cannot pay the tax – and that established State systems can deal more equitably with people who can’t pay income tax than new charges. Furthermore there is concern that there is an agenda to privatise the company, which was established partially to circumvent EU rules on government borrowing, though squeezing the charges may import non-compliance. Pathetically it has been mooted that privatisation would be precluded by constitutional amendment, though Enda Kenny has sensibly ruled it out. Rather than such a random and ad hoc referendum, how much better to constitutionally enshrine that all natural resources must be owned in ways compatible with the pubic interest, or that all decisions should be assessed for their compatibility with improved equality in society. Worse even than not making the principle clear or fair had been the way the bureaucrats were allowed to go ahead and set up Irish Water without strict scrutiny at every stage. Consultants were over-paid and still extract €1m weekly. Bonuses were made available to underperforming staff – €9,000 even to those “in need of improvement”. By the time the State company was ready the costs involved meant that the charges for water were going to be far steeper than anybody had anticipated. And the Regulator has set Irish Water a target of only a paltry 8% in cost reductions over the next few years. The percentage is low because it is obliged to maintain double the necessary 2,000 workforce inherited from local authority staffs, until 2025 – following a deal with unions. John FitzGerald of the ESRI has said the extra wages and other costs for the 2000 extra staff amount to around €150m a year, or an extraordinary €90 per household. Irish Water’s unimpressive managing director John Tierney – former Dublin City Manager, the acme of local government – has now apologised to customers for the bungling. No Minister has apologised, though the issue now threatens governmental stability. The country is on the march over the issue. Richard Boyd Barrett says the people sense blood. As the Irish Times’ Fintan O’Toole has noted: “It’s an expression of anger about bigger things: command-and-control politics; trust-me-I’m-an-expert arrogance; rotten, feckless disregard for the realities of life at the bottom of the heap; the feeling that nobody gives a curse how you live or what you think. It’s about injustice, and it’s justified. The recent budget was the fourth regressive budget in a row. This has nothing to do with ‘austerity’. The ‘austerity’ budgets under Fianna Fáil between 2008 and 2011 were mildly progressive – they hit the better-off harder than the worst-off. But every budget under Fine Gael and Labour (Labour!) has quietly reversed this trend”. Originally it had seemed a home made up of two adults and two children under would be spending about €370 a year but Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has now indicated that he expects imminent changes to the charges to make them “modest” (and opaque). They will probably be capped at around €300 a year per household until 2018. €100 will be rebated to households through the tax or social welfare systems, leaving around €200 (€100 for single-adult homes). But this was an issue that should have been uncontroversial. Fintan O’Toole has asked “How much political brilliance does it take to persuade the population that it is necessary to change a water supply system that leaves whole cities (Galway) and almost entire counties (Roscommon) without drinkable water for long periods? That wastes through leakage half of all the expensively treated water it produces?”. He might have noted also that, for example, of the 2,450km of pipes in Dublin only 7km was being upgraded annually and that under the disparate local-authorities there was little chance of diverting the Shannon in the direction of the capital, as seems necessary to maintain supplies. Furthermore metering is important because multiple studies show 16 per cent less water is used when metered. Irish Water does make sense. The controversy may show that in contemporary Ireland if you betray principle you risk derision, dissent and disrespect. If you compound it with spendthrift incompetence, unfairness, short-termist populism and bad communication you deserve nothing but the contempt of the citizenry. It is however too much to expect that someone would actually promote the charge as the best of some bad options, and point to a fair vision, based on a radically improved policy, not just half apologies and hypocritical U-turn. •

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Economy

Hiding, not ending, austerity.

by Village 27 December, 2014

By Sinéad Pentony. Budget 2015 was inequitable, with the balance of taxation measures disproportionately benefiting middle and high earners. Rather than cutting taxes for higher earners it would have been fairer to begin reversing some of the cuts from previous budgets. Reversing cuts in social welfare and public services, especially in the areas of disability and mental health could have been prioritised. Budget 2015 signals the Government’s clear intention to pursue an economic policy based on a low-tax and low-spend model. This means continuing with low levels of taxation and spending compared to other European countries. Public expenditure and capital investment could have been used as a key driver of economic growth rather than tax cuts. Budget 2015 was trumpeted as bringing an end to austerity. The reality may be that it is just making it less visible. There were few surprises in Budget 2015. The Government had publicly set out its plans in broad terms in the lead up to the budget. The improving macro-economic context and the fact that this is the second last budget before the next general election clearly influenced the decision-making process. The Department of Finance forecasts a growth rate of 4.7% in 2014 and 3.9% in 2015. On the basis of these growth rates, and other positive news on exports, employment and unemployment, it is predicted that the deficit target of 3% will be reached with some comfort. The Government is aiming for a deficit of 2.7% of GDP, which allowed it to loosen the purse strings by just over €1bn. Our debt level is still extremely high and it can only become sustainable with strong growth and low interest levels. While both of these indicators are positive in the short term, the medium-term picture is much less clear. This means we should be strengthening public finances and ensuring the economy can grow sustainably into the medium term. Our public finances remain fragile. A decision to expand the economy through tax cuts is very short-sighted. There is much debate about the level of taxation, especially income taxes, in Ireland but considering the overall level of taxation, Ireland remains a low-tax country. This will be re-enforced by the taxation decisions in Budget 2015. The Nevin Economic Research Institute Quarterly Economic Facts (Autumn, 2014), shows that our overall tax take in 2013 was 35.9% compared to 45.7% for the EU as a whole (Chart 1). The main taxation and charges measures in Budget 2015 are summarised below: • A cut in income tax from 41% to 40% and the standard-rate threshold increased by €1,000. This will reduce the tax take by €405 million (in a full year). These changes are regressive and disproportionately benefit high earners. • Changes in the USC include increasing the entry point to the Universal Social Charge to just above €12,000; reducing the 2% and 4% USC rates by 0.5%, to 1.5% and 3.5% respectively; introducing a new 8% rate for earners over €70,000; and an 11% rate of USC for self-employed income in excess of €100,000 to limit the benefits of these changes for the top 10% of earners. These changes will reduce the tax take by €237 million in a full year and will benefit most earners. • Water charges are being introduced on the basis of consumption which is regressive. Budget 2015 will give tax relief (€40million), but this will only benefit those earning enough to have an income tax liability. • Increases in excise on cigarettes and an extension in betting duty will increase revenue by €78 million. • Budget 2015 introduced €80 million in new tax breaks for corporations. The ‘Double Irish’ will be phased out in 6 years time and a ‘knowledge box’ will be introduced. Government expenditure is the other side of the budgetary equation. In 2013 our Government expenditure was 42.9% of GDP compared to an EU (28) average of 49% of GDP. Budget 2015 expenditure measures include: • An overall increase in expenditure of almost €640 million which is modest, but a welcome change from the last six years of cuts in spending. • Increases in the current spending of €428 million which includes health, education, environment, community and local government. • Partial reinstatement of the Christmas bonus for social welfare recipients and €5 increase in Child Benefit. • Increase in capital spending of €210 million targeted at education, health, social housing and other areas. • The biggest capital spending announcement was a package of measures worth €2.2 billion for social housing for the next three years, which includes Public Private Partnerships and an off-balance sheet financial vehicle for investment to Approved Housing Bodies. • Much of the other spending is aimed at dealing with increased demand for public services as a result of demographics – a growing and ageing population. This means there will be very little by way of investment in these essential public services. While increases in public expenditure and investment are welcome, the detailed Budget 2015 document shows a planned reduction in public investment (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) between 2014 and 2018. However, the Government plans to increase public investment ‘off the books’ through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, which will have almost €7 billion to invest over a number of years. While this will increase the overall level of public investment in infrastructure, Ireland will continue to lag behind EU levels of investment because the current level of investment is almost half the European average (see Chart 2). The opportunity to borrow money for investment at a time when interest rates have never been lower, and the rate of return would be significantly higher than the cost of borrowing, is being missed. It is clear that the Government’s priority is to ‘balance the books’ by 2018 instead of front-loading investment to address the infrastructural deficits that may impede sustainable growth and competitiveness in the medium term. This approach to managing the public finances illustrates the absence of a vision for the economic and social development of the

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Latest

Out comes equality.

by Village 26 December, 2014

By Niall Crowley. Inequality is in vogue – from a recent editorial in Village calling for equality of outcome, to Thomas Piketty – extensively covered in this magazine – to academics such as Piketty and Wilkinson and Pickett, and – surprisingly – to conservative institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Standards & Poor ratings agency. Even Janet Yellen, US Federal Reserve Chair, professes concern about income inequality. “The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority”, she said last month. She went on: “It is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history”. She set out no strategy for advancing equality and identified no goals for equality. While recognising that inequality is a problem many of the commentators may not actually want equality. And if they do it may be equality of opportunity rather than anything more disruptive to their established comfort zones. Equality of opportunity is about fairness not equality. It seeks to ensure that everyone has access to some minimum standard – social-welfare safety nets for example. It aims to ensure that, after this, the competition for advantage is fair and without discrimination. The problem with equality of opportunity is that it sits easily with persistent inequality, as long as it is the product of fair competition. It takes no account of differing capacities to compete (to get the opportunity in the first place!) due to legacies of inequality and discrimination. Village went with Janet Yellen in moving away from an economic case for equality to base the case on values. It usefully identified equality as an ‘ethical not an economic imperative’. This is in contrast to all the commentators cited above whose concerns are for economic equality and who focus exclusively on the manner in which resources are distributed. Historically, in times of economic crisis we focus on poverty and economic inequality. In boom times we tend to focus on identity and the inequalities constructed around it such as gender, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and age. Why must it be one or the other? Both are equally important and you don’t get to solve one form of inequality without solving the other. We could start with an acknowledgement of diversity as a predictor of economic inequality. The pay gap between women and men stands at a striking 13.9%, for example. Unemployment too is a function of diversity. Travellers experience an 84.3% unemployment rate. And wealth. People with disabilities experience a 17.6% rate of consistent poverty. Equality of outcome depends on breaking down generic figures to address the particular experience and situation of specific groups. Beyond this we need to recognise the different interconnected FORMS of inequality. Village’s mission statement, dutifully framing the contents page of every edition refers to “resources, welfare, respect and opportunities”. Inequality of power and influence transects most of these. Women for example only make up 15% of Dail representatives, for example. Inequality of status and standing tends to stereotype and sideline young people, women, Black and minority ethnic people and older people. Inequality of respect drives high levels of homophobic bullying in schools. Equality of outcome needs to embrace power and influence, status and standing and respect as well as resources. Reflecting this, the former Equality Authority set out four interlinked objectives for equality in its strategic plan: “Redistribution, involving access to resources and economic activity; Representation, involving access to decision making and capacity to organize; Recognition, involving an acknowledgement and a valuing of different identities, experiences and situations of the groups experiencing inequality; Respect, involving an underpinning of the interdependence and mutual support aspects of human welfare”. We need to go further and also establish a vision for a society that encompasses all these dimensions. In other words we need to define the scope of equality of outcome, and then promote it. Amartya Sen valuably promoted the vision of a “flourishing” society. This is a society where people and communities have the capabilities to achieve their full potential and to live lives they have reason to value. Equality of outcome is not about some mathematical sameness but about real choices between real options, for people. •

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Politics

Toxic PDs: The compromised ‘party of conscience’ merits continuing scrutiny.

by Village 23 December, 2014

By Frank Connolly. (November 2014) It should come as little surprise that a former Progressive Democrat minister is among those named in the dossier on tax evasion compiled by Gerry Ryan, the civil servant who has been investigating the Ansbacher files since 1998 and whose inquiry was closed down by then Tanaiste, Mary Harney, in 2004. After all, Mary Harney and the PDs had plenty of form in this regard during their power-sharing years with Charles Haughey in the late 1980s and then with Bertie Ahern from 1997. Indeed, her seat at the table was barely warm when Harney was forced to grapple with her conscience as it was confirmed that her cabinet table colleague, Ray Burke, had taken large chunks of cash during the general election of 1989 leading to his resignation that Autumn and the establishment of the Flood tribunal. Of course, Harney was familiar with such shenanigans as she presided over an inconclusive internal inquiry into an alleged donation to the PDs during the same election that went to fund the campaign of their Waterford candidate, Martin Cullen, rather than to the central party coffers – much to the chagrin of local fundraisers. In 1998, she had the misfortune of making ill-advised comments to the Irish Independent about the integrity or otherwise of the party’s original adversary, Haughey; and her comments resulted in a decision that the former Taoiseach could not be prosecuted for his improper receipt of over €1 million from retailer Ben Dunne and related matters. This was the same year that the explosive Ansbacher documents landed on her desk and when she appointed Ryan to investigate them. The papers revealed how more than 200 members of the Irish business and political elite, including senior FF, FG and PD ministers, used the complex offshore mechanism to avoid tax from 1977 until 1995. In early 1999, Harney muttered a few words about her “conditional” loyalty to the Ahern government after EU commissioner, Padraig Flynn, imploded on the Late Late Show over the 1989 €50,000 donation by Tom Gilmartin to Fianna Fáil which ended up in the then minister’s personal bank account. She was particularly nervous as Gilmartin had dragged Ahern into the affair by claiming to have met him on a number of occasions and had informed him in 1989 about the missing Flynn donation. Having crossed this particular hump, Harney was forced to agonise again early that summer when it emerged that Joe Burke, a friend of Ahern’s, had intervened to help secure the early release of Philip Sheedy, an architect serving a sentence for killing a woman in a road incident. Two judges, including Supreme Court member, Hugh O’Flaherty, fell on their swords but the summer recess and the victory of Harney’s conscious once again kept her on board. In February 2000, Mary Harney gave an undertaking the authorities would carry out a comprehensive investigation into anti-competitive practices at CRH, but this has never happened. Patrick Massey, then head of the Competition Authority, resigned his position that very same month stating: “it is no longer possible for me to continue as director of competition enforcement due to the failure to provide adequate resources to enable me to do the job properly. My experience has convinced me that price-fixing cartels represent a serious widespread problem in this country…the resources available are wholly inadequate for carrying out the sort of complex and highly intensive investigations that are required to obtain evidence”. Massey went on to say, “certain complaints made to me in recent months involve matters that would occupy four or five staff full-time for the best part of a year. I simply do not have such staff resources and given the very real concerns expressed to me by the complainants as to the consequences for them if the matter is not pursued properly, I have concluded that it is simply not possible to pursue the matter”. In 2004, during her second term as Tánaiste and as she left her position as enterprise minister, Harney decided to terminate the Ryan investigation followed another torrid few years of controversy not least as the Moriarty and Flood/Mahon tribunals continued to uncover extraordinary details of corrupt behaviour by FF, FG and PD politicians and as the latter inquiry came closer to unravelling the convoluted financial affairs of the then Taoiseach going back to the late 1980s. When she aborted the investigation, it was not known of course that among the suspected tax evaders was one of her party colleagues and a (former) minister but it did not go unnoticed that she had an apparent aversion to investigating the affairs of Ireland’s largest corporate monopolist and a central player in the Ansbacher affair, Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH). At the time, Vincent Browne wrote; “Among the plethora of recurring self-regarding proclamations Mary Harney makes about herself [‘anyone who knows me…..’] is the boast that she and her party are committed to taking on monopolies and freeing up the market for the benefit of the Irish consumer. And indeed, this government has taken on goliaths such as taxi drivers, bus workers and now airport employees. But when it comes to the big boys – and especially when it comes to the biggest boy of all, the most gigantic monopoly in the history of the state, construction conglomerate Cement Roadstone Holdings [CRH] – it’s a different tune”. This is no doubt surprising for many who believed that the company with which her party’s nemesis had such a close connection would surely be good hunting territory for the uber-ethical PDs. The links between Roadstone and the former FF leader stretched back to the 1960s when his father in law, Sean Lemass, was chairman of Roadstone which went on to become CRH. In 1969, Roadstone Ltd sold 80 acres of land to Haughey, then Minister for Finance, for £120,000. In 1973, Haughey sold 17.5 acres of that land back to CRH for £140,000. Within four years, Haughey had made a net profit of £20,000

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Politics

Preferendum preferable.

by Village 22 December, 2014

By Peter Emerson. Preferendum: The received wisdom “The electorate might be bewildered”, declared Gerard Hogan, the lawyer (now judge), in the 1996 Whitaker Constitutional Review; “The referendum system”, he continued, “has worked well in practice”. This was written after the bitter divorce referendum of 1995, the vicious 1991/2 plebiscites in the Balkans, and the fractious 1973 Northern Ireland Border Poll. “[Preferendums] would cause chaos”, exclaimed Garret FitzGerald, former Taoiseach (1999, in a UCD seminar on decision-making). Allowing the people to choose, he continued (I paraphrase), would bring back the rope, ban income tax… chaos. “They would mean the end of party politics as we know it”, declared Rodney Rice, a journalist; (c. 2000, in private conversation). “It is my moral responsibility to decide what the options should be”, confirmed Liz McManus, another politician; (meeting with the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, in the runup to the 2002 abortion referendum). “Problem is preferendum favours status quo”, tweeted Professor David Farrell, (responding to Conor O’Mahony’s Irish Times article on abortion polls, 30.8.2014). Antipathy from both the media and academia prevails in the North too. Despite numerous presentations, workshops and publications by the de Borda Institute, the media do not even mention multi-option voting; and Lord Paul Bew for example, professor and adviser to the Belfast Agreement, once said. “I don’t understand the preferendum”. Six wrongs. Alas, many believe that, “democracy works on the basis of a decision by a majority” (per the Whitaker Report again); as if all decisions, if based on a ballot, must be subject to a – simple or weighted – majority vote. But… “What has happened here today should be reported and repeated”, said Michael D Higgins, TD, now President (1991, in his key-note speech at a public meeting in Belfast where, with electronic voting, the preferendum was tried and tested). One right, but a big one… The problem Politicians achieve their goals by first controlling the debate: they choose the question: it’s yes-or-no, and in most cases, the question is then the answer. Preferential voting would reduce that monopoly manipulation. People cast preferences when voting in elections; why not, then, when making decisions? The solution In multi-option decision-making: • the electorate (or their representatives) formulate the options which, if need be, independent commissioners edit to a (short) list of up to six balanced options: (in an abortion debate, this could be two pro-choice, two pro-life and one or two compromises). • when agreed to, this list forms the basis of a Modified Borda Count, MBC, a preferendum. • those concerned then cast (one, some or all of) their preferences on the options listed; and the higher the preference, the more the points. • the result is the option with the most points; if everyone casts a full list of preferences, the outcome is the option with the highest average preference, which of course involves every voter, not just a majority of them. Some countries do use multi-option referendums: Australia, Sweden, Uruguay etc. In most, however, including Ireland and Britain, politicians reduce complex problems to a dichotomy. Many fractious issues could have been, or still could be, resolved by MBC. How it would work: the ongoing abortion conundrum in Ireland Before the 2002 abortion referendum, the Government had outlined seven possible options but still, in the vote, it was yes-or-no. The motion was defeated by less than 1%: a combination of some who thought it too liberal and others who thought it not liberal enough. “The people have spoken!”, declared Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. “Well”, de Borda asked in a letter to the Irish Times, “what did they say?” De Borda had suggested five options which it now reiterates for the evolved circumstances of 2014: (a) Absolute ban subject to indirect abortions; (b) Abortion permissible when necessary to save the life (but not to prevent the suicide) of the mother; (c) Abortion permissible when necessary to save the life of the mother, (and this includes the prevention of suicide); (d) Abortion permissible under (c) and also to protect the physical and/or mental health of the mother; and (e) liberal regime as in Sweden. An MBC procedure for the abortion (or any other major) issue could be as follows. The Dáil would appoint an independent commission which then receives submissions from the public, allows all relevant proposals, and draws up a (short) list of 4 – 6 options. Next, the people cast their preferences. Then, subject perhaps to certain minima – e.g., in Denmark, the turnout must be 40% plus – the Government enacts the outcome, i.e., the Executive executes the will of the people. That’s their job. That’s democracy. In an MBC of, let us assume, six options: • he who casts only one preference gives his favourite option just 1 point; • she who casts, say, three options gives her favourite 3 points, (her 2nd preference 2 points and her 3rd preference 1 point); • while those who cast all six preferences give their favourite 6 points, (their 2nd preference 5 points, their 3rd preference 4 points, and so on). Success therefore depends on a good number of high preferences, a few middle ones perhaps, but very few low ones. So the wise protagonist will try to persuade her erstwhile opponents to give her option not a fifth or fourth, but a third or even higher preference. In other words, the MBC encourages dialogue. No-one votes against. They vote only for, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Furthermore, as implied above, voters are (not forced but) encouraged to submit full ballots. Those who do thus recognise the validity of all the various options. The MBC is indeed inclusive. What’s more, as recognised in the science, it is more accurate than any majority vote. A multi-option abortion debate would almost certainly be more civilised and sophisticated than any polarising two-option contest. Secondly, because the outcome would probably be the 1st preference of many, the 2nd preference of some, and maybe the 3rd preference of a few

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Politics

Blue-sash elitism.

by Village 22 December, 2014

By Lynn Boylan, MEP. I am just over four months into my new role as a Member of the European Parliament and beginning to settle in, though I’m shocked by some of the sense of entitlement around here. Sinn Féin is a member of the GUE/NGL Group which is a confederate group committed to a more socially equitable and peaceful Europe. Sinn Féin’s track record in GUE/NGL was helpful in securing committee positions for me in the Parliament and it also ensured that all four Sinn Féin MEP’s secured our preferred ten Parliament Committees. The fact that Sinn Féin can now cover such a broad range of issues will be of huge benefit to Ireland. I had set out my priorities during the election as being employment and workers’ rights. Given the growing inequalities in Ireland and the driving down of workers’ conditions and rights, it was imperative that Ireland have a left MEP on the Employment and Social Affairs Committee. I am a member of the working group for the European Globalisation Fund through this Committee. The fund is to help redundant workers. It has been controversial in Ireland due to the Government’s mismanagement of monies allocated. The most infamous case was the Dell Workers in Limerick, where 40% of the funds allocated to support them getting back to work were returned due to mismanagement. This cannot be allowed to happen again. I will be monitoring Irish applications coming through the committee for approval. Even in the short time I have been on this working group it is clear that some countries are accessing the fund far more than Ireland. They include countries that were not as hard hit by the economic crisis. I have participated in a Youth Panel Discussion organised by the Europe Youth Forum. I put forward a strong argument for the need to revisit the Youth Guarantee and to ensure that it is adequately funded, has real achievable goals and is not just a box-ticking exercise. I met Jonathon Taylor, Vice President of the European Investment Bank in July. I was interested to know as to why Ireland has such a poor record on drawing down EIB funds which could be used to invest in jobs. I also intend to discuss the possibility of the periphery countries getting the funds on a 75/25 ratio rather than the current 50/50 ratio My background as an ecologist, and the six years that I spent on the Board of Safefood, have been a real bonus for my work on the Environment and Public Health Committee. I am currently working on two reports. The first report concerns genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and a Member State’s ability to ban them. I hope to ensure that any regulations introduced will be robust and will stand up to legal challenges from industry. The regulations must provide for long-term studies of GMO crops that will not only look at health risks but will also take into account possible impacts on biodiversity. The second report concerns the increasingly widesepread use of nano-technology in food – which is becoming increasingly widespread. In both of these reports the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) is central. Yet there are concerns as to how independent the EFSA is. A recent Eurobarometer poll showed that 41% of the public distrusts scientists because of their links to industry. Measures must be put in place to restore public confidence in this key body. I have drawn the incoming Commissioner’s attention to this. Unlike the adversarial nature of the Dáil, the work of an MEP is carried out in Committees and through winning support for proposed amendments to legislation. I look forward to putting my negotiation skills to the test. On a more personal note, in terms of the institution itself and my first impressions I have to admit to being taken aback by the trappings of elitism there is around MEPs. The recent recommendation for MEPs to wear a blue sash with gold tassels during plenary is laughable and, as someone who believes in equality for all, the notion of an MEP being ‘entitled’ to skip the queue in the coffee dock is obscene. One would have to question how desperate you have to be for a coffee that you would use the ‘’Do you know who I am?” line. The separate blue-carpeted runway entrance for MEPs is equally offputting and I am firmly of the opinion that the entrance that is good enough for my assistant is certainly good enough for me. It is far from blue carpet runways and blue sashes with gold tassels that I was reared.•