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Hailing with an Invisible Hand: A ‘Cosy’ Political Dispute amid the Rise of Neoliberal Politics in Modern Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

George Taylor
George Taylor*
Affiliation:
University College Galway
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Extract

As Christmas 2000 Approached In Dublin There Appeared Little prospect that its citizens would avoid the annual rigmarole associated with securing a safe passage home after an evening out. Anaesthetized by now to forecasts of an integrated transport system the envy of Europe, this was a public that had become weary. As for getting a taxi home, there are few it seems who by now could not recount to you their own little horror story: two-hour vigils at a taxi rank in the rain had become firmly ensconced within the mythology of the Celtic Tiger. And yet, as with so many other anecdotes of this period, they would have to vie for our attention in a conversation space crowded with incredulous descriptions of Dublin's morning gridlock, its escalating house prices or political and financial embezzlement.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 2002 , pp. 501 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2002

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References

1 Irish Times, 30 November 2000.

2 The Irish Times, for example, noted that ‘the bully boy tactics traditionally employed by the powerful taximen’s lobby should not dissuade the Government, and especially the Progressive Democrats, from vindicating the rights of the citizens to an efficient and cost-effective transport service’. It was a cartel, the paper went on to add, that had been sustained by ‘restrictive rules and regulations and should be broken up and open competition introduced …’. Irish Times, 18 November 2000.

3 In 1998 the government initiated the full deregulation of the télécoms sector with the privatization of Telecom Eireann. Regulation now resides in the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation which is charged with ensuring fair competition. Its remit now extends to a programme to ‘unbundle the local loop’, issue Ireland’s third GSM mobile phone licence and disclose the conditions for awarding the third generation mobile phone services. Reform of public sector transport will prove a thornier branch to grasp. While there have been moves to address the regulation of Irish airports with a view to changes in airport charges, handling services and the licensing of Irish airlines, the proposed privatization of the state-owned airline, Aer Lingus, has been delayed. Proposals to introduce competition for franchises for public bus services and the restructuring of railways have all been mooted, but government will face strong and determined opposition from the public sector unions. See Green, R., ‘Structural Reform in Ireland: Deregulation and the Knowledge-based Economy’ (mimeo), National University of Ireland, Galway, 2001, p. 13.Google Scholar

4 As a result of the restrictions on the number of taxi licences issued, a complicated and expensive transfer system had developed. In some instances, and if those cited in the media are to be believed, taxi plates had exchanged hands for sums in excess of £100,000. In order for owners to offset the investment in plates a form of landlordism developed whereby many opted to employ ‘cosies’ to drive the car when the owner was not working.

5 O’Donnell, R., ‘Social Partnership in Ireland: Principles and Interactions’, in O’Donnell, R. and Larragy, J. (eds), Negotiated Economic and Social Governance and European Integration, Proceedings of the Cost A7 workshop Dublin 24th and 25th May, 1996, European Brussels Commission, 1998.Google Scholar

6 The recent initiative to construct a public pension fund from the proceeds of past and future privatizations and an annual contribution of 1% of GDP from the exchequer for the foreseeable future spring to mind. Or, those moves taken to encourage people into low-paid work with the retention of welfare benefits and medical cards. And yet, the picture is clouded further by the fact that, while there is undoubtedly considerable sympathy for free market solutions to Ireland’s difficulties, there are areas such as industrial policy where there is a view that there should be ‘continued provision of some direct state supports’. R. Green, ‘Structural Reform in Ireland’, p. 13.

7 Taylor, G., Negotiated Governance and Public Policy in Ireland, Galway, Centre for Public Policy, National University of Ireland, 2002.Google Scholar

8 Much of the recent reforms of the Irish Civil Service, for example, have been influenced by New Public Management ideas about public service provision. There has been an increase in the use of agencies or new independent bodies to administer much of what was traditionally undertaken by departments. That this trend continues, and that it has been influenced by international developments, is confirmed by recent statements from government that it is exploring the possibility of constructing a new agency/authority to run the state examinations system at secondary school level. It was a move justified on the grounds of best international practice but was undoubtedly motivated by the protracted and often acrimonious dispute with a teaching profession that had threatened to remove supervision for the national examinations.

9 For example, under the terms of the most recent National Development Plan a considerable emphasis has been placed upon exploring the use, wherever possible, of public/private partnerships. The government identified areas such as waste management, roads, light rail projects and water as suitable areas in which the private sector could ‘share the risks and rewards of providing services’, Public Private Partnerships in Ireland, Dublin, Department of Finance, 2000.

10 MacSharry, R., White, P. and O’Malley, J., The Making of the Celtic Tiger: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Boom Economy, Dublin, Mercier Press, 2000, p. 62.Google Scholar

11 A. Dukes, cited in R. MacSharry et al., ibid., p. 77.

12 Ibid., p. 46.

13 See Hay, C., ‘Crisis and the Structural Transformation of the State: Interrogating the Process of Change’, British Journal of Political Science and International Relations, 1:3 (1999), p. 319.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 320.

15 P. Schmitter, cited in C. Hay, ibid, p. 320.

16 Ibid., p. 320.

17 Ironically, it may well be that at the very moment of crisis a greater level of cohesion and unity within the state is achieved as it attempts to alter or transform its constituent elements. Ibid., p. 321.

18 See Block, F., Revising State Theory: Essays in Post-industrialism, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1987.Google Scholar The latter may subsequently prove decisive in terms of the transformation of the system (either because it maintains the stability or exacerbates its latent contradictions), ibid., p. 325.

19 Within this view of crisis it is possible to suggest that the ‘degree of systemic failure conditions different responses by the state’, that a conjunctural crisis implies the deployment of management failure responses which may achieve (albeit temporarily) system stability. However, should these symptoms persist then there will be an accumulation of contradictions and steering problems which will ‘precipitate a fully fledged condition of state and economic failure’, ibid., p. 331.

20 Ibid., pp. 320–24.

21 This is not that far removed from Hay’s position since he succinctly observes that: ‘the process of narration operates through the discursive “recruiting” of policy failures, and the lived experience to which they give rise, as symptoms of a crisis of the state. The discursive construction of crisis can thus be seen as a process of abstraction and narration in which the disparate effects of a great variety of independent policy failures and contradictions are brought together in a unified, and deeply political, crisis discourse …’, ‘Crisis and Structural Transformation’, p. 333.

22 For an overview of this literature and the development of a framework see Dolowitz, D. and Marsh, D., ‘Who Learns What From Whom: A Review of the Policy Transfer Literature’, Political Studies, 44:2 (1996), pp. 343–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Learning From Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy Making’, Governance, 13:1 (2000), pp. 5–25.

23 Marsh, D. and Rhodes, R. A. W., Policy Networks in British Government, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The paper argues that policy is not somehow devised by civil servants acting simply at the behest of ministers. This is not to suggest that policies do not often carry the imprint of a particular minister or that they bear the scars of apolitical crisis. Rather, the overall trajectory of apolitical project is shaped and constrained by the structural conditions of capitalism which pervade both national and international levels.

24 See P. Pierson, ‘Big, Slow-Moving, and … Invisible: Macro-Social Processes in the Study of Comparative Politics?’ Paper presented to American Political Science Association, Washington, 30 August—2 September 2001.

25 See C. Hay, ‘Crisis and Structural Transformation’.

26 Offe, C., ‘Smooth Consolidation in the West German Welfare State: Structural Change, Fiscal Policies, and Populist Politics’, in Piven, F. F. (ed.), Labour Parties in Post-Industrial Societies, Cambridge, Polity Press;Google Scholar Jessop, B., ‘The Welfare State in the Transition from Fordism to post-Fordism’, in Jessop, B., Kastendick, H., Nielsen, K. and Pedersen, O., The Politics of Flexibility, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1991.Google Scholar

27 We need look no further than the recent ill-fated budget presented by Charlie McCreevy, Minister for Finance, toward the end of 1999 which generated improved tax benefits three times greater for those on higher incomes. However, it is also important to recognize that these are issues not confined to education or labour market policy but resonate in other areas of reform such a environmental policy, civil service reform, housing, health insurance or public transport.

28 O’Connell, P. and McGinnity, F., Working Schemes? Active Labour Market Policy in Ireland, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1997.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 25.

30 Considerable debate persists about whether ALMPs are as effective as their proponents suggest, or that they have contributed as significantly to the resurgence in the economy as their supporters would have us believe. Calmfors, for example, has argued that if compensation levels are high then they may have the effect of increasing wage levels. See Calmfors, L., ‘Active Labour Market Policy and Unemployment — A Framework for the Analysis of Crucial Design Features’, OECD Economic Studies, 22, Paris, OECD, 1994, pp. 7–47.Google Scholar In addition, there is considerable scepticism about whether such schemes contain high levels of dead weight — that is, where reductions in unemployment would otherwise have been achieved without the existence (and therefore attenuated cost) of such schemes. As O’Connell and McGinnity observe, while some material would suggest that (ALMPs) do have an impact upon wage moderation and improve job creation, the OECD’s research would appear to be more circumspect. A cross-national survey conducted by the OECD found that of 21 countries studied, active labour market expenditures was negatively associated with economic growth. It is a view with which Calmfors concurs, suggesting that such programmes should be only one among a number of policies designed to alleviate the problems of unemployment.

31 Such a low level of training was unlikely to ‘counteract the accumulated educational and labour market disadvantages of the majority of long-term unemployed’ and that it was a ‘policy choice which favours high volume programmes at the expense of quality and effectiveness’, P. O’Connell and F. McGinnity, Working Schemes?, p. 142.

32 A Strategy for the 21st Century, Dublin, National Economic and Social Council, 1996, p.192.

33 In Ireland, the research of O’Connell and McGinnity offers a more up-beat assessment. In their opinion, and providing that a distinction is made between active labour market policies which are market-oriented (skills training and employment subsidies) and those which are not, such schemes have the potential to improve the employment prospects of participants), Working Schemes’?, p. 121. However, even at this point they concede that there are groups within the unemployed (women and the long-term) who face particular difficulties associated with uneven representation and access to schemes. The problem resides not in the criteria for eligibility, but in the procedure in which candidates are selected. What occurs is a process of ‘creaming off’, where administrators, faced with the unenviable task of managing the limited places available with the numbers of unemployed, opt for those candidates more likely to succeed. As a consequence, the long-term unemployed and other disadvantaged groups are not only ‘marginalised in the labour market, they are also disadvantaged in selection for réintégration programmes …’, p. 122.

34 See Tansey, P., Ireland at Work, Oak Tree Press, Dublin, 1998, p. 234.Google Scholar Recent budgets have responded to this by strengthening the Back to Work Allowance scheme for the long-term unemployed over the age of 23. This scheme allows those returning to work to retain 75% of their existing benefits for the first year, 50% for the second and 25% for the third and final year. Attracting no income tax or PRSI deductions, it is a scheme which has proved attractive, with numbers rising from 10,000 in 1996 to 27,000 in 1998.

35 NESC, A Strategy for the 21st Century. It was a welfare philosophy which underpinned the Youth Progression Programme (YPP) in 1996 whereby after 6months, continued eligibility for Unemployment Assistance benefits depended on registration for YPP. NESC was of the opinion that given the huge waste in human potential there could be little justification for not applying supportive conditionality to other categories of the unemployed. Indeed, it suggested that the targeting of schemes should be closely allied to this form of conditionality in order to offset the potential for dead weight.

36 The scheme operated between October 1999 and May 2000.

37 Dolowitz, D., Learning From America: Policy Transfer and the Development of the British Workfare State, Brighton, Sussex Academic Press, 1998;Google Scholar Mead, L., Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship, New York, The Free Press, 1986.Google Scholar

38 For Kilkenny 808 people were referred of which only 81 did not attend. Of these, 63 subsequently signed off the live register.

39 While the language in which supportive conditionality is expressed may differ, it is hard to deny that it has considerable similarities with the ideas espoused by those such as Mead who has argued that welfare recipients have an ‘obligation to the benefits they are receiving, to have some notion of reciprocity such as other Americans encounter… the rest of us work in order achieve our income ... it is necessary… that the poor do the same’, L. Mead cited in D. Dolowitz, Learning from America, p. 51.

40 N. Scott, cited in D. Dolowitz, op. cit., p. 95; emphasis added.

41 Hay, C. and Marsh, D. (eds), Demystifying Globalisation, London, Macmillan, p. 4.Google Scholar

42 A. Busch, cited in C. Hay and D. Marsh, ibid., p. 3, emphasis added.

43 Ibid, p. 9.

44 Ibid, p. 9.

45 This author was invited to give an interview for one of Ireland’s television organizations to provide an explanation of events surrounding the taxi-drivers’ dispute. The reporter seemed rather confused as I attempted to explain the ‘gist’ of what I have just written about in two minutes. As far as she was concerned, I had quite clearly lost the plot, insisting that this was ‘going out at six o’clock (as if the time should alter the nature of the explanation) and that, ‘didn’t I realise, I had about ten seconds’.