In recent years it has become increasingly popular to use the phrase "Ireland Inc." when describing the fortunes of our little island nation. At all levels of public debate you can hear people giving their two cents on what is good or bad for "Ireland Inc.": from Questions and Answers to the kitchen table. However, I have felt for some time that this is one of the most insidiously damaging phrases ever to be peddled around the Irish media.
The metaphor of "Ireland Inc." is built on the understanding that Ireland, like a company, must be run according to strict business principles if it is to succeed in an increasingly competitive global market. At first glance this seems like a pretty reasonable suggestion, but it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of both Ireland and the institution of a company. Companies are designed to take risks in business and maximise shareholder return. That is all they are designed to do; they do not have any other meaning or function. It is a mechanism which developed over the course of the nineteenth century in order to permit people to take risks in business without losing their shirt. It has been a remarkably successful mechanism and its prevalence across the globe is testament to that.
But think for a moment about what the goals and practices of a company are. Companies are driven by the need for profit. In order to achieve that, companies seek efficiencies and greater productivity in order to get the edge on their competition. As a way of using resources to the best possible extent, this seems fair enough. Increased efficiency and productivity sound like very good things. However, bear in mind, that this efficiency doesn't just apply to things that come out of the ground or manufacturing techniques. It applies to humans too. If someone is not good at their job they get fired. Within the context of business that's acceptable; necessary even. However, translate the metaphor to the country as a whole for a moment. If Ireland really was a company, who would we sack? The old? Definitely. The Sick? Of Course. Children under fourteen? Don't need them. None of these people make a meaningful contribution to the economic well-being of our company; they are a drain on resources and so we should dump them.
Suddenly the metaphor doesn't seem like such a magnificent explanation of what we expect the Irish Government to do. Public services are not private businesses, nor should they be. There are reasons why we provide them centrally for everyone. On an economic security level, ensuring that everyone has a certain basic standard of living makes the whole country more stable. But there is more to it than that. We provide public services because it's the right thing to do and because Ireland is not a company; it's a society. A society of 4 million people can be hard to comprehend, so I understand why people need metaphors, but if a metaphor is needed, then far better to look at Ireland as a family.
Much like a company, a family has limited resources and it wants to make the most of them. However, unlike a company, the membership of a family cannot be changed in order to improve efficiency. If your brother is a bit slow or your granny has angina, you're stuck with it and you have to find a way to deal with it. Also, unlike a company, a family (hopefully) does not spend its entire time obsessing about the competition. A family is a microcosm of the society as a whole. There is a very good reason why it is the family and not the limited liability company which is described as the 'natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society' in Article 41 of the Constitution.
In some instances, our public services need to be made more efficient. In some cases, the people working in them could work a little harder and some others could do with being paid a little less. I understand why people talk about "Ireland Inc." when it comes to this issue and the issue of shoddy management of the economy. However, describing it as "Ireland Inc." fragments the issue, because it implies that the only motive in running a society is the creation of wealth. This is nonsense. The society as a whole requires efficient public services and it requires good economic management, but that is not all that it requires. It requires an understanding of the myriad needs and goals of the people who live in it. It requires a genuine commitment to ensuring the welfare of all within the society. These are the fundamental purposes of a government and efficiency is only a means to those ends.
This might seem like a platitude, but it is important. We have at present a government which is totally and utterly lacking in vision for the country. This is a government that thinks public finances and the economy are the same thing and yet also can't tell the difference between an economy and a society. Describing Ireland as a family and not a company is the sort of shift in thinking that could inspire real vision about how to build our country for the future.
Something like 'Teaghlach na hÉireann" would be a vastly superior replacement for "Ireland Inc." (although it is unfortunate that monikers of this type have been hijacked by those bloodthirsty lunatics who insist on murdering our protestant brothers and sisters to the North). A new metaphor would help to establish that we are all in this together, just like a family: rich and poor, public sector and private sector, Fianna Fáil voter and Labour Youth. We are all in this together and the sooner we realise that, the sooner we can start to heal our nation and grow as a society.
One final thought on why "Ireland Inc." should be dispensed with: it is factually inaccurate as a matter of Irish company law. Companies use one of two suffixes after the their names, neither of these is "Inc.". Companies either use "PLC" or "Ltd", depending on how they're organised. "Ireland Limited" sounds a little less shiny and efficient, however apt a description it might be of our current situation.
Saturday 4 April 2009
Wednesday 16 January 2008
Bertie's Taxes and Timelines
It seems that the big political scandal of the week is the fact that our dear leader cannot get the revenue commissioners to give him a tax clearance certificate, the (far-fetched) implication being that since he needs one to be a TD, he may have to give up his Taoiseachship. I have a few thoughts on this point but I'm also very interested in how it relates to the broader issue of when Bertie really is going to go.
The opposition were up in arms this week about Bertie not being able to get the hallowed tax clearance cert. Some hay was made of the fact that they brought it up while Ahern was off in South Africa and I think it is fair to say that the attack would have been better if it had been made while he was in the country, or ideally in the Dáil. However there is certainly a good deal of merit to the issue. Unfortunately, the opposition and Enda Kenny in particular have overplayed it and ended up looking hysterical.
There is merit in the issue because the rules about tax clearance certificates are there for a very good reason. Ireland has an appalling history of tax evasion that goes right to the highest levels of government. There is nothing unreasonable or unfair about requiring TDs to prove that they are tax compliant, and even if there was something unreasonable or unfair about it, it is the law of the land and as such TDs and Senators must comply with it. There is no other group of people who are constitutionally mandated to pass laws, so it is perfectly acceptable that they should abide by the laws they have passed. Both ethically and legally, Bertie Ahern is under an obligation to prove that he has paid his taxes. However, the revelations this week have shown that he is not in a position to do so. Billy Kelleher had a fatuous rant on Questions and Answers on Monday about how only the Revenue Commissioners can decide if a person is tax compliant. They do this by issuing a tax certificate, which they have refused to do in this case, so I think we can take it that Bertie owes them (and by them I mean us, the taxpayers) a few bob. The holder of the most powerful office in the land must comply with the law, not just in relation to providing a tax cert, but he must pay his taxes like the rest of us. That is the central issue here and it is one that Bertie must address if he is to be taken seriously as a leader.
Where the opposition have shot themselves in the foot is by demanding a resignation over this. They ditched Bertie's finances as a political issue in the run up to the election and yet they are now seeking to make political capital out of it. That undermines their credibility seriously. If this is an issue that is big enough to topple a sitting Taoiseach, it's worth mentioning in an election campaign. Furthermore, even if their credibility on this issue was in better shape, calling for a resignation is over-egging the pudding. Political capital can be made here, but not that much. The best thing to have done would have been to call upon the Revenue Commissioners to fast track Bertie's tax assessment, make him get the tax cert as quickly as possible and then once it was done, nail him with questions about the nature of his tax settlement. There is no reason to think that the Revenue wouldn't be prepared to do this and, more importantly, it forces Bertie to resolve the outstanding ethical and legal issue. That way, the opposition could portray themselves as a moral watchdog, keeping Bertie on the straight and narrow by forcing him to do what he should have done himself. By ranting on about resignations and votes of no confidence they are doing nothing other than play to the gallery. I'm sure that keeps the party leaders sweet in the eyes of the faithful, but Gilmore just got his job unopposed and Kenny's position looks secure in the medium term. There is a much greater need for them to sell themselves to the electorate generally than to impress their own supporters with their aggressive rhetoric.
Following on from all of this, there is the issue of when Bertie is going to quit. He has always said that he'd go when he was 60, which is in September of 2011. However, the promise to leave only really became concrete in the last 18 months or so, since he repeatedly stated that 2007 would be his last general election. There was no need for him to do this. He could easily have dismissed his previous comments about leaving when he was 60 as aimless musings on his future. There seems to be no indication that he was under any pressure from within Fianna Fail to go. Unlike Tony Blair, to whom he is often compared in this regard, Bertie did not have a Gordon Brown figure waiting in the wings, desperate to take over. All in all, he was a popular leader of both his party and his country who had been remarkably successful in both roles for a decade. So why commit himself, in advance to leaving? It served no clear and obvious political purpose. Would he not have been better off to stay put until he felt like leaving? He could have gone in 2009, 2011 or, if he had won the next election 2015. There is little precedent for party leaders to give advance notice of a plan to step down and certainly there was no expectation of it. The question a lot of us are asking is why would Bertie intentionally cut short his own term of office?
However, perhaps this tactic is not designed to cut his term of office short. It may indeed be designed to prolong it. There can be no doubt that Bertie knew well in advance of the 2007 election that the Mahon Tribunal intended to look into his personal financial affairs and that there would be political fallout from that investigation. Even if nothing had been leaked to the Irish Times in September 2006, this information would all have made its way into the public domain over the course of 2007 when the tribunal questioned the Taoiseach.
There were always going to be two camps on this issue. The tribal nature of Irish politics is such that it was inevitable that a fault line would develop between the 'leave poor Bertie alone' tribe and the 'this unethical conduct makes the man unfit for office' tribe. The former are driven by the will to defend Bertie and the latter by the will to see the back of him. Bertie's prior commitment to leave office before 2011 changes the approach of both of these camps. The pro-Bertie side knows that it will not have to defend him indefinitely, since he already has one foot out the door. The anti-Bertie side has trouble getting the middle ground to support calls for his resignation since he's going anyway. The early announcement of his departure has totally shifted the ground upon which the Mahon Tribunal issues are being played out. By promising to leave during the term of this Dáil, Bertie has ensured that he will get to choose the point at which he goes. Had he not done so, there is a strong possibility that he would have been pushed out already by critical opposition forces and backbenchers who did not want to defend him against allegations of corruption indefinitely.
He obviously wants a few more trips on the merry-go-round. He wants to address both houses of Congress and I think there is some weight to the suggestion that he wants to be the European President. The Mahon Tribunal could have dashed both of those aspirations. By making his prior commitment to go, Bertie may well have dodged a bullet. This may seem a slightly fanciful theory, but consider for a moment the strength that Enda Kenny's calls for a resignation this week might have had if we were faced with the prospect of Bertie continuing on ad infinitum. Kenny may not have succeeded under such circumstances, but it seems likely that he would have got more support for his position. Maybe Bertie's plan to leave isn't as inexplicable and foolish after all.
The opposition were up in arms this week about Bertie not being able to get the hallowed tax clearance cert. Some hay was made of the fact that they brought it up while Ahern was off in South Africa and I think it is fair to say that the attack would have been better if it had been made while he was in the country, or ideally in the Dáil. However there is certainly a good deal of merit to the issue. Unfortunately, the opposition and Enda Kenny in particular have overplayed it and ended up looking hysterical.
There is merit in the issue because the rules about tax clearance certificates are there for a very good reason. Ireland has an appalling history of tax evasion that goes right to the highest levels of government. There is nothing unreasonable or unfair about requiring TDs to prove that they are tax compliant, and even if there was something unreasonable or unfair about it, it is the law of the land and as such TDs and Senators must comply with it. There is no other group of people who are constitutionally mandated to pass laws, so it is perfectly acceptable that they should abide by the laws they have passed. Both ethically and legally, Bertie Ahern is under an obligation to prove that he has paid his taxes. However, the revelations this week have shown that he is not in a position to do so. Billy Kelleher had a fatuous rant on Questions and Answers on Monday about how only the Revenue Commissioners can decide if a person is tax compliant. They do this by issuing a tax certificate, which they have refused to do in this case, so I think we can take it that Bertie owes them (and by them I mean us, the taxpayers) a few bob. The holder of the most powerful office in the land must comply with the law, not just in relation to providing a tax cert, but he must pay his taxes like the rest of us. That is the central issue here and it is one that Bertie must address if he is to be taken seriously as a leader.
Where the opposition have shot themselves in the foot is by demanding a resignation over this. They ditched Bertie's finances as a political issue in the run up to the election and yet they are now seeking to make political capital out of it. That undermines their credibility seriously. If this is an issue that is big enough to topple a sitting Taoiseach, it's worth mentioning in an election campaign. Furthermore, even if their credibility on this issue was in better shape, calling for a resignation is over-egging the pudding. Political capital can be made here, but not that much. The best thing to have done would have been to call upon the Revenue Commissioners to fast track Bertie's tax assessment, make him get the tax cert as quickly as possible and then once it was done, nail him with questions about the nature of his tax settlement. There is no reason to think that the Revenue wouldn't be prepared to do this and, more importantly, it forces Bertie to resolve the outstanding ethical and legal issue. That way, the opposition could portray themselves as a moral watchdog, keeping Bertie on the straight and narrow by forcing him to do what he should have done himself. By ranting on about resignations and votes of no confidence they are doing nothing other than play to the gallery. I'm sure that keeps the party leaders sweet in the eyes of the faithful, but Gilmore just got his job unopposed and Kenny's position looks secure in the medium term. There is a much greater need for them to sell themselves to the electorate generally than to impress their own supporters with their aggressive rhetoric.
Following on from all of this, there is the issue of when Bertie is going to quit. He has always said that he'd go when he was 60, which is in September of 2011. However, the promise to leave only really became concrete in the last 18 months or so, since he repeatedly stated that 2007 would be his last general election. There was no need for him to do this. He could easily have dismissed his previous comments about leaving when he was 60 as aimless musings on his future. There seems to be no indication that he was under any pressure from within Fianna Fail to go. Unlike Tony Blair, to whom he is often compared in this regard, Bertie did not have a Gordon Brown figure waiting in the wings, desperate to take over. All in all, he was a popular leader of both his party and his country who had been remarkably successful in both roles for a decade. So why commit himself, in advance to leaving? It served no clear and obvious political purpose. Would he not have been better off to stay put until he felt like leaving? He could have gone in 2009, 2011 or, if he had won the next election 2015. There is little precedent for party leaders to give advance notice of a plan to step down and certainly there was no expectation of it. The question a lot of us are asking is why would Bertie intentionally cut short his own term of office?
However, perhaps this tactic is not designed to cut his term of office short. It may indeed be designed to prolong it. There can be no doubt that Bertie knew well in advance of the 2007 election that the Mahon Tribunal intended to look into his personal financial affairs and that there would be political fallout from that investigation. Even if nothing had been leaked to the Irish Times in September 2006, this information would all have made its way into the public domain over the course of 2007 when the tribunal questioned the Taoiseach.
There were always going to be two camps on this issue. The tribal nature of Irish politics is such that it was inevitable that a fault line would develop between the 'leave poor Bertie alone' tribe and the 'this unethical conduct makes the man unfit for office' tribe. The former are driven by the will to defend Bertie and the latter by the will to see the back of him. Bertie's prior commitment to leave office before 2011 changes the approach of both of these camps. The pro-Bertie side knows that it will not have to defend him indefinitely, since he already has one foot out the door. The anti-Bertie side has trouble getting the middle ground to support calls for his resignation since he's going anyway. The early announcement of his departure has totally shifted the ground upon which the Mahon Tribunal issues are being played out. By promising to leave during the term of this Dáil, Bertie has ensured that he will get to choose the point at which he goes. Had he not done so, there is a strong possibility that he would have been pushed out already by critical opposition forces and backbenchers who did not want to defend him against allegations of corruption indefinitely.
He obviously wants a few more trips on the merry-go-round. He wants to address both houses of Congress and I think there is some weight to the suggestion that he wants to be the European President. The Mahon Tribunal could have dashed both of those aspirations. By making his prior commitment to go, Bertie may well have dodged a bullet. This may seem a slightly fanciful theory, but consider for a moment the strength that Enda Kenny's calls for a resignation this week might have had if we were faced with the prospect of Bertie continuing on ad infinitum. Kenny may not have succeeded under such circumstances, but it seems likely that he would have got more support for his position. Maybe Bertie's plan to leave isn't as inexplicable and foolish after all.
Thursday 13 December 2007
Clientism in Irish Politics
Like many people, I have long bemoaned the clientism which is seemingly endemic in Irish politics. It has two central manifestations, both of them negative. First, ministries are divvied up on the basis of geography not talent and constituencies with a minister get far more than their due. As a result, the likelihood of a candidate getting a portfolio becomes a big reason to vote for them. This is obviously a much bigger issue outside of Dublin, but Lord knows Dublin has its own problems. The second issue is that politicians in Ireland have an almost pathological concern with local issues. We all know Tip O'Neill's famous line about how all politics is local, but in Ireland we take that principle further than most.
The difficulties with clientism are substantial and they pose serious barriers to the overall development of Irish society. Everything from public infrastructure, to de-centralisation to sports grants is informed to an unhealthy degree by the issues raised by a TD's local constituents. While this makes sense for the locale, it becomes difficult to devise national strategies on national issues, because local politics always wins out. Road building and public transport are both acute examples of this. In Dublin, it is manifested in the lack of any real overall planning for the city and its catchment area as a whole; the four local authorities squabble it out and occasionally a minister will unveil some big plan. (The Transport 21website boasts a plan to increase the Dublin Bus service by 60% but absolutely no detail whatsoever on where this extra capacity will be deployed.)
Thanks to clientism, the national spatial strategy was rendered useless by the increasingly defunct de-centralisation plan. Our recent health service crises are thanks in no small part to the consistent refusal of Irish politicians to bite the bullet and implement the Hanly report. You can't have a hospital of the size and quality of St Vincent's or Beamount in every town in Ireland. It's not only financially unrealistic, but the hospital wouldn't see enough patients to maintain any useful level of expertise. Everyone knows this, and yet, time and time again, local hospital candidates get a huge showing in elections.
My point here is not really to give out about clientism, although I realise that I have now spent three paragraphs doing just that. I want instead to focus on its cause. I had, for a very long time thought that the root of this problem was a combination of two factors, the dominance of the civil war parties in Irish political life and the Irish culture of backslapping and glad handing. The theory goes as follows: The two main political parties in Ireland (FG & FF) have 128 out of 166 seats (over 75%). There is very little to distinguish them on policy, and so their TDs and Councillors have made their careers by being deft traders in favours. This theory doesn't really account for how clientism became so big in the first place, but it does account for its continuing success.
I am however, beginning to accept that there may be a third factor which has to be taken into account: the multi-seat STV constituency. I am a huge believer in proportional representation. I think it gives our system a democratic legitimacy that it totally lacking in the US or the UK (where I currently live). However, the multi-seat constituency, means that party colleagues are essentially rivals. Often a general election candidate will have far more to fear from a surge in support from her running mate than for someone from an opposing party. It is as though the parties respective shares of the vote are almost assumed and so the candidates are scrambling for the biggest slice of their party's pie that they can get. In such a situation, personal favours matter much more than policy proposals, since the policies of the two candidates are ostensibly identical. Furthermore, this is not just a phenomenon that occurs at election time. As Lemass was reputed to have said, 'the next campaign starts the day after the election'. Throughout the life of any Dáil TDs will be focused on this goal.
John Bowman once noted that a British election is like 600 simultaneous games of draughts whereas an Irish election is like 43 simultaneous games of chess. There is a lot of truth in this and I for one derive great enjoyment from Irish elections and their many fascinating permutations. While Irish politics is arguably more rife with clientism than any other European country, it is also probably fair to say that British politics is very low on this particular vice. It is certainly possible that the electoral systems play some part in this. If we really want to see a national politics in Ireland instead of the mishmash of local interests that is so prevalent at the moment, perhaps we need to address the part that our system plays in this. I am not for a moment suggesting that we should introduce a first past the post system, but a different PR model, might be worth a think.
The difficulties with clientism are substantial and they pose serious barriers to the overall development of Irish society. Everything from public infrastructure, to de-centralisation to sports grants is informed to an unhealthy degree by the issues raised by a TD's local constituents. While this makes sense for the locale, it becomes difficult to devise national strategies on national issues, because local politics always wins out. Road building and public transport are both acute examples of this. In Dublin, it is manifested in the lack of any real overall planning for the city and its catchment area as a whole; the four local authorities squabble it out and occasionally a minister will unveil some big plan. (The Transport 21website boasts a plan to increase the Dublin Bus service by 60% but absolutely no detail whatsoever on where this extra capacity will be deployed.)
Thanks to clientism, the national spatial strategy was rendered useless by the increasingly defunct de-centralisation plan. Our recent health service crises are thanks in no small part to the consistent refusal of Irish politicians to bite the bullet and implement the Hanly report. You can't have a hospital of the size and quality of St Vincent's or Beamount in every town in Ireland. It's not only financially unrealistic, but the hospital wouldn't see enough patients to maintain any useful level of expertise. Everyone knows this, and yet, time and time again, local hospital candidates get a huge showing in elections.
My point here is not really to give out about clientism, although I realise that I have now spent three paragraphs doing just that. I want instead to focus on its cause. I had, for a very long time thought that the root of this problem was a combination of two factors, the dominance of the civil war parties in Irish political life and the Irish culture of backslapping and glad handing. The theory goes as follows: The two main political parties in Ireland (FG & FF) have 128 out of 166 seats (over 75%). There is very little to distinguish them on policy, and so their TDs and Councillors have made their careers by being deft traders in favours. This theory doesn't really account for how clientism became so big in the first place, but it does account for its continuing success.
I am however, beginning to accept that there may be a third factor which has to be taken into account: the multi-seat STV constituency. I am a huge believer in proportional representation. I think it gives our system a democratic legitimacy that it totally lacking in the US or the UK (where I currently live). However, the multi-seat constituency, means that party colleagues are essentially rivals. Often a general election candidate will have far more to fear from a surge in support from her running mate than for someone from an opposing party. It is as though the parties respective shares of the vote are almost assumed and so the candidates are scrambling for the biggest slice of their party's pie that they can get. In such a situation, personal favours matter much more than policy proposals, since the policies of the two candidates are ostensibly identical. Furthermore, this is not just a phenomenon that occurs at election time. As Lemass was reputed to have said, 'the next campaign starts the day after the election'. Throughout the life of any Dáil TDs will be focused on this goal.
John Bowman once noted that a British election is like 600 simultaneous games of draughts whereas an Irish election is like 43 simultaneous games of chess. There is a lot of truth in this and I for one derive great enjoyment from Irish elections and their many fascinating permutations. While Irish politics is arguably more rife with clientism than any other European country, it is also probably fair to say that British politics is very low on this particular vice. It is certainly possible that the electoral systems play some part in this. If we really want to see a national politics in Ireland instead of the mishmash of local interests that is so prevalent at the moment, perhaps we need to address the part that our system plays in this. I am not for a moment suggesting that we should introduce a first past the post system, but a different PR model, might be worth a think.
Cocaine in Ireland
I am finding the smug moralising about cocaine in Ireland a little hard to take. I am not for an instant trying to detract from the tragedy of the recent drug related deaths. They are horrible and my heart goes out the families of those who died. What I find hard to stomach is the reaction to it. There is a broad consensus on a number of points, all of which need to be challenged and further examined. They are: 1) Taking cocaine is as dangerous as shooting yourself in the face 2) deaths from cocaine are the problem that needs tackling 3) the middle classes have just recently started taking drugs and cocaine is their drug of choice and 4) Tougher criminal sanctions are the way to solve the problem. Dear reader, here are my thoughts on each of these:
1) Undoubtedly taking cocaine is not good for you. The extent of its detrimental impact is however a subject of very widespread speculation, some of it totally misleading. Yes, it is possible to die the first time you take cocaine. This is also true of peanuts and strawberries. What is missed in all the hysteria is that the chances if dying the first time you take cocaine are inordinately slim and that everything in life involves some element of risk.
I'm not doubting the sincerity of those who propound the 'the first time you take cocaine could be the last thing you do' argument. I am however doubting how realistic this is. Apart from the statistical fudging involved in this line, it is ultimately extremely unhelpful. People who are never going to go anywhere near taking drugs in their life will hear arguments like this and be further reassured that the choices they have made in life are excellent. Fair play to them. People who are likely to take drugs, or are currently taking drugs and likely to develop a serious problem with them will blithely ignore ridiculous comments about how one line can kill you. Once people have had their first cocaine experience, this argument no longer applies to them. Those who are doing drugs regularly and are not seeing any immediate health effects are not going to be convinced to desist and, in fact, are quite likely to see it as evidence that the anti-drug lobby are all talking nonsense. We need to convince those at risk of developing an addiction to stop. Hysterical unrealistic rhetoric gets us nowhere.
2) While deaths from drugs get headlines, they are in reality only a very tiny part of the problem. For as long as we are focused on overdose deaths and 'gangland shootings', we are detracting attention from the problems of addiction that impact on a much wider number of people. Addiction causes serious health problems for many people but also depression, financial trouble, relationship breakdown etc etc etc. None of these things are quite as eye-catching as the death of someone young and beautiful, but this is the real, day to day, impact that drug use has on society.
The truth is that people who have never taken drugs or been anywhere near drug culture don't seem to understand that developing an addiction is rarely an instantaneous process. It's not as if someone shares a gram of cocaine with four friends on a Friday and is living in the gutter on a Monday morning. I would even go so far as to suggest that most people who take drugs for the first time are unlikely to end up with a severe habit down the line. I know very few people who haven't tried an illegal drug at least once and I only know a handful who are at any risk of forming an addiction. Can my experience really be all that unique?
The crucial question is how can we stop people from crossing that line from casual use into unhealthy addiction? Yes it would be lovely if people didn't take drugs, but they do, and every effort made to stop them, throughout the entire course of human history, has been an unmitigated failure. Focusing on that line between occasional drug use and addiction is the key to reducing the problems caused by drugs in society.
3) The middle classes have been using drugs for years. And yes, that includes heroin. I know of quite a few instances of people who had every advantage in life and still ended up as heroin addicts. It is very convenient to paint heroin as a poor person's drug, because that way we can ignore it in the same way that we ignore everything to do with poor people. (And no, I'm not going to use some patronising term like 'disadvantaged'; being poor is extremely unpleasant and euphemisms only serve to disguise the problem.)
Even leaving heroin aside, I know for a fact that all the posh south Dublin schools had an ample supply of drugs during the 1990s. I know this because I attended one during that period. Granted, cocaine was a little out of reach at the time, but cannabis and ecstasy were freely available. I'm sure most of us remember the moral panic about ecstasy about 12-13 years ago. A lot of this latest debate is beginning to sound a bit familiar. So yes, while the middle classes in Ireland are now taking cocaine, that does not mean they haven't had their fair share of drug abuse for donkey's years (and that's without even mentioning alcohol).
4) The law and order approach to drug addiction is preposterous. The same people who know nothing about drug use and spout forth on how one line can kill your are invariably the same people who call for tougher sentences more enforcement and so on and so forth. They don't like it and they want it gone. They see law enforcement as a sort of eradication technique. This fundamentally misunderstands the limits of the law. Politicians worldwide and Irish politicians in particular have a preposterous habit of promising legislation every time something goes wrong. It makes them seem powerful and relevant but it is often a waste of time. Does anybody remember the Irish ASBO legislation? It still hasn't been used over a year later.
There are things that the law is good at and things that it is bad at. Bringing about a fundamental shift in behaviour across an entire society is not one of its strong suits. The assumption that tougher sentences will impact on the activities of people at the upper echelons of the drug trade is patently absurd. As the hysterical set keep reminding us, these people are shooting each other on a weekly basis. If the risk of getting murdered is not deterring drug dealers from their chosen line of work, what chance has a minimum ten year sentence got? The deterrent effect of prison on drug dealers is a myth without any factual basis.
As with the 'one line will kill you' argument, the tougher penalties point is not merely unproductive, it is counter-productive. Putting people in prison costs a huge amount of money. The amount of residential detox care for drug addicts in Ireland is embarrassingly small. More resources for prisons means less resources for taking people out of addiction.
It is clear that Ireland has a drug problem. No one with any sense would deny that. However, the nature of the problem and the most effective response to it are far from clear and there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situation. I am not going to re-rehearse the trite arguments about how drugs should be legalised here, although I do agree with them in principle. I would however make two points about the legalisation debate. First, as much as it is true to say that it is illogical to make alcohol legal and criminalise other drugs, it is simply not feasible for Ireland to act alone. We have gone too far down the road of globalisation to be the only country in the world where all recreational drugs are available legally. The fallout for our society would be appalling. However, since we are members of the EU, it is certainly worth using the justice and home affairs pillar as a mechanism for floating the idea of an EU-wide legalisation.
Secondly, it is often suggested that drugs should remain illegal because of the inherent danger they pose to society. This argument is fatuous and unimaginative. It is fatuous because many many many things are dangerous and they are not illegal (hang gliding jumps instantly into my mind). The argument is unimaginative because there is more than one way of dealing with something that is a danger to society. Take contract law for example. If there was no confidence in the enforceability of contracts, the entire world economy would collapse overnight. However, breaking a contract is not a crime. Yes the law permits an aggrieved party to take a private claim in such a situation, but there is no role for the criminal law. Why should it be assumed that criminalisation is the only way to deal with drugs?
Irish society has changed very dramatically in the past 15-20 years. But even despite that change, our long history of alcohol abuse and alcoholism is indicative of something in our community that has a propensity for substance addiction. Perhaps we have a spiritual deficit; this could be why we latched onto Catholicism so aggressively for so long. Perhaps we are just not very good at being happy with things as they are and so we search for external factors to make us happier. Whatever the underlying malaise in Irish society is, it is this unhappiness that is as the root of all our addiction problems and our recent frisson with cocaine. This is a monumentally difficult issue to address, but getting started on it would be far more helpful than all the trite lecturing that has been passing for a debate on the subject in recent weeks.
1) Undoubtedly taking cocaine is not good for you. The extent of its detrimental impact is however a subject of very widespread speculation, some of it totally misleading. Yes, it is possible to die the first time you take cocaine. This is also true of peanuts and strawberries. What is missed in all the hysteria is that the chances if dying the first time you take cocaine are inordinately slim and that everything in life involves some element of risk.
I'm not doubting the sincerity of those who propound the 'the first time you take cocaine could be the last thing you do' argument. I am however doubting how realistic this is. Apart from the statistical fudging involved in this line, it is ultimately extremely unhelpful. People who are never going to go anywhere near taking drugs in their life will hear arguments like this and be further reassured that the choices they have made in life are excellent. Fair play to them. People who are likely to take drugs, or are currently taking drugs and likely to develop a serious problem with them will blithely ignore ridiculous comments about how one line can kill you. Once people have had their first cocaine experience, this argument no longer applies to them. Those who are doing drugs regularly and are not seeing any immediate health effects are not going to be convinced to desist and, in fact, are quite likely to see it as evidence that the anti-drug lobby are all talking nonsense. We need to convince those at risk of developing an addiction to stop. Hysterical unrealistic rhetoric gets us nowhere.
2) While deaths from drugs get headlines, they are in reality only a very tiny part of the problem. For as long as we are focused on overdose deaths and 'gangland shootings', we are detracting attention from the problems of addiction that impact on a much wider number of people. Addiction causes serious health problems for many people but also depression, financial trouble, relationship breakdown etc etc etc. None of these things are quite as eye-catching as the death of someone young and beautiful, but this is the real, day to day, impact that drug use has on society.
The truth is that people who have never taken drugs or been anywhere near drug culture don't seem to understand that developing an addiction is rarely an instantaneous process. It's not as if someone shares a gram of cocaine with four friends on a Friday and is living in the gutter on a Monday morning. I would even go so far as to suggest that most people who take drugs for the first time are unlikely to end up with a severe habit down the line. I know very few people who haven't tried an illegal drug at least once and I only know a handful who are at any risk of forming an addiction. Can my experience really be all that unique?
The crucial question is how can we stop people from crossing that line from casual use into unhealthy addiction? Yes it would be lovely if people didn't take drugs, but they do, and every effort made to stop them, throughout the entire course of human history, has been an unmitigated failure. Focusing on that line between occasional drug use and addiction is the key to reducing the problems caused by drugs in society.
3) The middle classes have been using drugs for years. And yes, that includes heroin. I know of quite a few instances of people who had every advantage in life and still ended up as heroin addicts. It is very convenient to paint heroin as a poor person's drug, because that way we can ignore it in the same way that we ignore everything to do with poor people. (And no, I'm not going to use some patronising term like 'disadvantaged'; being poor is extremely unpleasant and euphemisms only serve to disguise the problem.)
Even leaving heroin aside, I know for a fact that all the posh south Dublin schools had an ample supply of drugs during the 1990s. I know this because I attended one during that period. Granted, cocaine was a little out of reach at the time, but cannabis and ecstasy were freely available. I'm sure most of us remember the moral panic about ecstasy about 12-13 years ago. A lot of this latest debate is beginning to sound a bit familiar. So yes, while the middle classes in Ireland are now taking cocaine, that does not mean they haven't had their fair share of drug abuse for donkey's years (and that's without even mentioning alcohol).
4) The law and order approach to drug addiction is preposterous. The same people who know nothing about drug use and spout forth on how one line can kill your are invariably the same people who call for tougher sentences more enforcement and so on and so forth. They don't like it and they want it gone. They see law enforcement as a sort of eradication technique. This fundamentally misunderstands the limits of the law. Politicians worldwide and Irish politicians in particular have a preposterous habit of promising legislation every time something goes wrong. It makes them seem powerful and relevant but it is often a waste of time. Does anybody remember the Irish ASBO legislation? It still hasn't been used over a year later.
There are things that the law is good at and things that it is bad at. Bringing about a fundamental shift in behaviour across an entire society is not one of its strong suits. The assumption that tougher sentences will impact on the activities of people at the upper echelons of the drug trade is patently absurd. As the hysterical set keep reminding us, these people are shooting each other on a weekly basis. If the risk of getting murdered is not deterring drug dealers from their chosen line of work, what chance has a minimum ten year sentence got? The deterrent effect of prison on drug dealers is a myth without any factual basis.
As with the 'one line will kill you' argument, the tougher penalties point is not merely unproductive, it is counter-productive. Putting people in prison costs a huge amount of money. The amount of residential detox care for drug addicts in Ireland is embarrassingly small. More resources for prisons means less resources for taking people out of addiction.
It is clear that Ireland has a drug problem. No one with any sense would deny that. However, the nature of the problem and the most effective response to it are far from clear and there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situation. I am not going to re-rehearse the trite arguments about how drugs should be legalised here, although I do agree with them in principle. I would however make two points about the legalisation debate. First, as much as it is true to say that it is illogical to make alcohol legal and criminalise other drugs, it is simply not feasible for Ireland to act alone. We have gone too far down the road of globalisation to be the only country in the world where all recreational drugs are available legally. The fallout for our society would be appalling. However, since we are members of the EU, it is certainly worth using the justice and home affairs pillar as a mechanism for floating the idea of an EU-wide legalisation.
Secondly, it is often suggested that drugs should remain illegal because of the inherent danger they pose to society. This argument is fatuous and unimaginative. It is fatuous because many many many things are dangerous and they are not illegal (hang gliding jumps instantly into my mind). The argument is unimaginative because there is more than one way of dealing with something that is a danger to society. Take contract law for example. If there was no confidence in the enforceability of contracts, the entire world economy would collapse overnight. However, breaking a contract is not a crime. Yes the law permits an aggrieved party to take a private claim in such a situation, but there is no role for the criminal law. Why should it be assumed that criminalisation is the only way to deal with drugs?
Irish society has changed very dramatically in the past 15-20 years. But even despite that change, our long history of alcohol abuse and alcoholism is indicative of something in our community that has a propensity for substance addiction. Perhaps we have a spiritual deficit; this could be why we latched onto Catholicism so aggressively for so long. Perhaps we are just not very good at being happy with things as they are and so we search for external factors to make us happier. Whatever the underlying malaise in Irish society is, it is this unhappiness that is as the root of all our addiction problems and our recent frisson with cocaine. This is a monumentally difficult issue to address, but getting started on it would be far more helpful than all the trite lecturing that has been passing for a debate on the subject in recent weeks.
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