Coalition offering love potion and a chastity belt

There is a great contradiction involved in the incoming coalition’s approach to the EU-IMF deal, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE

WHEN TRYING to resolve a perplexing puzzle, call in Sherlock Holmes. In The Sign of Four , he remarks impatiently to Doctor Watson: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth?” The strange and grotesque case of imploding Ireland demands Holmesian logic. Eliminate the impossible and we will be left with the highly improbable – a resurgence of our blighted democracy.

The new government has to confront two huge impossibilities. It is impossible for our existing political culture to eliminate the cronyism, corruption and lack of accountability that have led to the crisis. And it is impossible for the combination of public austerity and private extravagance in the EU-IMF deal to produce fiscal and economic recovery.

If the coalition faces up to these impossibilities, it will give substance to the improbable notion of an Enda Kenny-led government being the best administration we have ever had.

So how’s it doing so far? In the broad conceptual sense, quite well. The programme for government does actually recognise the dual impossibilities. It acknowledges the need for very radical reform of our political system and culture. And it also faces up, in theory at least, to the reality that current banking and fiscal policies are not working. It points to the “unknown but potentially enormous cost” of continuing the bank bailout and the “growing danger of the State’s debt burden becoming unsustainable”.

This is a polite way of saying we cannot afford the bank bailout, and a sovereign debt crisis is the likely outcome of current policies.

So far so good. We then turn to the key question of how these impossibilities are to be eliminated. And here, any fair-minded reader of the programme is faced with a stark contrast. In the first area, that of political reform, there is a genuine sense the new government could live up to the sonorous phrase with which it announces itself: a “democratic revolution” could be in the offing. In the second, that of banking and fiscal policy, there is an almost complete failure to follow through on the acknowledgement that current policies are leading us towards the catastrophe of a sovereign default.

Experience teaches us that reams of political promises rest on two tiny letters: “if”. But it would be churlish not to acknowledge that the coalition deal contains commitments which, if implemented, will amount to the most radical reforms in the history of the State – far more radical, indeed, than the new Constitution of 1937.

There are weaknesses and silences. The section on local democracy – the keystone of real change – is disappointingly timid. The idea of abolishing the Seanad before establishing a constitutional convention is ridiculous. Proposals on the funding of politics, while welcome, leave out the most obvious mechanism for transparency – requiring parties to publish full annual accounts.

Nothing is said about the need to end cronyism by limiting the number of public and private directorships an individual can hold. But there are real and radical changes that might actually make Ireland what it claims to be – a parliamentary democracy. Giving Dáil committees serious powers of scrutiny and investigation, limiting the use of the guillotine to push through unscrutinised legislation, ending the ability of ministers and senior servants to hide behind each other and evade responsibility, and forcing ministers to actually answer questions – these are key reforms.

Equally, the rights of citizens will be greatly enhanced by the restoration of freedom of information, restrictions on cabinet confidentiality, protection of whistleblowers and control of lobbyists. If the proposed constitutional convention genuinely engages with citizens, it could begin the process of restoring Irish democracy.

But what will this restored democracy actually do? Will we end up with a fine new set of democratic institutions, only to find they have no real power to make the lives of most citizens better? Will we construct a fabulous new vehicle only to be told it is allowed to travel in just one direction – towards national bankruptcy?

Here we have the great contradiction. The coalition parties interpret the “democratic revolution” of February 25th as a popular mandate for a radical renegotiation of the EU-IMF deal. They believe this mandate includes a revulsion against the basic inequity of shovelling billions into the banks while increasing child poverty. But they have effectively nothing to say about how they will implement that mandate. The first two years of the existing fiscal strategy will continue, with no notion of what happens then. The transfer of public resources into the banks will be postponed until after the current stress tests – which are likely to lead to a demand for more, not less, cash.

What we’re promised, then, is a great new surge of power to the people, with one small condition – that they don’t use it in areas such as the economy, fiscal policy or social justice. We are getting two presents in the same package – a love potion and a chastity belt.

The chances that this will not lead to unbearable frustration are, alas, highly improbable.