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Magazine
COMMENT
From bust to boom in Ireland
VIDYA SUBRAHMANIAM
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The forthcoming Indian visit of Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, might be a good time to look at both the island country's dramatic transformation — from poverty to the celebrated status as Celtic tiger — and the problems attendant with growth.
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WHAT LIES BEHIND THE GLITTER?: The Irish Financial Services centre.
FROM crippling, life-consuming poverty and famine through long years of strife and sectarian tension to peace, bliss and dazzling prosperity, not to mention recognition as possibly the most globalised economy in the world — Ireland's rags-to-riches, conflict-to-truce story is hard to beat. Today this tiny island Republic of only four million people can claim finally to have found the proverbial pot of gold at the end of what for aeons looked like a never-ending tunnel.
Nineteenth-century undivided Ireland was a picture of devastation, stalked as it was by death and disease, food riots and mass eviction. The "Great Potato Famine" saw a million people, or nearly one-eighth of the entire population, die of starvation and epidemic disease; another two million emigrated under conditions of extreme distress — as destitute travellers, as stowaways hiding in barrels packed up to their chins with provisions. The migrant deluge was directed mainly towards the United States, which to quote President Clinton, himself part Irish, became "a beacon of hope for the
Irish people, a land of promise ... where they could build a better life for themselves and their children." In later years, the immigrants were to form the backbone of the nearly 15 per cent American population of Irish descent.
Artificial tragedy
The devastating potato blight of 1845 was the immediate cause of the famine. Yet in many ways it was an artificial tragedy brought about by a combination of ruthless absentee landlordism and callous governance. The dominant economic doctrine of the time was laissez-faire, or the belief that government must not interfere in the economy. Consequently, the British Government terminated the soup kitchens that sustained the poor and stood by as landlords embarked on a mass eviction of the hungry and the pauperised. Speaking in the House of Lords in March 1846, Lord Broughman strongly defended the evictions: "... If (the landlord should) choose to stand on his right, the tenants must be taught by the strong arm of the law that they had no power to oppose or resist...property would be valueless and capital would no longer be invested in cultivation of the land if it were not acknowledged that it was the landlord's undoubted and most sacred right to deal with his property as he wished."
ANOTHER ERA: The hardship caused by the potato famine (left) saw many Irish migrate to the U.S.
A century and half later, Ireland's rulers would appear to swear by much the same philosophy, judging by the robust official faith in the free market economy. "No interference" is sacred Government policy, and as a bureaucrat says: "Once you are unprofitable, you get out of business." Of course, today's Ireland is quite the toast of Europe, a booming, bustling country, revelling in its new found wealth and prosperity and inviting international attention for the ease with which it has put the conflict years behind it.
The Irish problem, a euphemism for Northern Ireland's violent nationalist struggle, is no longer a problem. From Dublin to Cork, Galway and Limerick, the refrain is that the conflict is over. Incredible? More unbelievably, it is a maturity achieved without the Republic giving up its dream of a united Ireland. If anything, Irish nationalism is a stronger force, visible, among other things, in the continuing loathing of all things British and in the elite rush for Irish language schools.
Contradiction
A bigger contradiction is undoubtedly the strange marriage between Irish nationalism and globalisation. Irish Ministers and bureaucrats never tire of telling visitors that their country is the most globalised in the world. The evidence is there in the glitter of Dublin's shopping malls, in the massive glass and steel International Financial Services centre, in the big names — IBM, Intel, Dell, Microsoft, Boston Scientific among others — crowding the Information Technology-Biotech skyline, and in the unprecedented construction boom across the country. Of the over 1,000 multi-national companies in Ireland, 600 are from the U.S., accounting for an investment exceeding 61 billion and employing close to a million people. "On a per capita basis, Ireland has twice as much U.S. FDI stock as the U.K.," informs an economic dossier compiled by the Irish Government. Across the country, there is a strong sentiment for globalisation. Undoubtedly because in the past decade national income has doubled, unemployment has reduced by two-thirds, and for the first time the country is witnessing reverse migration.
What explains the miracle? Partly a low-tax regime attractive to foreign companies and partly Ireland's membership of the European Union which, aside from resulting in the net transfer of around 35 billion Euros, has given the country a brand new image — the Celtic Tiger. In the words of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern: "Membership of the European Union has also been, in my view, the critical ingredient in breaking the cycle of poverty and emigration which held this country in its grip for over a century."
Of course, as with any success story, the Irish story must be seen warts and all.
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NO one talks of unification in the Irish Republic — even in the Capital, Dublin, where the done thing is to talk. "There's nothing Dubliners love more than the sound of their own voices," informs a tourist brochure, adding," a typical Dublin greeting is `what's the story?'..." In the city's 1000-odd pubs, where conversation is unceasingly animated, Northern Ireland and Irish unity do not stir emotions.
In Dublin and elsewhere, the explanation proffered over and again is that the new Irish identity lies in its prosperity. The conflict is a reminder of a past filled with images of poverty and strife. "Third World Europe" was a title the Irish Republic suffered up until 1990. And in the larger world perception Ireland was ever the conflict zone.
Secondly, the conflict is largely thought to have run its course. It is no longer the live issue that triggered passions. In any event, the southern Republic never supported achieving unity through violence. Yet this supreme equanimity is only on the surface, as is evident from the Republic's strong Irish-Catholic identity, its pride in the Irish language, its inescapable bond with the North and its belief that Irish unity is a historical inevitability.
Always a force
Irish nationalism is also evident in the growing popularity of the fiercely nationalist Sinn Fein. Ireland's oldest political party — though Sinn Fein denies the link, it is widely regarded as the political arm of the dreaded Irish Republican Army (IRA) — was always a force in the North but today it commands a 15 per cent vote in the Republic.
The explanation lies partly in the transformation of the Sinn Fein and the IRA in the years since the 1994 IRA ceasefire, but particularly after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement among the two Irelands and Britain. The Agreement envisaged the participation of Sinn Fein in a power-sharing Government and committed Britain and the Irish Republic to renounce their claims to Northern Ireland. Unity would now be contingent on approval by a majority in the North. Though the Agreement fell short of the Sinn Fein's goal of a united Ireland, it was a beginning that the party saw reason to exploit. The Sinn Fein had begun to understand that violence would mar rather than help the process of unity, which was better achieved through a nationalist consensus. This, of course, required of it to renounce its violent past, but perhaps its greater success was to get the IRA formally to end its armed struggle. Today, thanks to its reformed image, the Sinn Fein holds five seats in the Dublin Parliament — a fantastic feat for a party traditionally distrusted in the South.
However, the Sinn Fein's growing vote also owes to its avowedly leftist beliefs — clearly another paradox in the free marker haven that is now Ireland's identity. Dr. John Doyle, senior lecturer in International Relations at Dublin City University, explains the seeming contradiction. On the one hand, globalisation has strengthened nationalism and national pride because Ireland now has a place in the world and its own distinct identity. On the other, globalisation has spawned resentment among those left out of the boom.
A 2004 European Union "Survey on Income and Living Conditions" revealed a fifth of the Irish population (19.4 per cent) to be at risk of poverty. This figure rose to 48 per cent among single parent households, and was almost 36 per cent among those living alone. Around seven per cent of the population was "consistently poor." The Sinn Fein is an attractive alternative to this entire group.
Then there is the controversy over the lower than stipulated wages paid by some companies brought to public attention by the Irish Ferries strike. The dispute centred on the displacement of Irish jobs by migrant workers earning 3.60 an hour, as against the statutory minimum wage of 7.65 an hour. Said Fintan O' Toole writing in the Irish Times, "Many of the new arrivals work in decent jobs ... But many work in the undiscovered Ireland, where official rules don't apply." The Sinn Fin was vocal in its condemnation of the "exploitative practices" and took the Government to task.
Ireland is a paradise built on the back of multi-national companies that flock to the country for its 12.5 per cent corporate tax — the lowest in the EU. But the low tax regime has also earned the country the rather negative tag of a tax heaven with global companies using their Irish operations to maximise profits. The future of the Irish success story is predicated on the stability of Ireland's relationship with the MNCs.
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