2009 Press Releases
A smart government for a smart people? by Dr Eoin O’Leary, lecturer in Economics, UCC
25.05.2009
The government’s current recovery plan is to build a ‘smart economy’ based on innovation. Is the government up to the challenge of leading such an economy?
25.05.2009
The government’s current recovery plan is to build a ‘smart economy’ based on innovation. Is the government up to the challenge of leading such an economy?
One would imagine that a ‘smart government’ would be one that takes decisions based on objective research into the pros and cons of intervention, that learns quickly from its mistakes and that backs smart people who are prepared to show leadership. So what kind of government do we have and what are the chances of it delivering?
Ireland seems to follow a model of ‘big government’. Central government sees itself as reaching into all aspects of our social and economic existence. White papers, government strategies and task forces abound. Politicians claim to know what is right for the people. Decisions are often based on conviction. Experts are paid to spin. Decisions made for ‘Ireland Inc’ are delivered top-down by an elaborate bureaucracy. The electorate seems content to let someone else do the running. A majority believe that the government runs the economy. If things go wrong the public can express their view at the ballot-box. After all this is what democracy is about?
This model of government is now undergoing its most stringent test. Its defenders might smugly suggest that the electorate’s memory is short. ‘Once we steer the nation through the present international crisis, we can return to the status quo’. This is fanciful thinking due both to the deep severity of the crisis and the failure to realize that addressing the problem of ‘big government’ is a crucial part of the solution.
Irish style ‘big government’ has, to say the least, been error prone. During the mid-1980s and the present crises, our public finances were (are) in such disarray that the IMF was (is) said to be almost at our door. How many other governments of developed economies have faced the ignominy of threatened national bankruptcy? Yet we have managed it twice in the last twenty five years.
Read the full article at http://www.ucc.ie/en/economics
Picture shows Dr Eoin O’Leary, Department of Economics, UCC
RMcD1113
Ireland seems to follow a model of ‘big government’. Central government sees itself as reaching into all aspects of our social and economic existence. White papers, government strategies and task forces abound. Politicians claim to know what is right for the people. Decisions are often based on conviction. Experts are paid to spin. Decisions made for ‘Ireland Inc’ are delivered top-down by an elaborate bureaucracy. The electorate seems content to let someone else do the running. A majority believe that the government runs the economy. If things go wrong the public can express their view at the ballot-box. After all this is what democracy is about?
This model of government is now undergoing its most stringent test. Its defenders might smugly suggest that the electorate’s memory is short. ‘Once we steer the nation through the present international crisis, we can return to the status quo’. This is fanciful thinking due both to the deep severity of the crisis and the failure to realize that addressing the problem of ‘big government’ is a crucial part of the solution.
Irish style ‘big government’ has, to say the least, been error prone. During the mid-1980s and the present crises, our public finances were (are) in such disarray that the IMF was (is) said to be almost at our door. How many other governments of developed economies have faced the ignominy of threatened national bankruptcy? Yet we have managed it twice in the last twenty five years.
Read the full article at http://www.ucc.ie/en/economics
Picture shows Dr Eoin O’Leary, Department of Economics, UCC
RMcD1113