Election Issues

Its been awhile since I have posted anything. That is mainly due to the fact that the last year has been a complete roller-coaster of activity, stress, conflict, family challenges and dealing with everything on a limited budget and diminishing energy levels as I hit the mid forties blues;)

The last few weeks though have allowed me do a little thinking especially around election issues. Even if I had wanted to avoid some of these issues there really was no choice which is probably a good thing. We live in a democracy and as I get older I realise that it is truly important to engage in the democratic processes even if you recognise their intrinsic frailties and are disillusioned with what we currently have (which I am!).

I thought I would throw a few ideas down to hopefully be critiqued on their efficacy:

(1) At the top of my interest agenda is our national debt. It is remarkable how little attention it has got over the last few days. I am particularly disappointed here in the RTE coverage of the elections which seemed to primarily focus on local issues like the medical card debacle and water charges (see later). This is understandable from the local elections perspective - its unforgivable from the European elections perspective. 

Ireland is currently borrowing money every year to pay interest on a growing national debt. That is what running a 'deficit' in the public finances means. Currently we are paying somewhere between 5 and 10 billion euros every year to service that debt (not reduce it - service it). This is at a time when interest rates are historically low, inflation is under 1% (which means the debt is not being inflated downwards) and the Euro is strong ( bad for us as it makes growing our export market difficult).

Think of how much tension was created when the government did a budget adjustment of 2.5 billion euros in the last budget. Now look at where all that money is going - its going on interest payments on money we have already borrowed.

The hope is that we can implement austerity measures whilst growing the economy at Celtic Tiger rates, driving inflation so we can inflate the debt downwards (it becomes less of a percentage of our overall GDP).

This will not work. The debt is too big for the size of the country and we have no control over things like central bank interest rates to help the process along.

It has to be a central policy of any government to have our debt written down. In particular to remove banking debt from our sovereign debt. This means playing very hardball with our European partners. If we continue to 'do as we are told' because we are a small irrelevant country on the fringes of Europe then the country will not get out of the mess that it is in.

In summary, Ireland needs to have its national debt reduced.

(2) Second on my list is our energy policy. The world is on the cusp of an energy crisis. We have probably gone past what is called the 'Peak Oil' point where known reserves of oil are less than perceived demand for the resource. The point where this becomes a full blown crisis is probably only years away, not even decades away. The main reason for this is that demand for oil is growing as China, India and Brazil economies (to name only a few) strengthen.

Ireland is possibly unique in the world in that given our latitude, the fact that we are an island, our relatively small population and the fact that we have a very changeable climate, the country could in theory have an energy policy that is dominated by renewable resources.

Ireland should aim to be completely self sufficient in energy needs over the next decade with the vast majority (I believe 60-70% is possible) of energy being based on renewable resources - Wind, Hydro, Tidal and Green oil based crops together with potential oil and gas finds off the coast (Ireland does have oil and gas - its just not economically viable to extract it right now). On the latter issue, Ireland should develop a similar policy to Norway where the state is guaranteed a significant percentage of any oil or gas finds irrespective of how, when or where the discoveries were made.

(3) The western world also faces a food crisis if energy prices significantly increase. And remember that energy prices are just about affordable now because the euro is strong and the dollar is weak (oil is priced and traded in dollars). Keeping the euro strong is a policy of the central Euorpean countries as they need to import oil.

It is crazy that a consumer can buy potatoes from Israel cheaper than home grown produce. This is possible due to trade deals, subsidies and cheap transport due to low energy costs right now.  The international trade system is setup so that trade between countries is deemed more important then trade within a country. There is a long argument as to why it has happened this way but it comes down to countries needing to be seen to be growing their economies so they can borrow money to keep that growth rate going. Inevitably this model crashes.

Ireland is really well positioned to be self sufficient in food production. Our national policy should be to be completely self sufficient in food production. Everything beyond that should feed the export market (if you can excuse the pun).  It really should just be a consumer choice as to whether you buy Irish goods or overseas goods. Every food company in Ireland should be incentivised to source locally over cheap imports.

(4) My first local issue is water charges. I agree with water charges but completely disagree with water meters at every house. If there is one resource in this country where there should be enough to go around (even if the resource is abused by a minority) it has to be water. We are extremely fortunate to have a high average level of rainfall across the entire country and across the entire year.

The challenge is to build a water catchment and treatment system that is modern, efficient and safe for everyone in the country. I think a modest annual charge for water makes sense but that this money should go directly to building the water catchment and treatment system rather than being invested in putting meters into everyone's homes. The cost of this project is over a billion euros! Imagine if that money was directed instead to reducing the 40% wastage that we have in our current system?

The government has decided to put meters in everyones house on the basis of fairness. A far better and more cost effective system would be to meter areas (which may already be done) and to allow local councils to be levied if there is gross abuse in their area. In other words, let communities themselves drive the responsible use of the resource. This system would be cost effective and would allow the vast majority of monies raised for water charges to be used for improving the water catchment and treatment systems.

As an aside, its always a bad idea to develop a system based on perceived abuse of the system rather than building an extremely efficient system that the majority of people will responsibly use.

(5) My second local issue is the cost of telecommunications in Ireland. We have some of the highest telecommunication costs in the EU with some of the worst infra-structure. A good indicator of this is to ask yourself how many times your mobile connection has dropped off or that the connection has become so bad you cannot make out what the other person is saying. Now travel to Kenya where the population is ten times that of Ireland (with far denser population areas like Nairobi) and is perceived to be a 'developing world' nation. Safaricom (with majority shareholder Vodafone) have an amazing mobile network where calls simply do not drop. And the cost? About a third of what we pay here.

Ireland needs cost effective telecommunications and world class telecommunications infrastructure. This serves both the electorate and business.

Those are my issues for now. Please feel free to challenge them;)