In light of the fact that unemployment has reached 11% what can the government do? Here is my 10 step plan to save Ireland.
1. Number one priority is to keep people in work. The government must do more to prevent companies on the brink for going under. We need to keep people in work rather than unemployment.
Look at the German aproach.
2. Reduce taxes(for the time being). Yes you read the right. Right now Cowen and his cohorts intend on rising taxes. Yet in a recession when people are not spending money and consumption falls the last thing you would want to do is exacerbate this by reducing the amount of money people have to spend.
3. Remove tax exemptions. Plough money into infrastructural projects. Aiming to create/retain jobs.
4. Massive increase in spending(borrow it) for the key sectors that are our future: bio-technology ,telecommunications, R and D etc. Focus on the industries that will see Ireland grow into the future
5. Cull senior bankers. Heads must roll. Send a message to the international community that crony Ireland is a thing of the past and an honest place to do business. Show the international community that we are disgusted with this corruption and this period of cronyism is coming to an end. Pay reductions across the board for banks funded by the taxpayer. Bring back regulation, the bankers cannot to trusted to police themselves.
6. Cull financial regulator, they have failed us.
7. Set up asset management company I.E bad bank to free up credit for business.
8. Reduce the public sector wage bill. Pension levy is a step in the right direction. Now address the pay unbalance between the private and public sectors.
9. Mortgage payment holiday period to see the newly unemployed through a tough period.
10. Replace the inept government. Obvious this one. Our government squandered the riches of the Celtic tiger. When we should have been developing indigenous enterprise, the government inflated the property industry causing the bubble. This type of short term thinking is typical of this government however along the way the government managed to increase they own wages and become among the most highly paid public servants in Europe. Remember the current Taoiseach who is attempting to save the economy was the minster of finance during the years the government squandered it all.
The real winners of the Celtic tiger along with the government were:
- The civil servants who through the social partnership enjoyed 10 to 30 higher wages than private sector equivalent positions plus incredible benefits.
- The lawyers who enjoyed fantastical pay due to the endless tribunals to investigate our government.
That’s should do it for the moment.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Not sure how #2 and #8 fit together. You use to work at the TSSG and, being a public body, many of us now have the pension levy. It took over €250 out of my last pay-cheque. That is a tax and, as you correctly state, makes me less able to spend money so rippling out into the larger economy.
I would love to get rid of the pension benefit all together, I don’t want the bloody thing, but they say I can’t opt-out.
The public sector should be as performance driven as the private sector, but remember that the government is the biggest employer in the land so any “nail the public sector employees” idea is going to hurt the private sector too as we stop buying things.
Totally agree that we need to be creating jobs (private and public) though.