Colm McCarthy drew a big crowd and delivered a nice line in black humourm writes MIRIAM LORDin Glenties
BEING IN government can be stressful. The Cabinet had a very tough day yesterday. Politicians don’t like having to make unpopular decisions.
The household charge – not to mention further impositions down the line – was very much on Richard Bruton’s mind when he arrived in Donegal last night.
It was put to the Minister that there will be protests over the decision. Richard was philosophical. “To love and be wise, as to tax and be loved, is not given to many,” he said.
And while we scratched our heads over the provenance of that particular line, we were much relieved to hear that he is bearing up well, otherwise.
Despite the pressure, the Minister declared he was not going to go off the pier in Portnoo today. Joe Mulholland, director of the MacGill Summer School was disappointed, but understanding.
“He’s a fantastic swimmer,” said Joe, who takes a hardy band of MacGillites off for a swim every morning, “but he has to go back to Dublin at 7.30 in the morning.”
Richard always tries to fit in a swim when he goes to MacGill. Mulholland’s disappointment last night was nothing compared to the despair of the photographers who had planned to snap him striding out of the Atlantic surf à la Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Casino Royale.
Before he addressed last night’s session, Bruton was also asked if he agreed with Colm McCarthy’s earlier assertion that it was unlikely Ireland would be back in the markets by 2013.
While he has the height of respect for Colm, “he’s not always right”. The economist wouldn’t have agreed. He speaks like a man who believes he’s always right.
Colm McCarthy doesn’t stand at a podium, he casually loiters.
In the absence of a lamp post, he leans one hand down onto a small side-table, puts the other in his pocket, crosses his legs and lists nonchalantly to the right.
When he speaks, he sounds thoroughly fed-up, like Victor Meldrew’s pessimistic brother with a nice line in black humour.
Audiences love him. He drew a big crowd yesterday morning.
McCarthy is a box-office economist. Economists are 10-a-penny (in fact, due to the recession, you can get a dozen for a ha’penny these days in most good institutions), but the good ones are always in demand.
McCarthy, standard-bearer for the slightly grumpy, is a MacGill Summer School regular and yesterday, he sank his teeth into the sort of frothy little cupcake of a topic he adores: “There Are More Hard Decisions To Be Made.” No better man than the professor who gave us An Bord Snip – so good he did it twice – to deliver an address on that particular subject.
Prof McCarthy, from his semi-perpendicular position, began on a cheery note.
It’s not like the 1980s, he said. People just don’t understand that things are far worse now.
Last week’s big euro zone summit in Brussels didn’t do enough to prevent the contagion spreading to Italy or Spain. They’ll be holding meetings to beat the band before things get better.
We’re in a bad way and it’s “a source of regret” to Colm that “we” haven’t managed to get our deficit back to single figures over the last three years. We’ll just have to “accelerate” our fiscal “adjustments.” Happy days.
The MacGill Summer School is a very ecumenical event. Sharing the top table with Prof McCarthy was Ictu general secretary David Begg. Colm said the difference between the two of them was that they both agree on “the easy things” and “disagree on the hard things”.
David thinks we should ease back on the adjustments and “return to the way we were with less exuberance”. But while not a big fan of austerity, he stressed: “I’m not a deficit denier.” Neither is Colm, who is a comfort to us all.
He said later that in order to deliver the necessary adjustments, the Government “should rule out nothing”. We should emulate the economic success of the Nordic countries, reckoned David, while musing on Ireland’s relationship with its EU partners.
“At the moment, we have the same relationship to Europe as a hen has to the full Irish breakfast – we are involved. Shortly, we may become more like the pig – fully committed.” Colm – surprise, surprise – didn’t think much about people “rattling on about Scandinavia”.
As usual, Prof Brigid Laffan was a rock of sense. We needed to take on the vested interests, she said, and the crowd in the Highlands Hotel perked up when she showed graphs showing how much certain public servants were paid here in comparison with other countries.
We’re world leaders, particularly when it comes to medical consultants – they’re way above everyone else. You could sense the audience wanted to hiss and boo, but they harrumphed angrily instead.
Later on, Per Callesen, governor of the Danish Central Bank, lulled us gently back to sleep during a very long and learned contribution, rather dashing the hopes of some members of the audience who heard he was going to talk about the Scandinavian models.
Instead, he referred to the “counter-cyclical buffers” – an odd way to talk about the retired public servants who form the backbone of MacGill devotees.
We are blue in the face with the transformations. There were more yesterday.
In the afternoon, we applied ourselves to “transforming our industrial landscape and creating jobs”, then we went about “transforming the public sector – how and when?” after tea. Today, Joe Mulholland’s Transformers will be “transforming our politics” and “transforming education with fewer resources”.
It’s very heavy going.
But the crowds are holding up. Some people take notes during the sessions. They’ll be popular in the local pub when they get back.