A few years ago at a reception I was talking to two eminent members of the legal profession - a barrister and a judge of the superior courts. After the judge had departed our company the barrister asked me if I thought the judge was "a man for heavy lifting". I had not heard the phrase before but knew immediately what he was suggesting: in the smarts stakes, the judge was a few votes short of a quota.
I thought of the phrase on Friday night, watching Ruair∅ Quinn in debate with Gerry Adams. Adams was incoherent at times, he lost his way, he scored a few goals against Quinn but missed several others, including one wide open goal which anybody who thinks about Ruair∅'s record should spot immediately. It was a sub-standard performance by Gerry Adams.
But Ruair∅ Quinn . . . Would it be unfair to say Ruair∅ is not a man for heavy lifting? Certainly not much evidence of heavy lifting in the debate and not much evidence in it either in agreeing to it. Ruair∅ should have got hay fever or Perrier on the knee (hardly Ballygowan in Ruair∅'s case), anything, to get out of an ordeal that inevitably was going to be a mauling. Not that Gerry Adams is not there for the taking on several fronts - but not by Ruair∅. That wide open goal? It has to do with Ruair∅'s record as Minister for Finance from 1994 to 1997, during which he introduced three budgets. This was the first time there had been a Minister for Finance from the Labour Party and, as it happened, the first time Labour was in government with another socialist party, Democratic Left (remember them?), and with a Fine Gael party that would have put up with almost anything, so delighted were they to fall into government against all the odds.
It was also a time when the economy was booming. Yes, it boomed a little more in subsequent years, but compared with anything we had seen up to then this was bonanza time.
Over the five-year period from 1991 to 1995 the economy had grown at a rate of nearly 5 per cent, over three times the EU average. In 1995, the growth rate was over 7 per cent. Inflation was at "historically low levels", and the bonanza continued for the following two years. Never in their wildest dreams could anybody who called themselves a socialist have thought they could ever be Minister for Finance with such a spectacular opportunity to redistribute such abundant wealth to Labour's constituency, the poorer sections of society.
And what did Ruair∅ do, acting on behalf of a government comprised of two so-called socialist parties and a shell-socked Fine Gael, who a few months previously resembled the Taliban at Korduz, led by the Mullah from Meath. What did Ruair∅ do? The first budget (1995) did the following: the banks were rewarded by the phasing out of the £36 million levy and a reduction by 2 percentage points of corporation profits tax. The residential property tax was reduced. Most social welfare payments were increased by one of the smallest margins ever - a 2.6 per cent increase - while great mileage was made out of the increase in children's allowances of £7. He exulted on television that the children's allowances would amount to £1,400 per annum for a mother with four children (he said three, but no matter). As I remarked at the time, the £1,400 would not pay for his annual wine bill and the additional £364 per year would hardly have got him two flashy ties.
CORI (the Conference of Religious of Ireland), which nowadays may be the only organisation consistently campaigning for a fair distribution of wealth and resources in Ireland, said of Ruair∅ Quinn's 1996 budget: "Sufficient resources were available to Government as it planned Budget '96 to ensure that everyone received at least the minimally adequate level of income recommended by the Commission on social welfare 10 years ago. Instead of allocating it to achieve this end and eliminate income poverty, Government has again taken decisions which result in the better off getting more while the poverty gap widens . . . the major gainers (from the budget) will be on high incomes . . . the general increase of 3 per cent to social welfare recipients is extremely disappointing since many social welfare recipients receive less than the poverty line of income."
On the 1997 budget CORI said: "There is something profoundly wrong with a society where resources are growing dramatically yet it refuses to give priority to tackling poverty, unemployment and exclusion. This is exactly what government has done in its budget for 1997 . . . Most of the resources will continue to go to the better off in Irish society". It noted that the gap in take home income between an unemployed couple and a couple on £40,000 had widened by £1,072 and in the period during which Ruair∅ Quinn was Minister for Finance the gap had widened by £2,737. CORI commented: "These figures are a devastating indictment of government policy."
The Labour response to this is threefold: we did not have such abundant resources as there were subsequently; CORI got it wrong; the present Government is worse. The response to that response is: (i) yeah, but you had more than ever previously to make a difference and you did abysmally; (ii) if CORI was/is wrong, show us (how about a public debate?) and, (iii) yeah again, maybe the present Government is worse but is it just a question of degree? And there is also the little matter of the tax amnesty of 1993 to which Ruair∅ gave his assent.
Just as well Gerry Adams didn't do his homework but, come to think of it, he could hardly have made a big issue of the amnesty.
vbrowne@irish-times.ie