New Taoiseach for hard times 

The old order changeth and Bertie Ahern ended his 11 years as Taoiseach, with the biggest ballyhoo since the foundation of the State. 

The things that were credited to him included ending the hostilities in the North and being the master-brain behind the economic recovery, with the biggest ever number of people being employed in the State. 

The new Taoiseach may have to act tough to glue down the Peace agreement. Breakaway clots from Sinn Féin/IRA and Loyalist paramilitaries put a doubt on Bertie’s Ahern’s claim to US Congress - ‘Ireland is at peace’. 

The economic success of the past decade was not the fruit of political planting. Rather it was the result of a number of factors. Most of them took place outside Ireland. 

What was political wisdom was the increased spending in education. It demands more money now, but especially at the foundation. Education spending is important from the age of four years and upwards.

Our new young voters have never known the hardship that drove 70,000 per annum to emigrate from Ireland in the depressed eighties. 

As the Stephen Foster song puts it,

‘There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh Hard Times come again no more.’

It is up to Brian Cowen to ensure that the squandermania of the last Government, in which he was Finance Minister, is ‘no more’.

A marketing stratagem must be found to make saving more attractive than Saturday night booze-ups. St. Vincent de Paul warns us that people who were contributors to their funds are now applicants for aid. 

Around the corner may be the scene described by Stephen Foster: He wrote it in 1850, a time when both Ireland and the US were depressed: 

‘While we seek mirth and beauty - and music light and gay,

There are frail forms fainting at the door.’

Let’s cut out the nonsense of holding back money to splurge when the next election is coming. Let’s stop giving money to get Northern Ireland back on its feet. That’s Britain’s problem. 

Let’s stop increasing overheads on industries. We need to keep our people employed. We cannot afford the consequences of factory failure. 

Let’s warn about the worst case of squandermania in Bertie’s time. It must be the secret deal made between Dr. Michael Woods and the religious institutions to cap their contribution to less than €120 million when the State will have to pay over one billion to compensate their victims of child sex abuse. 

It was secret in that it happened when the Dáil had been dissolved and a General Election called. Woods was not punished for it, but a special law was enacted to ensure he would get his full pension rights. 

Nobody in that Government complained or looked after the interests of the taxpayer.

I got angry on Tuesday when I saw a billboard advertising Minister Noel Dempsey’s Transport 21 programme for road and rail developments. Then I found out that the advertising programme cost us €29m. 

Kerry knows the message on that billboard is a lie. It promises us delivery of transport funding already removed from the Kingdom’s projects. The Castleisland bypass, the Tralee bypass, the Ballycarty dual carriageway, the Dingle- Tralee road were all victims of announcing programmes and then shifting the funding to the East coast. 

Putting up posters to tell us how good they are in the Transport Department is rubbing our noses in the muck. Let’s end it and spend transport money on transport, not on patting themselves on the back.  

Every time I’ll see that poster, I’ll get angry, know it is a lie and that we are being made pay to paste it up. It is not an information poster. It is pure propaganda. 

But enough of the negative stuff. If Brian Cowen wants to move Ireland forward let him produce legislation to reduce the number of members in both Dáil and Seanad. Let him introduce a contract system that works. Every step of the road in purchasing and storing voting machines is a painful memory to taxpayers.

Let Taoiseach Brian Cowen limit the cost and number of consultants and advisors hired by ministers. Let him have controls that monitor and correct ministers who think they are appointed to look after the needs of their constituencies, rather than the nation. 

Let him end the obscenity of appointing persons without any expertise to our too, too many State boards.

When it comes to tightening the financial belt, let Taoiseach Brian Cowen start at foreign aid, our overseas army and public relations, rather than hospitals, schools and prevention of crime. 

That list should be enough to let the Taoiseach know there is this lot and more to do. 

I expect him to manage the reins of the nation better than he did its finances. I expect him to inflict pain of extraction on any of his team members who do not perform to expectations. 

I expect him to lead us out of the recession that is only now starting. His job is difficult and would be easier had his predecessor shown more skill at enforcement than at compromise. 

I wish Brian Cowen luck. If he does the job well, we will all benefit.