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SA can learn from Ireland now more than ever
December 2, 2009
 By Ann Crotty
I popped into my friend's house to see how the Springbok/Ireland match was going. "Colin, why don't you fix your TV you can hardly see what's going on?" "It's the Irish weather", replied Colin. More of the old sympathetic fallacy, I thought.
The cold, wet, foggy weather mirrored - in a foggy sort of way - the really dismal time that the Irish are having as their financial system remains in intensive care and the casualties of the property driven economic boom continue to pile up. In the post-Dubai World environment there is even talk of Ireland defaulting on its debt, along with Greece. So it's back to the grim old days for Ireland
Making matters considerably worse is the increasing evidence of the horrendous abuse wreaked upon the weakest members of Irish society, by the strongest members, for a large chunk of the last century. Daily it seems there is new evidence of the government and the Catholic Church's role in the widespread abuse suffered by poor children who had been placed in the care of the Church from the 1930s through to the 1980s.
In this broader miserable context being "Thierry-fied" out of a place in the soccer World Cup probably wasn't a huge issue. But all in all you really couldn't begrudge their rugby team the win last Saturday. It was small compensation for the spectacularly rapid switch from hero to zero Ireland has had to endure over the past 18 months.
Just a few short years ago, according to The Economist, Ireland was ranked as the best country to live in. The saddest part is that there's a good chance that the Irish "haven't seen the half of it". Things look set to get much worse before they get better.
Next Monday Ireland's budget is expected to call for widespread cuts in public spending and dramatic increases in tax. Indeed Prime Minister Brian Cowen had apparently been hoping for a World Cup play-off win to provide temporary distraction from the savage cuts that the poorest of the country's citizens are facing.
It seems that only the political class will be exempt from the hardship caused by a complete failure of Ireland's politicians. Irish MPs are among the highest paid in the world, although each one represents considerably fewer citizens than his or her UK counterpart. This essentially corrupt system cannot be changed without altering the constitution and, of course, the government will not call for the necessary referendum.
Every day the Irish media carries stories of ministers who are accumulating pensions as they grease their way through the corridors of power. Ireland's EU commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, who has long talked of the need for belt-tightening and the discipline of market forces, will retire at the end of this year with a plethora of generous pensions: an EU pension, his pension as former minister of finance and his pension as a former MP. He is just one of many and not the worst.
Some former ministers, who were once, briefly, teachers before launching into a more lucrative political career, receive a ministerial pension, an MP's pension and a teacher's pension. Monday's budget is expected to do little to rein in the generosity Irish politicians heap upon themselves.
So 90 years after securing independence from Britain, Ireland still seems unable to govern itself. The noble ambition of independence, to govern the country for the benefit of all its citizens, has not been realised. This realisation, and the desire to escape rule by the Irish, prompted many citizens to vote for the Lisbon Treaty this year.
It is now, and not when it was at the height of a "boom", that Ireland has real lessons for newly independent South Africa, whose politicians must not lose sight of previous noble ambitions.
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