It's broke now can we fix it

T ell me why. Tell me why, why, why, why, why. I want to know why-y-y-y-y...

Why did no one in a position of power and influence stop and think? Why did no one look at the figures closely enough to see that they didn’t add up? Why did they allow the country to become so completely dependent on tax revenue generated from the sale of property? Why did they blow the money that did flow into the national coffers in such a spectacular fashion, when they had it?
It wouldn’t take a genius to know that it was a recipe for disaster. In fact any fool with access to the figures could have told you so. But access to the figures was limited and the best minds in the public service were directed elsewhere. The people we elect to represent us were also otherwise engaged.So.
Here’s another few whys for you.
Why did the guardians of the keys of State, in the Department of Finance, in the Taoiseach’s office, in the Central Bank, in the office of the Financial Regulator, in the Department of Trade and Enterprise, in the Revenue Commissioners, in the IDA and in fuck knows how many other agencies not raise a voice of concern about where we were heading? Why did none of these people shout stop? Why did they – meaning anyone with access to the figures and the status to do anything about them – not come to the conclusion that we’d need to turn the ship, because the way we were heading there were icebergs that’d sink us?
And another why.
Why was Sean Fitzpatrick of Anglo Irish Bank allowed to go stark raving mad? Taking out personal loans of €120 million when his job required him to act in the best interests of the bank that he was employed by. And then hiding those loans from the shareholders by getting what they called “a bit of B’n’B” for the loans with his pals in Irish Nationwide come end-of-year accounting time. Why?
Don’t answer that last one.
Abuse comes cheap, and so I won’t engage in it here. But what I do recall is this: politicians patting themselves on the back for the marvellous job they had done in creating the Celtic Tiger. They couldn’t shower themselves with praise enough. They were so great that they had to keep at it. They had to take personal credit for the fact that we had achieved – as if it was destined to last forever! – the miracle (see) of virtual full employment. They revelled in the adulation that they showered on themselves like so much cheap confetti.
Aren’t we great? they said, without a smidgeon of self-doubt. We’ve created the best performing economy in the world! The fact that we were building houses that no one might ever need didn’t seem to strike them. The fact that the revenue from Stamp Duty would dry up never occurred. The fact that they had facilitated the construction of the biggest pyramid scheme this country has ever seen was entirely lost on them.
I also remember public servants clamouring for a piece of the action. It didn’t matter that the health service was in tatters. It didn’t matter that schools were falling apart. A piece of the action. That was what mattered.
And as a result of all this, there are people whose lives are in ruins. Whose jobs are gone. Whose pensions are dust. Whose businesses are bust. There are people who have lost everything and more too: they’ve lost money they never had because they’ve taken on mortgages that they can’t, and won’t be able to, afford. So.
A final few whys.
Why is no one taking the credit for what’s gone wrong? Why are the politicians not putting themselves forward? Why don’t the public servants and the policy makers put their hands up and say: we got it so fucking wrong we can’t believe it? Why don’t the geniuses who championed the unfettered rule of the free market not stand up and come clean and say it: we were the authors of everyone’s misfortune?
Why?

We can’t undo the past. But we can learn from it. Anyone who thinks that we’ll get out of the mess by operating on the same economic principles that got us into it is daft. What’s needed now, more than ever, is effective policy making. What’s needed now is leadership. What’s needed now is a sense of vision. How can we expect any of these things from the people who are responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place? Or from the alternative currently on offer in the shape of Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael?
So far, we have seen precious little in the way of original thinking or resourcefulness from those with their hands on the levers of power. They prefer to see themselves as victims of forces outside their control. They have bumbled along, reacting on the hoof, taking half measures that then have to be abandoned as the scale of the problem intensifies at a pace they seem incapable of anticipating.
I was speaking with a Turkish friend, who has lived and worked here on and off for the past ten years. He offered reassuring words. “Ireland will recover quickly,” he said to me. “The Irish are a dynamic people. They don’t mind hard work. They are good at business. They will recover. Ireland will be prosperous again.” It was encouraging to hear an outsider’s perspective. But it will take more than reassuring words to mend this broken place.
It takes a vision of society that is founded on the idea of genuine equality of opportunity, especially for the young. It takes a vision of society that is based on an appreciation of what it is that makes life worth while, that celebrates a shared sense of purpose, that promotes the solidarity that can – and should – exist between people across all strata of society.
It takes a vision of society that aims at once to free individuals to be themselves, that makes it possible for them to express themselves fully, to realise their potential and fulfil their dreams to the greatest extent possible – while also maintaining the greater commitment to working together, to sharing the fruits of our collective labours in the most even-handed way and to investing in the great project of eliminating poverty and tackling disadvantage.
It also, I believe, takes a vision of society that would remove the dead hand of bureaucracy, and undo the kind of petty, restrictive, narrowing of possibilities and limiting of freedom – the fear-based legislation – that has been such a feature of the ‘boom’ years.
It is strange to think right now that they are more likely to advance these goals in the US now than we are in Ireland. That is the extraordinary reality of the accession to the Presidency of Barack Obama. Whether you agree with him in every respect or not is beside the point: he has been able to articulate a vision of the kind of society that is based on a fundamental belief in, and commitment to, the idea of equality.
So. We need ideas. We need fresh thinking. We need ways of pumping a bit of positive energy back into the machinations of day to day life and business. We need to unlock the dynamism my Turkish friend spoke about. It can be done.
But will it?