The Workers' Party does not share this view and we believe that there is an alternative. There is a consensus among the Irish political elite, big business and economists (who are invariably right wing) that the unrestrained market economy is a sacred cow which cannot be challenged and while it can go wrong sometimes it is effectively infallible. I disagree. Even within countries that hold by the market economy system there are different ways of doing things.
For one moment just consider the two words "Public Service" - what is so wrong about it? That its executives and terms of references are dictated by Fianna Fáil and previously Fine Gael governments may be one problem. That it is top heavy with bureaucrats (appointed by the same parties) may be another. The fact that it is constantly stopped from competing with the private sector by rules which favour private enterprise is certainly a problem. But why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Isn't essential that we have a public service?
The proposals in the Bord Snip report (what a mild name for such a viscious plan) are on the basis that Ireland is in economic crisis. Everyone would seem to agree, from Brian Cowen to even some in the trade union movement. But is Ireland in economic crisis? No it is not. It is the economic system imposed on this country which is in crisis.
Ireland has massive wealth in our seas in the form of fish and under our seas in the form of oil and gas. We have mineral wealth under our mountains and under our bogs and we have wealth in the form of our people who are intelligent and willing to work. They have proved this in every corner of the world.
I just want to briefly outline some of that wealth:-
Official government figures from just last year (2008) estimate that at least 10 Billion barrels of oil lie off the west coast of Ireland and that there is a potential of up to 130 Billion barrels of oil and up to 50 Trillion cubic feet of gas there. The Dunquin Field, around 200km off the coast of Kerry and inside Ireland's territorial seas is estimated at having around 4,130 million barrels of oil and up to 25 trillion cubic feet of gas. According to government figures this find on its own would more than meet Ireland's domestic oil and gas needs for the next 62 years. The Dunquin field is being developed by the giant US oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil (in its previous incarnation responsible for the world's worst environmental disaster with the Exxon Valdez which went ashore off the coast of Alaska in 1989, spilling over 40 million litres (10 milion gallons) of crude oil into the sea devastating the coast and wiping out vast numbers of fish, seals, otters and birds). Should such a company be trusted to harvest our oil and gas and take it away for prac
tically nothing?Above: Map of Ireland's oil & gas fields
There are also huge deposits of gas off the coast of County Clare and there are proven oil and gas reserves under the Bog of Allen in the north midlands. Ireland also has massive mineral wealth in the form of zinc, lead, gold and other minerals.
Then there is the Corrib Gas Field. I am now addressing primarily the economic aspects as my support of the Shell to Sea campaign is well known. The economic argument is clear - the cost of meeting the concerns of the local people is minimal when compared to the massive value of this resource. The local people of the Erris peninsula have real and justified concerns and want the gas refined at sea (just like the Old Head of Kinsale gas field off Cork is). The cost of doing that seems big at €300 million but this pales into insignificance when compared to the value of the gas, estimated at up to €140 Billion. A mere 2% of this would solve the problem tomorrow if the refinery were just built offshore.
The trouble with all of this is that we are giving away our gas for nothing. The state charges no royalties whatsoever for giving OUR gas to Shell, Marathon or the Norwegian state oil and gas company Statoil which are developing the field. It charges a mere 25% tax. This is the equivalent of a developer giving away houses for free and then charging a small fee for handing over the key. Norway is a country with more or less the same population as the Republic of Ireland (4.8 milllion people to our 4.4 million). Norway is not a socialist country or a communist country but it has its own state oil and gas company. Why can Norway do it and not Ireland? Norway's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008 was $456 Billion, Ireland's was $218 Billion (less than half).
This country has the capacity to be extremely wealthy and to provide for all the needs of our people - to give us a first class free health service and to provide for the education of our children and young people. Why is this massive wealth not put to the benefit of the Irish people? Why is it that we are importing potatoes and vegetables into this country when we all grew up being told that this was an agricultural country?
The Workers' Party is not against the creation of wealth. We are against giving away our people's wealth and our children's birthright for nothing in return and we are against Ireland, a sovereign country, being told how to run our economy, whether it is by the European Union or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Our people have been robbed by shady deals done between corrupt politicians, speculators, bankers and bureaucrats. The deal done by Ray Burke as Minister for Industry and Commerce when eh signed the contract to agreement to give away the Corrib Gas field to Shell and its cohorts was a crime against the people of this country. This was a corrupt deal done by a man subsequently convicted and jailed for another corrupt act. It was theft on a grand scale from the Irish people and we should not honour such a deal.
This country does not need An Bord Snip or Thatcherite economists like Dr. Colm McCarthy or Peter Bacon to tell us to cut our public services and further decimate our hospitals and schools and to consign another generation of our young people to emigration and poverty. What we need is to take ownership and control of our own natural resources and our economy and put them to work on behalf of the people. This may sound like utopianism and will be portrayed as out of date socialism but in fact it is plain common sense. The United States of America doesn't give away its oil and gas for free, the UK doesn't give away its North Sea Gas and countries like Norway most certainly don't do it. So why should we?
Scrap Bord Snip, defend the public service and stand up for what is ours.
