Ireland

There are precious few heroes in Ireland today and no gods either. But not all the losers are Irish either. Some are Scottish. Chief among them, Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party. Not because an independent Scotland would necessarily have been destroyed by the financial tsunami that swept the globe (though, to put it mildly, it would have been “difficult” to cope and might well have required a humiliating begging-trip to London) but because an independent Scotland would have made some of the same mistakes and unfortunate assumptions that have helped cripple poor Hibernia. Europe, you see, was an important part of the SNP’s slow rise to power. At

Somehow, I don’t think this kind of government assistance is going to be enough to soothe Irish woes: The Government is to distribute some 53 tonnes of free cheese to people in need in the run up to Christmas. Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith announced the EU-funded scheme today following talks with a number of charitable organisations. He said the cheese will be available free of charge for distribution to those most in need. It will be available from November 15th “in time for Christmas”. The State has been given more than €818,000 from the EU budget to purchase the cheese and the Irish Dairy Board has been awarded the

Writing at Big Questions Online Brian Kaller, an American now living in Kildare, claims that Ireland and the Irish are better-placed to survive the Age of Austerity than their American cousins. Though he’s careful to acknowledge that the boom years swept away much that was rotten and repressive in Ireland the piece ends up as another example of that strange beast – the hymn to Authentic and Authentically Irish Poverty. To wit: The most important reason was the Famine, of course, and you can still hear the capital F in today’s Ireland. But that epochal crash was just the worst chapter of a history that emptied the land and made

Next time you hear a Labour politician arguing that the markets are punishing Ireland despite its austerity drive (and therefore Britain should not rush to cut its own deficit) you might kindly point out that, because of the horrors at Anglo Irish and elsewhere, you can certainly argue that there hasn’t actually been an Irish austerity drive: In a statement, Mr. Lenihan conceded that the bank bailout would have an immediate and dire effect on Ireland’s budget deficit, pushing it up to an extraordinary 32 percent of G.D.P. Taking out the bank costs, Ireland’s deficit is expected to be around 11 percent, despite two years of an austerity drive. The

Thursday is an important day for Ireland and, in the end, another reminder that Ireland’s economic woes and the measures taken to alleviate them don’t offer much of an example for other countries or their governments. The Irish government is going to have to announce its plan for bailing out (or not) Anglo Irish Bank’s bondholders. None of the options – outlined by the FT here – seem attractive. The political cost of meeting the bond market’s hopes will be severe; the economic cost of not doing so could be equally horrendous. Robert Peston has a good post explaining just why the Irish economic elite is so out of touch

As Iain Martin notes, it didn’t take Labour long to welcome the news that the Irish economy shrank by 1.2% last quarter*. Welcome isn’t quite how they put it but since Irish economic pain is a weapon with which the opposition can attack the coalition, Irish misery is a price worth paying so Ed Balls can feel vindicated. At least those who think fiscal restraint is needed at times such as these and who were perhaps too quick to welcome last quarter’s healthy growth in Ireland can say they want to see Ireland do well. In truth, both sides of the British (and for that matter American) debate are too

Paul Krugman is back banging a familiar drum: austerity is not a good idea. Anywhere. As always, Ireland is one of his favourite examples: [V]irtuous Ireland never did better than malingering Spain. And now, Ireland’s risk premium has exploded, here; Spain’s not so much, here. Of course, it’s not at all a clean experiment; Ireland’s banks were arguably second only to Iceland’s in their irresponsibility, and the Irish government’s blanket guarantee has exposed it to huge losses. But bear in mind that when Ireland seemed, briefly, to have regained the trust of the markets, this was touted as proof that austerity will be rewarded. Funny about that. As always, I’m