We need a generous dose of optimism to recover from new NAMA flu
Finance Minister Brian Lenihan finally rolled up his sleeves and cranked out a major piece of legislation, but how much will it cost?
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Saturday August 01 2009
wAKING up at night in a cold sweat? Listless, head reeling? Before you rush off for a supply of Tamiflu, pause and consider whether the debilitating virus sapping your energy is a new virus: Nama flu.
It's not that we are allergic to Nama itself. But most people have reached information overload on the vehicle, which is either going to cost us a horrifying sum of money but resolve our problems -- eventually -- or else cost us a horrifying sum of money without settling them.
In the wake of this week's Nama legislation, we seem to be suffering communal shellshock on an epic scale.
Partly it comes down to the magnitude of the figures involved -- €50bn is the best-informed guess regarding the total which taxpayers will have to inject into Nama.
Who can fathom €50bn? We were only able to quantify €5bn when Colm McCarthy produced 400 pages detailing how to save that amount. This is equivalent to 10 An Bord Snip Nua reports.
Some €34bn will be collected in taxes in 2009. So even if we took all the trains off the tracks, shut down every hospital and school -- and saw to it that every euro and cent trickling into the Exchequer was diverted towards Nama -- there would still be a massive shortfall. No choice but to borrow the whole kit and caboodle, even in the knowledge it will take several generations to clear the debt. No wonder people are dazed by its dimensions.
The prospect of so much debt is overwhelming in itself, but on top of that comes all the detail of the Nama legislation, topped off by a deluge of commentary and analysis. None of the commentary is consensual. Indeed, we have two diametrically conflicting schools of thought, and this stokes the general unease.
It is the biggest financial commitment in the history of the State. Yet we still don't know if, after a decade of a dry bread diet, we will have earned the right to the odd slice of cake again. It's enough to send anyone back to bed.
One of the difficulties with Nama is that it's all fishing rod and no bait. Brian Lenihan has announced a measure of enormous consequence -- but left out the most important component: how much it will cost.
Academics, commentators, broadcasters and others are debating whether Nama is the appropriate course of action. But we no longer have a choice. Without Nama, within weeks the commercial court will be awash with developers trying to wriggle off the hook, as banks seek judgments against them.
An umbilical cord ties the Irish State and its banks together now. There may not be much mother love flowing between the two parties, but there is inter-dependence.
None of this is ideal. Nama is only one way, potentially, to address the problem. It is the hospital ward solution -- isolate patients suffering from a disease, rather than have them dropping like flies on the street. The urgency of the situation is underlined by the troubles facing Liam Carroll, whose property empire edged closer to crumbling yesterday.
At least Nama amounts to decisive action, which makes a change from hand-wringing.
What we need now is hope. And there are rays of it, amid the gloom. Dust balls are blowing through the Houses of the Oireachtas, with TDs and senators gone. Ministers stayed on a little longer, but are preoccupied with quibbling about cuts they know in their hearts are unavoidable.
Yet here is Lenihan, sleeves rolled up, cranking out a major piece of legislation. He is all hustle and bustle, whereas the Taoiseach is just bluff and bluster. Lenihan's plan may not meet with everyone's approval -- but at least he has one.
But more hope could be generated. We may not have the money to spend on job creation -- but if we don't spend money on job creation we will be in an even worse predicament.
Take the case of Boston, the city to which Mary Harney once compared us. (Those were the days.) Public funds have been slashed there, as elsewhere. Two zoos reliant on funding looked set to close, and announced animals would have to be put down. The 'Boston Herald' ran a photograph of a gorilla called Little Joe under the banner headline PLEASE DON'T KILL ME. And that put paid to the euthanasia scheme. But times were undoubtedly hard. Lumps were literally falling off unrepaired buildings.
But a few weeks ago, President Obama's stimulus money, a package worth almost a trillion dollars, started coming on stream. Hard hats are now visible all over Boston: potholed roads are being repaired, pavements are being rebuilt and construction workers are drawing pay cheques.
The optimism this generates cannot be underestimated. Optimism is contagious -- just as pessimism is infectious, too. A mood of public buoyancy is an important step in the fight back against recession, and that's what is missing in Ireland.
Parts of the National Development Plan appear to have been put on ice because we cannot afford it. But if we are borrowing €50bn for the Nama experiment, could we not scrounge a little more and get people back to work?
It might be cheaper in the long run. Vision usually is.
mdevlin@independent.ie
- Martina Devlin
