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Colm McCarthy Opinion It would be prudent for Michael McGrath to keep a tight grip on public purse strings

Later this month Paschal Donohoe will pass the stewardship of the Department of Finance to Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath. It matters greatly whether the handover sees a further relaxation in fiscal policy.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Politicians bemoan housing crisis while togging out for the Nimbys

“The Commission and European Central Bank assessments find no signs of house price overvaluation” is the arresting conclusion in last week’s report from Brussels, inviting the interpretation that all is going to plan in Ireland’s housing market. Average prices in large parts of Dublin range upwards from 10 times the salary of a recent graduate, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Ugly realities of World Cup 2022 are wrecking Fifa’s beautiful game

Of the 22 Fifa committee members who awarded the World Cup to the Gulf sheikhdom of Qatar in 2010, 17 have since been suspended, resigned or been prosecuted. Qatar’s record on women’s and workers’ rights, and harsh laws against the LGBTQ+ community, were public knowledge at the time.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Rishi Sunak’s economic credentials in doubt as his Brexit denial lingers

In his address outside 10 Downing Street last Tuesday and in later comments, Britain’s new Prime inister Rishi Sunak positioned himself as caution personified, abandoning the dash-for-growth adventurism which brought down his predecessor.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Fantasist Tories refuse to admit their cherished Brexit has turned out to be a disaster

Brexit is the locomotive which has driven the train wreck of Britain’s Conservative government. Liz Truss, the latest accelerant, in her resignation speech on Thursday described the aborted budget which ended her premiership: “We set out a vision for a low-tax, high-growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit.”

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Colm McCarthy Opinion We won’t solve housing crisis until TDs take on the Nimby brigade

“Of particular concern is the impact this proposed development will have on the light-bellied brent goose,” Fianna Fáil TD Sean Haughey said in opposing a recent application to Dublin City Council. The scheme would provide about 600 new apartments on a derelict site at Raheny in Mr Haughey’s constituency .

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Generation Rent sold out by all parties on pensions and housing

It makes sense for older people who are already retired or hoping to quit work soon to support political parties aligned to their interests.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Our long holiday from worrying about borrowing costs is over

Tuesday’s Budget looks set to fade quickly from media coverage, as the public digests the tax concessions and expenditure increases on offer.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Young people already struggle to afford a home so why should they pay to keep the state pension age at 66 too?

Regular surveys show that young adults, especially Generation Z (those aged from the mid-20s to 40 or so), are unhappy with modern Ireland — and are more likely to vote for Sinn Féin and other left-of-centre parties whenever the next election comes along.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Poor decisions at EU level have led to current energy crisis

Reliance on markets, without policy intervention, can fail to deliver. While some markets can function almost unnoticed and need little attention from governments, many are not like this at all — they need to be actively designed and regulated and only governments can provide the policy oversight.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Energy crisis: Media populism encourages short memories and a willingness to gamble

Populist media regularly insist, most recently in response to soaring energy bills across Europe, that economic hardship is widespread and can be addressed with simple policy actions.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion One planet needs one carbon plan — national targets won’t work

Since most farm produce is exported, imposing output restrictions in Ireland by, say, culling dairy cows, will fail to reduce emissions. With global demand unaffected, the shortfall will be met from producers elsewhere, including some whose carbon footprint per unit is worse than the figures for Ireland. As the planet shares a common atmosphere, territorial targets for carbon emissions make no scientific sense.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion More financial pain on the way for heavily indebted countries such as Italy — and Ireland

The eurozone isn’t a full monetary union — it has a single currency, just one central bank and calls itself a monetary union. But when emergency action is needed on the fly to avoid fragmentation, there are pieces missing from the monetary union design. Alongside the interest rate hike announced on Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) promised to continue purchasing government bonds issued by the more indebted member countries but left the terms and conditions vague.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Metrolink: Eamon Ryan's €10bn plan to fix what ain’t broke

At a press conference last Tuesday, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan announced that the Government will apply to An Bord Pleanála for a Railway Order, which will lead to the construction of the MetroLink underground tram line, from Dublin city centre through the northern suburbs, to the airport and Swords.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Government stubbornly defies logic, with forward planning on the back burner

It was perhaps a natural choice for Eamon Ryan to opt for the transport and energy portfolios when the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green government was being assembled in June 2020.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Hyperinflation or hyperbole? Food price rises not that steep

Pressure on the Government to counter the cost-of-living surge is being resisted. Measures already taken will cost €2.4bn in a full year and include the electricity bill credit, supplementary social spending and a reduction in excise duty on motor fuels.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Brexit and Johnson’s endless bluster will exhaust UK voters

Six years ago this week, UK voters opted narrowly to leave the European Union, by a margin of 52pc to 48pc. The widening rift between London and Brussels, the nadir in Anglo-Irish relations and the threat to the Northern Ireland agreement have their origins in the course chosen following the referendum more than in the departure itself.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Populist policies won’t save us from facing tough economic choices

Unaffordable housing, insecure energy supplies and rising debt interest cloud the economic outlook. Soft options have been exhausted, spin and counter-spin substitute for analysis and public discontent flourishes.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Ministers don’t do rosters, so why blame airport chaos on them?

Delays at Dublin Airport last week resulted in a “blame the Government” response in Dáil Éireann and in the print and broadcast media.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion While politicians debated grand designs, other projects withered and died

Ambitious targets for public investment over the next several years cannot be delivered, due to overshoots on the bill for major projects. The initial cost estimates were unrealistic.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Britain’s shoddy diplomacy over Brexit bordering on unbelievable

In a statement on Tuesday evening, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss told commissioner Maros Sefcovic the EU bore a responsibility to ensure the Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the UK’s Brexit deal, “delivered on its original objectives”.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Interest rates will rise and we can’t buy our way out of that

‘The era of free money is very much coming to an end,” according to the secretary- general of the Department of Finance. John Hogan was addressing the Dáil Public Accounts Committee on Thursday and his comments were received without visible alarm from the assembled deputies.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Neutrality saves us money – and the neighbours are no threat

Finland and Sweden are on the verge of applying to join Nato, which would leave just four out of 27 European Union countries outside the alliance — the two small Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta, plus Austria and Ireland.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Free money is not the way to head off a crisis

Managing the macro economy involves three perspectives. These are the short-term — the next six months or a year; the medium-term — the next four or five years; and the long-term — the issues that demand to be addressed decades in advance. From the perspective of Irish governments in recent times, only the short-term merits attention, with the medium-term left to the civil service and the long-term to sporadic commissions and academic worrywarts.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Ireland can’t ‘take one for the team’ again over energy crisis

As the war in Ukraine enters its seventh week, there is no prospect of an early outcome that would take the pressure off energy markets in Europe.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Freeloaders in the leafy suburbs: do you think they’d mind paying for their road use?

Inducing taxpayers into tax-avoidance schemes with expensive tax breaks is hardly a viable budget strategy. That is the view of the UK’s Office of Budget Responsibility, an independent body akin to our Fiscal Council.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Power play: being at the end of the gas pipeline is a gamble

European governments have been taking decisions rapidly, including policy reversals, to address issues of energy security. In Ireland exclusive focus is on the impossible task of compensating everyone, aka ‘hard-pressed families’, for higher import prices; and the threat to security of supply, especially for gas, has been downplayed.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion We can’t back sanctions on Vladimir Putin and then expect cheap petrol at the same time

An early ceasefire in Ukraine would end the bloodshed — but will not end the economic and financial war already under way.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Paying the price for an energy crisis

No policies available to the Irish Government can restore either the cost or the security of energy supply that was available a few months ago. Measures can be taken to protect vulnerable groups or economic sectors, but the country is collectively worse off when import costs rise. In a small energy-importing country, any notion that permanent exemption from the consequences of the war in Ukraine can be engineered by tax cuts alone is wishful thinking.

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Colm McCarthy Opinion Apart from fossil fuels, there’s really not much to hobble in the Russian economy

Sanctions imposed by the US and European countries will, according to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “hobble the Russian economy”.