‘Power & Your Life: The Economy Of The Republic’ by Donal Lavery

  Donal Lavery 

-As some of you are aware, this blog spot was down recently but thankfully only temporarily. It’s good to know, that by the force of our arguments, we are keeping the Spooks in jobs and away from the dole offices. 

The post-war British Labour Prime Minister, Clem Attlee, was once asked who he regarded as the greatest national leader of his lifetime; he replied with one word, “Salisbury”. Why he was asked, given that Salisbury was a Tory? “Vision”, he responded. Indeed, it was Helmut Schmidt who once said that a politician with a vision ought to see a Doctor. However blunt that realisation, I do have a vision, one which is modest only its sterility; for ideas are not static things, they fertilise the mind of man and are carried forward in evolution or aid by succeeding generations just as Simon carried the cross of Christ. The Disciples, who had denied and betrayed Jesus, witnessed the resurrection for themselves and after seeing the holes in his hands, went to their deaths willingly in the Colosseum over the force of an idea. Now, every city in the world possesses a church within its perimeters as testimony to the result of that idea. So the point I’m labouring to you is this – ideas do not feel pain or emotions, they cannot be killed like human coil, they dwell within the spirit of man, and are the inheritance of each generation.

People from the Unionist community often ask me what’s in a United Ireland for them? And that’s a fair question; because in the society we find ourselves in many of them are the disadvantaged have-nots, lacking the educational and employment opportunities which were once denied to Catholics. The answer to that, put simply, is everything. The concept I always found most repugnant about parties like the SDLP, is the one which stipulates that simple annexation of the North by the South could resolve the pains and struggles of the Irish people, like Codeine to arthritis (not many in that particular party even believe that anymore). That is of course a fable, for the root cause of our problems is not simply the British occupation of Ireland, but the imposition of their ailing methodologies – towards the economy, towards wellbeing and towards life. The government in the 26 county state is every bit as dependent on these Thatcherite ideas in their economic system of pro-British capitalism as the play-boys in Canary Wharf. So I’m not in the business of insulting you by advocating for the temperament of a 32 county Free State. For what, if any, independence would that be?

If the Irish people North and South were to opt for unity of the Irish people North and South, it couldn’t simply be a change of flag or some administrative functions of the state; it would have to be a change of philosophy and the methods which are underlying it. In the event of such a shift, there would be a national dialogue open to every community hall on the island about the kind of country they want to live in. Politicians, hoping to seize the reigns of power, would garner the thrift to let people purchase with their vote that which their wallet or purse denies them – that is, direct democracy. We would have won political democracy via an armalite in one hand, and we’ll seize economic democracy with a ballot box in the other. Everyone, in a period of national rebirth, could reinvent themselves according to the product of their own ambitions.

We would be kidding ourselves to think that the public sector could encompass every good or service in existence; at the end of the day, you can’t have that kind of communist system within a single nation-state at odds with global market forces. But what we would have is a reunified, single political and economic entity with a sufficient pot of resources nationally to deliver not widespread luxury, but relative prosperity. I’m additionally not going to tell you that everyone could be a millionaire, like the way the tooth-fairy exists. But everyone can have the security and opportunities which the middle class enjoy. At present, the people in the 26 counties have one of the highest per household incomes in all of Christendom. If you divided out the wealth of Ireland annually between every man, woman and child, you would arrive at an approximate figure of 100,000 euros per head, per year.

So our future is the move from a market economy to a ‘mixed’ one; strong state spending, investment in manufacturing and produce, power to organised labour, lifelong education, and reassurance from cradle to the grave. We will keep a low corporate tax rate to attract investment, and garner the revenue we need by taxing the higher earning individuals who fill the vacancies which business locates here as a result of that tax rate. The health-service will be an-Ireland NHS, which the British government from the 70’s has outlined they would subsidise. Education would not be but a torturous experience one must endure as an infant, but fuelling the fire in every mind – free at the point of need. To the manual labourers, the cleaners, the clerks, the nurses and the carers, we must salary your efforts based on productivity and not simply the profitability of certain skill-sets. Economic emancipation from Thatcherite orthodoxy. Never mind a living wage, but rather a thriving wage – for you to flourish, with increased jobs to deliver the goods and services you decide to spend it on.

The stumbling thing is, we have never had an Irish nation. We’ve known a “Green” nation in the South and an Orange state in the North; but there has yet to be, before the eyes of the world, a truly green, white and orange, equitable Irish nation. Maybe I’m an old head on a young body, but the image in my mind which gets me out of bed each morning is one of witnessing fair maidens dominating the professions and strong men sweating it out in industry; or vice versa. A nation spinning on its own axis and engulfed only by the peace of its own prosperity. I imagine not simply a great country; but the best country – in which to live, work, have a family, grow old and to die in. A platonic conception, safeguarded by the enlightenment of an Irish constitution, written by Irish people and for Irish people.

To the boys in the bubble, that is Leinster House or Westminster, enjoy your ineffectiveness and sponging off the toil of the Irish as it lasts. For as they say, if you want things to stay somewhat the same, then things will have to change. You represent Ireland as it presently is, but there are many practical men and women out there who represent what Ireland really ought to be. For there are forces in this life mightier than mere parliamentary majorities in the present; and when the final sun sets on the Ireland of old, our majority need only be one.