EU dictates economic policies

Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil give in to EU demands

A question often asked in this paper is who runs the Irish economy and what role does the EU play in determining what happens in the Irish economy? This week provided a telling insight as to the power and remit of the EU.

Brussels was the venue that Finance minister Charlie McCreevy, Enterprise and Employment minister Mary Harney and IDA chief Executive Kieran McGowan went to to be told by unelected EU Commissioner Karel Van Miert that aspects of Ireland's taxation and industrial development policies had to be changed.

First, the EU Commission gave the ministers their report card on how they thought the 26-County economy was progressing. Their report maintains that the 26-County economy is among one of the best performers in the EU even though the unemployment rate is only at the EU average level.

Commissioner Van Miert had two problems though with the state's economic policy. The first was the low level of corporate taxation for multinationals and the level of state aid and subsidies currently made available for encouraging job creation in the 26 Counties.

The Coalition Government now has to enter negotiations with the EU on how their demands will be met. The EU are not concerned with inequities in the 26-County taxation system or with the effectiveness of grants and subsidies in creating jobs. Their only problem is the ``anti-competitive'' nature of 26-County policies.

Here then is one more instalment in the EU's interference in the Irish economy. There are many things wrong with economic polices here, particularly the slavish dependence on foreign companies and the inequitable level of support for domestic businesses and community enterprise.

The EU ignores all of these issues and is only concerned with the need for one corporate tax rate. Now both we and the Dublin Government have been made spectators as we wait for the EU to table proposals on what they want the Dublin Government to do. It all adds up to one more reason to vote no in next year's referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty.

Counting the costs

     
Salaries cost £5.7 million, secretarial expenses costs £3.25 million, travel was £11.57 million while other allowances add up to £2.16 million. The cost per TD in 1996 then just topped a meagre £76,957.
In 1996 the Dublin Government spent nearly £12 billion. This money was raised through tax revenue collected from the Government. A significant part of this tax revenue is paid by Irish workers. How the money is spent and who gets what is not often highlighted. One invaluable source of accounting for this money is the recently published Comptroller and Auditor General's report.

How much, for example, does it cost to pay the 166 TDs in Leinster House? Well, it adds up. TDs' salaries cost £5.7 million, secretarial expenses costs £3.25 million, travel is £11.57 million while other allowances add up to £2.16 million. The cost per TD in 1996 just topped a meagre £76,957.

Our 10,706 Gardai do not come cheaply either. In 1996 their salaries and allowances came to £30,398 per Garda. This average wage for prison warders comes in at slightly higher than the guards at £33,700 each. Both of these average payments are more than double the average industrial wage.

One other interesting facet of government spending is the amount of money paid to outside expert consultants. The Department of the Taoiseach spent £399,000 on consultants in 1996. The Attorney General spent £524,000. The Department of Transport Energy and Communications splashed out £1,158,000. Even the Central Statistics office hired consultants spending £70,000. Finance blew £614,000. This pales when you consider the £2.138 million spent on consultants by the Revenue Commissioners.

Finally the most startling part of the Auditor General's report is the one page accounts of the Secret Services which tells us that they only spent £304.000 of the £520,000 allocated to them, which leaves you with the question have they run out of secrets to find out?

No investigation into Ansbacher millions

One of the revelations of the Payments to Politicians Tribunal was that up £38 million belonging to Irish citizens, including Charlie Haughey, lay in offshore accounts controlled by the Ansbacher Bank in the Cayman Islands.

We now know that the Ansbacher accounts were used deliberately as a cover for the slush funds that were supporting Haughey's lavish lifestyle and were unknown to the Revenue Commissioners.

Most observers would have expected that there would then be another investigation into who else was hiding money in this £38 million fund.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this investigation. Fianna Fáil Finance minister Charlie McCreevy stated last week that he did not intend to ask the Central Bank to investigate the Ansbacher accounts, even though they might be in breach of 26-County banking regulations. McCreevy has not even raised the issue with the Central Bank Governor.

He did say that the Central Bank and the Revenue Commissioners were independent of his office, leaving the question as to who is responsible for these powerful institutions. On the question of offshore bank accounts it is a case of carry on regardless because no one is officially responsible for bringing you to justice.

INOU budget submission

It's budget time again. 3 December is the day and between now and then groups and organisations across the political spectrum will be lobbying the coalition government to include their needs in the 1998 spending plans.

The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) are one of the first groups to make a submission which they launched last week. They believe that the December budget represents the best opportunity in decades to ``bridge the gap between rich and poor''.

They have also called on the government to give greater funding to training as only this will help the long-term unemployed get back to work.

The INOU are opposed to cuts in the 48% tax rate. Instead tax cuts should be used to increase personal tax free allowances and help low paid workers. They are also called for an abolition of the ceiling on employee's PRSI.

``The fact that workers on very high wages stop paying any additional PRSI contribution makes this levy regressive and unfair,'' said INOU general secretary Mike Allen. The INOU also decided to support calls for a minimum hourly wage of £5.