Ireland is pounded by budget cuts that will amount to 20 percent of
GDP, but protests are rare and with none of the violence seen in Greece
or Italy.
In a village in County Cork in southern Ireland, about 50 farmers and
business people meet after Mass on Sundays to protest against taxpayer
bailouts of bankers. They hold up a banner, wait for the traffic to
stop, and set off on their march 200 yards up the road and back to
bemoan the collapse of the economy.
As the first anniversary of
Ireland’s €67.5 billion ($91.1 billion) bailout by the European Union
and International Monetary Fund approaches, organizer Diarmuid O’Flynn
says the group has struggled to break the 70-person mark ever since it
started in March. “Where we’ve gone we’ve met with almost universal
support, but nobody will fall in,” he says.
“It’s what is called the
bystander theory. The more people who witness a crime, the less likely
somebody is to intervene.”
Not all protests are tiny. Irish police say 15,000 students in Dublin
protested the government’s reintroduction of college fees on Nov. 16. A
version of Occupy Wall Street has also sprung up there.
Yet the
protests haven’t approached the violence and chaos in the streets of
Athens and Rome. In Ireland there was only one strike in the third
quarter, and it involved about 17 people, according to a statement by
the Irish Central Statistics Office.
Greek unions have fought the
government’s spending cuts by grounding airplanes, halting public
transport, and allowing garbage to pile up on Athens streets.
Portugal
is set to face a general strike on Nov. 24, its second in a year. The
peaceful, often subdued nature of Ireland’s protests supports the
government’s insistence that the nation shouldn’t be lumped in the same
category as the Mediterranean states.
“It is very clear that it sets
Ireland apart from some other countries,” Istvan Szekely, a European
Commission official overseeing the country’s bailout, said in Dublin
recently.
Ireland was a relatively poor state until the 1980s, when the
government intensified efforts to lure multinationals in cutting-edge
industries such as software and pharmaceuticals with low taxes and a
well-educated labor force willing to work for modest wages.
While
Ireland boomed for years, the banks financed a real estate bubble that
burst in 2008. Unemployment has tripled, most of the financial system
has been nationalized, and government austerity measures from 2008 to
2015 will amount to more than €30 billion, or about 20 percent of gross
domestic product.
The coalition government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who defeated
his opponent in a general election on Feb. 25, has largely followed the
austerity policies of his predecessor. Polls indicate he remains
popular. “While the Irish are angry, they haven’t moved to active
opposition,” says Eugene McCartan, who is part of a group that wants
Ireland to leave the euro.
Analysts suggest a mix of reasons for the Irish willingness to accept
austerity. Austin Hughes, chief economist at KBC Bank Ireland, says
it’s partly because many Irish realize they fueled the boom and bust by
pushing up property prices and seeking pay hikes that led to a loss of
competitiveness. “There is a sense that everyone was at a party that
went a little too wild,” he says.
Other analysts point to unions’ decision to work with the government.
Finally, many of those who might have taken to the streets have left
the country to find work. “This history of migration from Ireland is one
of the reasons why we haven’t had more revolt and social protest,” says
Chris Curtin, professor of political science and sociology at NUI
Galway. “The protest is a walk-out.”
The markets have rewarded the Irish with yields of 8 percent on Irish
bonds maturing in 2020. Comparable Greek bonds are yielding more than
25 percent. Yet there’s no end in sight for the austerity the Irish must
endure.
“The new government really doesn’t have any fixes or policy
options that will better people’s lives in any kind of near-term
future,” says Sean Kay, a professor of politics and government at Ohio
Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.
In Cork, the protester count in the village has dwindled to fewer
than 50 as sports and farm work draw locals away. Says organizer
O’Flynn: “Everybody is waiting for somebody else to protest.”
The bottom line: Ireland’s austerity measures from 2008 to 2015 will equal 20 percent of GDP. So far the Irish are taking them in stride.
