Cassandra Voices

Tag: neoliberalism in Ireland

  • Putting the ‘Public’ Back into Enterprise

    Part I of this series examined Mario Draghi’s recent proposals for reforming the E.U.’s economic model. It explained how one key tool was missing from his new industrial policy toolkit. That missing tool was public enterprise. Here in part II, we take a closer look at commercial State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Particularly regarding their role at times of market failure, and how they can be used to channel investment into promising new sectors, with positive spillovers.

    The role of SOEs as drivers of Irish industrial policy may seem like a thing of the past, or at least very much peripheral to Ireland’s tax-driven industrial strategy. However, a new debate is starting to take root. Although long overdue, it should be welcomed, particularly when we consider different options for how the €14 billion Apple tax receipts should be invested.

    Note the government’s proposal to use some of the funds for their shared equity scheme is exactly the opposite of what’s needed.

    A New Debate or a New Departure?

    As part of their pre-election campaigning the various Irish parties of the broad left offered different public enterprise solutions for various challenges.

    For instance, both People Before Profit and Labour called for the establishment of a new construction related SOE. There are differences in how each proposed it would operate in practice. Part III takes a closer look at these. It will also briefly touch on the Spanish government’s recent announcement that it’s to establish a new housing SOE, and ICTU’s call for the creation of ‘a new housing semi-state- Housing Ireland.’

    Sinn Féin in their election manifesto called for existing SOEs like the ESB to drastically increase the number of craft apprenticeship places they offer (electricians, plumbers, etc), to help address shortages of key skills and improve workforce planning. They’ve also called for €2.5 billion of the Apple money to be used by the state to take equity stakes in joint energy ventures undertaken by the ESB and private providers.

    The Social Democrats, for their part, called for an increase to Bord na Móna’s capacity to deliver large renewable energy projects (onshore and offshore wind). They also had Dr Rory Hearne elected as one of their new TDs, so it’s possible his previous research on a new national home-building agency could influence party policy in this respect.

    So, it’s clear that we’re noticing something of a shift away from a narrow (and reductive?) focus on tax and spend; toward a more ambitious and positive conception of the role of the state in helping to shape markets, and drive socio-economic outcomes.

    President Michael D. Higgins in a speech last year celebrating the 20th of anniversary of TASC highlighted the ‘dearth of progressive or heterodox policy debates’ over the last few decades. Something he rightly attributed to the ‘dominance of neoliberalism’ and its ‘economic orthodoxies’.

    Mainstream (neoclassical) economic theory says remarkably little about SOEs. This is despite their scale, scope, and importance in the history of economic development and industrialisation. In an Irish context, they have traditionally entered public consciousness at times of some proposed privatisation, or in reflection on the failures of past privatisations.

    It’s time our thinking evolved. Michéal Martin said the Irish left ‘doesn’t get our enterprise economy’. The problem is that there are many people who feel they aren’t ‘getting’ much out of it. Perhaps it’s time we put the ‘public’ back into enterprise.

    The Business of the State

    So, what’s the purpose of the state directly entering commercial activities via SOEs? The most common rationale is correcting market failure, and the OECD/EU provide several theoretical reasons:

    • The private sector’s not providing sufficient goods/services, which are deemed necessary.
    • The need to provide public goods (housing, health, education) which a free-market system won’t provide adequately.
    • The decision to become involved in an activity where the private sector overproduces certain undesirable good with negative externalities (e.g. pollution, carbon emissions)

    Other supportive arguments include the countercyclical function they can serve in terms of investment expenditures/employment during a downturn. Their ability to promote industrialisation by launching new industries that may have significant start-up costs and the requirement for long-term investments. Their use as vehicles for innovation, knowledge dissemination, and technological spillovers. Lastly, for national security reasons and to contend with monopolistic sectors.

    There’s no one size fits all model when it comes to SOEs. In practice there’s significant variation observed. There are commercial and non-commercial SOEs. They can be owned at the national level (e.g. Government Ministry), the sub-national level (municipal/local authority) or through some other entity (e.g. a sovereign wealth/development fund or a Central Bank).

    There’s different levels of ownership and control observed, ranging from full state ownership to a more limited shareholding. Some have shares privately held, with others having some equity traded publicly. The degree of control also varies from those directly answerable to a Minister/Department, to those subject in more indirect control. Part III returns to the variation in organisational structure in an Irish context.

    Despite the large-scale privatisations that have occurred with the ascendancy of neoliberalism, the relative importance of state ownership has increased in recent decades (OECD 2023). Data-driven research over the last quarter of a century has been somewhat limited, but we are currently seeing something of a resurgence.

    This is partly being driven by the ‘renewed interest’ in SOEs amongst policymakers (World Bank 2023). But also, by a multilateral institutional realisation that the footprint of the state in commercial activities is far larger than previously thought (figure 1).

    As the OECD (2023) notes, the number of SOEs in the list of top 500 global companies has tripled, and at the end of 2022 ‘the public sector held almost 11% of global market capitalisation of listed companies, amounting to $10.6 trillion, with public sector ownership in some markets amounting to over 30% of listed equity’.

    SOEs in the 21st Century

    SOEs are major actors in most economies holding assets of $45 trillion, equivalent to 50% of world GDP (IMF 2020). They’re also active across a wide range of sectors (figure 2). China’s sharp rise (see part 1) has supported the ongoing re-evaluation of the state’s role in the economy. But in the West the Financial Crisis (2008), Covid-19 and the energy crisis, which all saw partial/full nationalisations, government backed recapitalisations and a host of other state subsidies, has also fed into the ongoing re-evaluation.

    In 2009 the Harvard International Review argued that there was ‘no reason to believe’ that the SOEs of the 21st century would be like their counterparts from the 1980s/1990s. Criticisms of that period centred on the favouritism shown by the state, governance issues, inefficiencies, and so on.

    This assessment proved to be prophetic as extensive OECD research (2021) found that the ‘noteworthy trend’ has been that ‘states are operating increasingly like professional investors.’ That is, most had a commitment to ‘competitive neutrality’ meaning favouritism was not shown toward SOEs, and competition law and public procurement law were used to create a level playing field.

    They also noted for corporate governance it was now ‘common practice’ to have auditing and accounting standards (International Financial Reporting Standards) equivalent to stock market listed companies.

    MacCarthaigh (2008) in a review of Irish SOEs found that performance indicators were used extensively, with their use having increased significantly from previous years. Financial results and profitability were the focus, but other societal performance metrics like environmental and corporate social responsibility were also observed.

    Notwithstanding the recent work by multilateral institutions, academic research on SOEs over the last quarter of a century has been somewhat limited. The results of extant studies are also relatively mixed and lacking consensus. Table 1 provides an overview of some studies that have been carried out.

    SOEs have been studied across a range of issues, including: profitability performance vs private firms; level of innovation vs private firms; general performance following privatisation; effects on economic growth etc.

    There are some studies which found private firms tend to perform better in terms of profitability, with others finding no such evidence following privatisation, or that this brings higher costs in the provision of formerly public goods. Some found SOEs to be more innovative than their private sector counterparts.

    One study, examining their effect on economic growth, found that it was neither negative nor positive per se. Rather, their effect was conditioned by the institutional environment they operated within, meaning in the presence of good quality institutions their effect was positive, and in the presence of poor-quality institutions their effect was negative.

    This reminds me of something a former professor of mine once said. The answer to any question in economics is always – ‘it depends’! SOEs are not some kind of magic bullet. How they perform will depend on a range of factors. These factors can also apply to private firms.

    Factors like whether its organisational structure is sound. The presence of sound management and a board with a strategic vision, which are in alignment with its shareholder goals;[1] a good understanding of the market conditions they are operating within etc.

    Where they have differed in the past is that private firms could be quicker to exit a market when it was no longer competitively viable.[2] The case of Irish Steel – nationalised to save jobs – is a good case in point. It continued well past its sell by date, despite no longer being economically viable.

    But SOEs like private firms can adapt to a changed environment. For example, Bord na Móna went from being a major peat harvester to making good progress in renewable energy.[3]

    Lastly, it must be noted that SOEs may not be solely driven by maximising profit, measured via financial metrics (gross/net profit margin; return on equity (ROE); return on assets (ROA), etc).

    As commercial enterprises they will still need to make a profit, but they often have a so-called double bottom line, meaning they also look to maximise a second objective, such as capital investment, social impact, environmental performance, etc.

    So, comparing their profitability to private firms which are explicitly profit maximising is not necessarily a fair comparison. Next, we’ll take a brief look at specific Irish SOEs in historical perspective.

    Table 1
    Authors & year Research area/concern Findings Comment/limitations/ implications
    Shirley & Walsh

    (2000)

    		 Reviewed 52 studies (1980s to 1990s) which examined the difference in performance between SOEs and private corporations. They reported that there were only five studies indicating that SOEs outperformed private corporations Only monitored firms in monopolistic utility sectors
    Omran

    (2004)

    		 Examined the performance of 54 newly privatized Egyptian firms against a matching number of SOEs (1994-98) His analyses showed that privatized firms did not exhibit significant improvements in their performance relative to SOEs. These findings questioned the benefits of Egyptian privatization Cautioned that ‘changing ownership’ has no instant magical effect on performance, and greater consideration should be given to market structure or the power of competition
    Anderson (2007) Examined the impact of privatisation in Latin America (Ecuador), in relation to natural monopolies and public goods The privatisation of SOEs in involved in the provision of public goods can head to lower output and higher costs in the long run Noted that for Ecuador to develop the public sector still needed to play a significant role in developing human capital and physical infrastructure
    Mazucatto (2013) Examines the role of the state/public funding in the US economy’s success. Tackles the myth of neoclassical economics which juxtaposes a supposedly bureaucratic state versus a dynamic, innovative private sector The role of government as both a risk-taking funder of innovation and a market creator is widely understood. Public/state-funded investments in innovation and technology has been the driver of success, rather than free market doctrine Correctly recognises that governments form an essential role in the innovation chain. Points out that state has not only fixed market failures, but has also actively shaped and created markets. Sometimes successfully sometimes not.
    Benassi & Landoni

    (2018)

    		 Deals with the role of SOEs in innovation processes through two case studies (STMicroelectronics in the semiconductor and Thales Alenia Space in the space industry Illustrates how SOEs can contribute to innovation by exploring new opportunities and recombining different sources of knowledge. Highlights the conditions under which success can be realised. Highlights how these SOEs succeeded through a continuous wave of agreements, mergers and acquisitions. This has bearing for some of the proposals Mario Draghi has made (see part 1)
    Asian Development Bank (2019) Using a large sample of firms with cross sectional data, compares SOEs to private firms across various financial performance measures Found that SOEs ‘be less profitable than privately owned enterprises’. Argues SOEs should shift to profit maximising behaviour, although this runs counter to the double bottom line they often have
    Lee et al

    (2021)

    		 Examined the innovation performance of SOEs vs private corporations in Asian middle-income countries (2012-15) The authors note ‘somewhat surprisingly’ they found that SOEs in the study population tended to innovate more than private firms Noted the scarce data availability for empirical comparisons, meaning survey data was used instead
    Szarzec et al (2021) Examined the effect of SOEs on economic growth in 30 European countries (2010-16) Impact of SOEs on economic growth is not good or bad per se, but conditioned on the level of institutional quality. SOEs are positive on economic growth in a good quality institutional environment, and negative for poor quality institutional environments
    Castelnovo (2022) Analyses the innovation performance of more than 2000 SOEs vs private firms, using patent applications as a proxy for innovation value Results suggest that cross-industry heterogeneity exists. Overall, SOEs innovative performance is comparable or even superior to that of private firms Paper restricts attention to developed countries (EU Member States). Therefore, its findings cannot be generalized to developing countries

     

    Poolbeg Generating Station Ringsend, Dublin.

    Irish SOEs in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

    In the wake of the financial crisis (2008-10) a report for the Department of Enterprise noted that there was renewed global interest in SOEs in ‘promoting economic development’, and their ‘significant contribution to the economic and social development of Ireland since independence’ (FORFÁS 2011).

    At the time there were calls by ICTU to establish a strategic investment bank ‘to address the collapse in domestic demand’, to help support infrastructure investment and address the loss of jobs.[4] Such calls went unheeded. Instead, we got the below value sale of An Bord Gais and the attempted privatisation of our water services.

    Let’s briefly consider some of our current and former SOEs in historical perspective (see below), before considering some of the impacts of privatisation.

    • the ESB,
    • the Irish Shipping Company,
    • the National Building Agency,
    • Telecom Éireann,
    • ICC Bank,
    • Aer Lingus

    ESB

    At the time of independence/partition agriculture was Ireland’s main industrial sector. Yet most farms had no electricity or light, severely hampering profitability, productivity, and incomes (Schoen 2002). The ESB in helping to electrify the state had an immediate impact on economic, social, and industrial development, and average sector level income.

    Today it remains a large employer (supporting 0.5% of total employment). It’s a major capital investor (€6.7bn in the period 2018-23) and continues to provide strong returns to the state in the form of taxes, payroll, purchases, and dividends (€2.7bn in 2023). 

    The Irish Shipping Company

    The outbreak of WW2 threatened supply chains as many private shipping operators were unable to service Ireland. According to the old Department of Industry and Commerce, in 1939 only 5% of the total tonnage required for the Irish import and export trade was provided by Irish-owned vessels. During World War II, the U.S. initially refused to enter the warzone around Irish waters, meaning they couldn’t transport directly to Ireland.

    Other ships moved to the British register leaving a crisis in the availability of ships for transporting imported/exported goods. The establishment of the Irish Shipping Company was vital for the continued importation of energy supplies, as well as supporting exporting businesses in maintaining their trade routes, incomes, and employment. It was also considered essential to the preservation of Irish neutrality.

    National Building Agency

    The shift toward trade liberalisation and our FDI-led model in the 1960s was at first impeded by a lack of housing, as neither the private sector nor local authorities could meet demand. The National Building Agency was established for ‘facilitating industrial expansion through the provision of houses and ancillary services.’

    It soon undertook multiple large-scale developments and won plaudits from across the aisle. Even Fine Gael’s arch-conservative T.D. Oliver J Flanagan stated: ‘In my own constituency the NBA have provided what I consider to be the best type of houses that I have ever seen erected, in record time and to a plan and a design second to none.’[5]

    It was noted during one debate of the period how it had worked closely with the IDA, and after a decade in existence it had constructed multiple large scale developments, having ‘brought new techniques to Irish workers’, and ‘coordinated very well with the trade union movement’. The NBA was also an early pioneer in modular built structures and underfloor heating.

    Telecom Eireann

    The onset of the Celtic Tiger has multiple explanatory factors, but one often neglected was the quality of our telecommunications network infrastructure (Harris 2005). Thanks to the heavy capital investment of Telecom Eireann, by the early 1990s the network was amongst the most digitalised and modern in the world, and essential to attracting emerging ICT and financial services industries.

    At its height it provided employment to 18,000 workers, and by the mid-1990s the telecommunications infrastructure had become 100% digitised. It was privatised in 1999 as Eircom (now EIR).

    ICC Bank

    The Industrial Credit Corporation (ICC Bank), first established as a strategic industry lender, later became key to the SME sector. It made strategic equity investments in venture capital in the software sector, which was one of the successful indigenous export industries to emerge from the Celtic Tiger period (Kirby 2011).

    It expanded steadily, enjoying consistent profitability, and made equity investments totalling £36.9 million. At the time of privatisation (2001) it had grown its balance sheet to €3 billion.

    Aer Lingus

    Aer Lingus when it was an SOE was very entrepreneurial in its diversification activities, designed to mitigate the cyclical nature of the aviation industry (Sweeney 2004). It diversified into activities like financial, computer and engineering related services.

    It established successful subsidiaries like Airmotive, TEAM, Aviation Traders Engineering, Aer Turas, Pegasus and Futura, to name but a few. Aer Lingus, and its then employee Tony Ryan, can also lay claim to leasing one of the world’s first aircraft, which helped to create a global industry (aircraft leasing) in which Ireland now holds a 65% market share (PWC).

    Today Ireland’s remaining SOEs continue to contribute to the Exchequer, not merely in terms of employment and taxes paid, but also in terms of the dividends they have returned to the state. For example, in the period 2013 -2020 they contributed almost €2.5bn (Table 2). To put this in perspective, that is somewhere around where the final cost of the new National Children’s hospital will land.

    We can see from the foregoing the significant contribution that public enterprise has played throughout the state’s short history. And whilst there will always be those who assert that ‘the state has no business in business’, the above examples should demonstrate how erroneous that thinking is.

    It should, however, be said that when it comes to economic planning on the part of the state, it has often been found wanting (Casey 2022). The relationship between SOEs and the Irish government has often lacked ‘clearly articulated policy or objectives’ meaning public debate has rarely evolved beyond ‘the issue of privatisation’ (MacCarthaigh 2008).

    Table2 : Dividend payments to the exchequer from SOEs (2013-2020)

    Irish Privatisation in Perspective

    The importance of SOEs in Ireland has declined in relative and absolute terms since the early 1990s, through a combination of privatisation and the growth in the economy. In the 1980s SOEs employed ninety-one thousand people, accounting for 8% of total employment, falling to less than half that number and 2% of total employment by 2008.

    The wave of privatisations, with the ascendency of neoliberalism, saw major state divestment in sectors like construction, transport, telecommunications, other utilities, and finance (Parker 2021). In Ireland, arguably the biggest privatisation since the foundation of the state wasn’t from the sale of a single SOE, but rather the sale of more than half of all the public housing stock (Sweeney 2004).

    Ireland’s experience with privatisation largely mirrors the mixed results and disappointments seen elsewhere, as Table 3 sets out.[6] Despite promises of greater efficiency, cheaper and superior quality services/infrastructure, etc; often the reality failed to match the hype.

    In certain instances, privatisation had very costly consequences for households, businesses, the state, and its competitiveness.[7] As we can see below (table 3), four of the six SOEs (TE, ICC, IS and BG) were all profitable at the time of their sale, one of which had reached record profitability, and were returning dividends to the state.

    Of the two which were loss making; the Irish Shipping Company had been ‘a viable and successful state enterprise’ (Barrett 2004) before it made significant losses from speculative charter agreements, entered into by management without the approval of its shareholders (Minister for Finance/Transport).

    In the case of Irish Steel, major changes in global steel markets beginning in the 1980s, meant it became a significant loss maker and was no longer commercially viable. It was sold for £1 in 1996 and the new private entity would shut its doors in 2001.

    The impact of the privatisations of late 1990s/early 2000s were particularly acute. The sale of Telecom Eireann led to two leverage buyouts (think private equity) with much asset stripping and loading the company up with debt. There was then significant underinvestment meaning Ireland lagged behind EU peers in broadband connection for a long time.

    This privatisation was described as the ‘the biggest own goal’ for the state, next to the blanket bank guarantee. Although some of the proceeds of the sale were used to capitalise Ireland’s first sovereign wealth fund (the National Pension Reserve Fund), this of course would later be raided to bail out the banks.

    ICC bank was sold in 2001 despite being quite profitable and returning increasing dividends to the state. The proceeds of these sales were used ‘to cut direct taxes, incentivise property investment and so boosted the Crash’ (Sweeney 2018). In other words, successful public enterprise was sold off, partly used to lower taxes, and fuel the crash, and partly put aside in a new sovereign wealth fund, which would then be used to pay for the cleaning up of the mess.

    Bord Gáis, which was described as ‘extremely efficient in operational terms’, was sold under pressure from the Troika, and for less than its worth. Between 1976 and 2009 it had returned €689 million in dividends to the state. At the time it was still in public ownership, Ireland had one of the lowest energy costs in the EU, a situation which has now been drastically reversed.

    Table 3
    SOE, lifespan & industry Rationale for existence Max employees Performance prior to privatisation Aftermath of privatisation
    Telecom Éireann

    (1983-99)

    Communication

    		 To roll out digital telephone switching technology along with extensive fibre optic. 18,000 ·        Went from loss making (-£83 million) in 1983-84, to earning profits of £94 million by 1990-91.

    ·        In 1998 it made pre-tax profits of IR£223m, up 9%, on turnover of IR£1.35 billion.

    ·        By the early 1990s, the Irish network was amongst the most modern and most digitalised in the world and by the mid-1990s had become 100% digitally switched.

    ·        In 1999 it had debts of €340 million which rose to €4.27 billion by 2007 after privatisation.[8]

     

    		 Underwent two leveraged buyouts (LBOs), asset stripping, loading company up with debt, significant underinvestment, Ireland lagged behind EU peers in broadband connection for a long time.

     

    A report by ICTU noted that next to the blanket bank guarantee, the privatisation of Telecom Eireann ranked as “the biggest own goal” for the state.
    Industrial Credit Corporation – ICC Bank

    (1933-01)

    Finance

    		 Setup as strategic lender for industrial expansion.

    Later acted as key lender to SMEs, indigenous businesses, and venture capital.

    		 358 ·        Expanded steadily, enjoyed consistent profitability, and made equity investments totalling £36.9 million.

    ·        Grew its balance sheet through its own efforts to almost £3 billion at the time of privatisation.

    ·        Paid regular and increasing dividends to the Exchequer over the previous two decades.

    ·        In the five years before privatisation, dividend payments amounted to £14 million, while corporation tax payments in the same period came to £10 million.

    ·        The bank made a profit of €47 million the year before it was sold.

    		 Return on assets (ROA) declined after privatisation, asset size increased (Reeves).

     

    Post-crash, loss of ICC cited in support for establishing State Investment Bank (NESC 2013), (ICTU 2011).

     

    Credit demand muted after GFC, accessing finance today for SMEs remains a challenge with 66% having difficulties.[9]
    Irish Shipping Company

    (1941-1984)

    Transport

    		 Setup to protect imports and exports during WW2, to promote greater self-sufficiency and protect neutrality. 300 ·        Liquidated following significant losses from speculative charter agreements entered into without the approval of its shareholders (Minister for Finance/Transport).

    ·        Liquidation cost £101 million, which was £13 million more than allowing the company to keep trading.[10] Its ships were sold off.

    ·        Prior to this mistake with the charter agreements it was “a viable and successful state enterprise” (Barrett 2004).

    ·        It was described as having “offered good careers to many” and brought “benefits to our commercial reputation as a nation”.[11]

    		 Claims cost of liquidation would be £50 million whereas C&AG reports for 1984, 1985 and 1986 estimated in excess of £100 million.
    Irish Steel

    (1947-96)

    Basic Materials

    		 Initially nationalised to “save jobs” 1,200 ·        Loss of competitiveness from other EU markets and declining steel prices.

    ·        Although modest profitability in the 1950s/1960s, problems emerged in the 1970s and despite significant state investment in 1980s, and workforce changes (90s) it made a loss of £20.7 million (1993-94) and a loss of £5.8 million (1994-95).

    ·        Serious environmental damage caused from dumping of toxic materials.

    		 Often cited as a “white elephant” project.

    Was not viable as a commercial enterprise. Firoz (2003) argues that the significant drop in steel prices in the 1990s was a major problem for producers without trade protections, strong state subsidies, and increased competition from the developing world (China).
    Irish Sugar Greencore

    (1933-91)

    Agribusiness

    		Commercial and wider social reasons like promoting regional development and employment in the West 1,757 (1991) ·        Experienced rapid growth and improvement in the pre-privatization period.

    ·        Heavy investment in the 1980s and diversified into other agribusiness streams.

    ·        Turnover in the year ending September 1990 was £271 million, which was also a record year for net profits £18.4 million.

    		 In the decade post privatisation, its performance was not strongly associated with improved financial performance and productivity.[12]
    Bord Gais Energy

    (1976-13)

    Energy

    		 Established (Gas Act 1976) as owner of the national gas transmission & distribution systems, mandated with development and maintenance of the natural gas network. 1000 est. (2013) ·        Under pressure from the Troika the lucrative energy supplier valued at €1.5 billion was sold for only €1.1 billion, because no reserve auction price had been set.[13]

    ·        BGE had yielded rising profits with an EBITDA of €91 million in 2013.

    ·        It paid dividends of €689 million between 1976 and 2009,[14] the paid €30 million (2010), €33 million (2011) and €28.3 (2012).

    ·        It lost its profitable wind farms, plants and the right to supply gas to nearly a million customers in Ireland.

    ·        The SOE was a heavy infrastructural investor and was described as “extremely efficient in operational terms”.[15]

    		 Sold for less than valuation amidst much parliamentary/public criticism.

     

    Advisers’ fees for the privatisation amounted to €27 million.

     

    Irish electricity prices were 26% above EU average (Eurostat 2022), with Bord Gais like other suppliers having raised prices multiple times in 2022.


    Conclusion

    The late great Tony Benn once said there will always be those who don’t want public enterprise to survive, even where it succeeds. For instance, David Luhnow of the Wall Street Journal, recently issued sharp criticism of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for saying she wanted her country to place a greater focus on its SOEs. He said it was like the economic evidence of the last half century had been forgotten.

    But what evidence does he think she has forgotten? Joseph Stiglitz recently pointed out that after forty years the numbers in: ‘growth has slowed, and the fruits of that growth went overwhelmingly to a very few at the top. As wages stagnate and the stock market soared, income and wealth flowed up rather than trickling down’.

    It’s not enough for the broad left to say that neoliberalism and privatisation has failed. We need to have a coherent program to start reversing it. One element of such a strategy could be public enterprise. The point here is not that the Irish state should return to direct involvement in previous areas it operated in like agribusiness or steel production, or even that SOEs are always the best option for addressing socio-economic problems or promoting industrial development.

    Rather it’s to recognise that in certain circumstances SOEs are the only actors capable of doing this when the private sector fails. It’s also to acknowledge that they can also be entrepreneurial actors, making the necessary long-term investments in transformational infrastructure, technologies and industries, when the private sector is unwilling or unable.

    [1] For mismanagement and misalignment can lead to ruin, as in the case of the Irish Shipping Company, which prior to its engagement of speculative charter agreements had long been a profitable and successful company.

    [2] Irish Steel is clearly an example of this where political pressure kept the entity alive well past its sell by date.

    [3] It recently announced the biggest change of land use in modern Irish history, 125,000 acres of bog land will soon be repurposed for wind, biomass and solar energy.

    [4] https://www.ictu.ie/news/jobs-plan-fails-deal-demand-deficit

    [5] https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1969-10-29/41/

    [6] Other SOEs privatised but not dealt with in Table 3 include Irish Life, TSB, the Agricultural Credit Corporation, Irish National Petroleum, British and Irish Line, BOI/AIB and Aer Lingus.

    [7] Poor access to broadband, housing crisis harming competitiveness, loss of dividends to the exchequer, proceeds of sale of privatisations of 2000s was used to reduce direct taxes rather than reinvestment, this helped to fuel property speculation, at time country was running surpluses, exacerbated the crash, etc.

    [8] https://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/policy/econconf/Reeves_Palcic01022013.pdf

    [9] https://p2pfinancenews.co.uk/2022/02/17/two-thirds-of-irish-smes-struggle-to-access-credit/

    [10] Recalling Irish Shipping liquidation – The Irish Times

    [11] https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1984-11-14/28/?highlight%5B0%5D=financed&highlight%5B1%5D=finance&highlight%5B2%5D=bill&highlight%5B3%5D=1932

    [12] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036846.2015.1061643

    [13] https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/tni_privatising_industry_in_europe.pdf

    [14] https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2009-02-03/7/

    [15] http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2009/11/04/the-benefits-of-increased-investment-and-efficiency-in-public-infrastructure-and-utilities/

  • Being Irish

    This Ireland exists. And should one travel there and not find it, then they have not looked closely enough..
    Hugo Hamilton: The Island of Talking – In the footsteps of Heinrich Boll

    #IrelandisFull: the migration of this phrase from the far-right into the mainstream is an awful feature of our woe-begotten times. It begs the question: what does it mean to be Irish? Ireland is of course full at one level; full of gaslighting and bullshit, not least from people who subscribe to these views, and those who have created the conditions for them to flourish.

    One is not more Irish because your grandfather was in the GPO. That your name is Lenehan, Murphy, Barrington, Finlay, Kelly, Doyle, or conversely, Langwallner, Smith, Varadkar, Naidoo, Bacik should make no difference to your claim. It is not where you come from, or your name, it is about who you are, what you do and why you do it.

    It should make no difference whether it was an immigrant who assaulted a child, given many Irish thugs are wont to do the same. And recall it was a Brazilian delivery driver that rescued her. Thuggish criminals come from all breeds and nationalities. And those who riot and attack people with baseball bats are simply thugs, as are those who spread hatred against Johnny Foreigner from whatever vector in whatever country.

    Consider the words of Kipling, often considered a jingoistic nationalist:

    Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
    Where I used to spend my time
    A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,
    Of all them blackfaced crew
    The finest man I knew
    Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din

    Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013.

    Under Neoliberalism

    Under a rampant neoliberalism, we now see overt far-right fascism, but also a structural form underpinning the centre-right, which is overseeing the impoverishment of all but the super-rich, while maintaining a veneer of inclusivity.

    Now, with an economic and environmental meltdown on the horizon, it is time to assert universal Enlightenment values, and fairly allocate the resources of the Earth, and of Ireland, while leaving room for diversity and even eccentricity. It is the time for those, such as the legendary mixed race writer Albert Camus, to assert the values of moderation against all forms of extremism.

    The phrase keep ‘Ireland for the Irish’ is one I have heard in family law proceedings. Sadly, it speaks of a widespread, generally unacknowledged, intolerance.

    In recent times we have become a nation of bean counters. Between 1996 and 2012 the number of qualified accountants in the state grew by a staggering eight-three percent to number 27,112.[i]

    Ireland has always been run by a privileged elite, a comprador class of money men and lawyers that facilitate exploitation. The Four Courts still operates with vestiges of primogeniture. So resentment should be targeted against the elites who perpetuate inequality, not the poor huddled masses from Ukraine seeking refuge, which of course was offered to Irish emigrants in the recent past.

    Racism, tribalism, and irredentism are worrying signs of fascism, which seems to be the way things are heading. A fascist corporate authoritarian state is on the horizon. The extreme economic doctrine of neoliberalism is breeding autarkic extremism.

    One’s nationality, whether Irish, Russian or American, is not an indication of exceptionalism. That you are Irish does not give you an entitlement to despise outsiders. It cannot justify thuggery. Irish lives matter is an empty phrase. The far-right at its most extreme propounds truly crazy fictions. Thus. anyone daring to disagree is labelled a paedo, destroying family values. Jesus wept.

    Of course this is linked to the dark money of the evangelical Christian Right. Perceptively, Noam Chomsky once described the U.S. Republican Party as the most dangerous organisation in human history.

    David Langwallner receiving the prize from Miriam O’Callaghan for Pro Bono & Public Interest Team/Lawyer of the Year at the AIB Private Banking Irish Law Awards 2015.

    Nein Danke Herr Langwallner

    As a speckled person myself, like Hugo Hamilton, half-Irish, half Austrian, I was confronted in my school days with comments like “go back to Austria Adolf”. Moreover, during a debate in that crucible of Irish corporate narrow-mindedness which is UCD, I was greeted with the rebuke on an unanswerable point of information: Nein Danke Herr Langwallner.

    Much laughter flowed from the thuggish mobocracy. That body included at least one present judge, along with a managing partner of a leading law firm. Thugs and or criminals thus come in all shapes and hues in fact. Many are to be found among our corporate and legal so-called professional classes.

    Now what is pure Irish blood? Garrett Fitzgerald, the reformist Blueshirt, was a contradiction in terms. He once described the intellectually superior Charles J. Haughey as having a flawed pedigree. Haughey had his faults but note the class snobbery, and arguably racism, of the comment.

    The blue blood Tories of Fine Gael are sustained by a sense of dynastic entitlement, evident with judicial appointments, where a kind of rabbit disease like myxomatosis seems to have created an overwhelming mediocrity.

    The name Fitzgerald of course comes from the Vikings who raped and pillaged Celtic Ireland – plus ca change. The only difference is the violations are now financial, which is spawning far right-wing fascism.

    One of the heroes of the Irish Revolution, Countess Markievicz was actually born in England and married a Polish-Ukrainian count. Even the long-shadowed Éamon de Valera had a Cuban father and was born in New York. If only he had stayed. The bloodline of pure Irishness has thus always been corrupted. Garret FitzGerald should have understood that being Irish is not akin to a dog breeding competition.

    In more recent times, if we are supposed to hate immigrants based on their skin colour or ethnicity, are we to hate the greatest Irish football player of all time, the Black Pearl of Inchicore, Paul McGrath or Phillip Lynott the lead singer of Thin Lizzy similarly?

    Are we to add Irish Protestants and Jews to the hate list? Samuel Beckett was a Protestant and so was Justice Kingsmill Moore. A few more Protestant judges might have been beneficial over the history of the state.

    Or consider those to whom we have given welcome: the great Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein – one of the most significant minds of the twentieth century – is honoured by a plaque in the Ashling Hotel. The great German writer Heinreich Boll lived in Ireland and was favourably disposed, while the Rolling Stones have had a shadowy presence among the Guinness family. In short, emigres, non-nationals, or “half-castes” enrich our public discourse and provide diversity.

    And if we hate the English, should we hate Shane McGowan or John Lennon, both of Irish extraction or if we hate the Yanks, what about Eugene O Neill or F. Scott Fitzgerald, two of the greatest writers who have ever lived, who were of Irish lineage. It might be said that the former’s posthumously published play A Long Day’s Journey into Night captures perfectly at one level what it is to be Irish: alcoholism, mental illness and abuse are the central characteristics of our national polity and governing classes.

    Irish and proud..

    Who are these people and why are they terrorising poor immigrants? The Fianna Fáil councillors who seek to condone must understand they are spreading the seeds of fascism. To hate the other because he or she is different is a disgrace, and you have forfeited your legitimacy to remain in public office.

    Yes, there is a need for a more nuanced immigration system. But proportionately we do not attract as many as elsewhere. Let us not forget that many of these people have experienced horrific scenes we can only imagine. But I fear that Ukrainian refugees on slender social support have gone from the frying pan into the fire.

    To fail to understand how much diversity adds to any society is to demonise and exclude. The shocking truth, however, is that exclusion is to be found at the highest reaches of the Irish establishment, who display classic attributes of colonialism as Fritz Fannon describes this phenomenon. Exclusion from the good life enjoyed by a few extends to many native sons.

    And if we are to dislike other nationalities let us avoid making it global or universal. I love the Italian film director Fellini but hate Meloni because she is a proto-fascist. I adore the writer Dostoevsky, but cannot approve of Putin. I love the African writer Achebe but not the African dictator Mugabe. Nor should one hate the Irish.

    Sinn Fein have been brave in sticking to a non-racist stance, particularly as many of its constituents misguidedly move elsewhere, and if they are to be a party of government they should ignore the electoral consequences and stick to their principles.

    Featured image by David Kernan (Creative Commons Licence).

    [i] Tony Farmar, The History of Irish Book Publishing, Stroud, The History Press, 2018, p.12

  • Housing: Enshrining the Gambler

    To understand the origins of the Irish Housing Crisis we also need to look beyond our shores, and excavate the substrate of the modern global financial order. This will reveal a slow journey towards the neoliberal financialisation of property as an asset today – overwhelmingly bought and sold regardless of the needs of society at large. Today, individuals act as private companies, but invariably lose out to better organised and resourced institutions, while the periodic burstings of speculative bubbles widen inequalities, and create conditions for Populist uprisings.

    In particular, it should be recognised that our capitalist system is not simply a market economy, of which there have been numerous variants through history, none of which, including our own, truly “free” in any meaningful sense. Capitalism in its current guise exhibits a dispassionate face, but ultimately relies on violent enforcement of interest-bearing loans by officers of the State. It arrived in the wake of widespread acceptance of what was previously considered the sin of usury – the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender – by Protestant reformers during the Reformation.

    Markets in goods and services have existed since civilisations first emerged in the Middle East, but these were invariably softened by community solidarity, wherein laws and norms ensured trade was not conducted – as we see increasingly today – as an impersonal, zero-sum game between competing parties. Of course, there were various categories of people – including women and slaves – that were excluded from such commonwealths, nonetheless a sense of mutual obligation and reciprocity was more pronounced in the trading arrangements of pre-modern polities.

    It is only in recent history, as living standards have risen through technological advances, enhanced food supply and sanitation – along with the arrival of various forms of income redistribution associated with the welfare state – that property – in material terms shelter – has emerged as central to the achievement of a basic standard of living, and the good life we now expect. Its acquisition has become an all-consuming preoccupation in many countries, Ireland not least.

    Subsistence Level

    Even in Europe and North America, until the twentieth century the primary challenge for most families was to obtain sufficient food for survival. Due in part to a veneration of an economic philosophy of laissez faire, associated with Adam Smith, ample sufficiency was slow in arriving, despite increased supplies arising out of the Second Agricultural Revolution from the seventeenth century onwards; along with the arrival of subsistence crops from the Americas, including our beloved potato, and maize.

    In Europe, initially at least, the ascent of the bourgeois from the seventeenth century worked to the detriment of peasants and a new working class. Thus, despite technological developments, such as the invention in Europe of the printing press, and a more stable food supply in the years between 1500-1650 prices rose by 500%, but wages rose much more slowly.

    There were continuous interruptions to, and distortions of, food supply in a nascent capitalist market. The beginning of the seventeenth century witnessed grain surpluses in England as agricultural capacity exceeded the requirements of the population. Carryover inventories of food averaged between 33 and 42 percent of annual consumption. Therefore, in that period: ‘famines were man-made rather than natural disasters.’[i]

    The typical English subsistence crisis after the ascendancy of Henry VIII did not take place because of insufficiency but because ‘the demand for inventories pushed prices so high that labourers lacked the cash to purchase grain.’ In essence, merchants were hording, and the poor were starving.

    The Procession Picture, c. 1600, showing Elizabeth I borne along by her courtiers.

    During the late Tudor period ‘paternalistic’ authorities recognised this and acquired surpluses, selling it on at prices affordable to the lower echelons of society, much to the annoyance of millers, brewers and bakers. That progressive market intervention unravelled during the Civil War of the 1640s, when Roundhead mercantile interests began to exert authority over government decision-making.

    It was only in the 1750s, in the wake of food riots of ‘unprecedented scope’, that the State began to subsidise grain once again. As a result, by the early nineteenth century, famines had been conquered in England ‘not because the weather had shifted, or because of improvements in technology, but because government policy… had unalterably shifted.’[ii] Sadly that policy did not extend to Ireland.

    Today, in order to achieve social harmony it seems likely that governments, including the Irish, will have to treat property as an essential commodity, similar to food, wresting control from a system that has enshrined the gambler.

    Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905

    Bank of England

    In the U.K. a financial system emerged associated with the creation of the Bank of England in 1693, when a consortium of bankers made a loan of £1,200,000 to the king. ‘In return’, according to David Graeber, ‘they received a royal monopoly on the issuance of banknotes … a right to advance IOUs for a portion of the money the king owed.’[iii]

    A system of credit enforced by military might went global during the colonial era, leading to the enrichment of a class of financiers operating out of the city of London in particular. Fernand Braudel characterises this form of capitalism as first and foremost the art of using money to get more money.[iv] The capacities of this system appear to have reached a perfect pitch in our contemporary era.

    But what system preceded this? And could there be an alternative? Prior to the arrival of paper money IOUs issued by the Bank of England, below the surface, older market systems based on mutual trust and solidarity operated. These were overwhelmed by the impersonal calculation that continues to characterise financial services, underpinned by the violent capacity of the State.

    Thus David Graeber observes: ‘Under the newly emerging capitalist order, the logic of money was granted autonomy; political and military power were then gradually reorganized around it.’[v]

    In his indispensable A History of Debt: The First 5000 Years, Graeber argues the ‘great untold story of our current age’ is of the destruction of an ancient credit system found in small towns and villages across England, and beyond. This was a complex market based not on coins, but on trust. In a typical English village: ‘the only people likely to pay cash were passing travellers, and those considered riff-raff.’ Reveallingly, he observes that ‘just about everyone was creditor and debtor’ and that ‘every six months there would be a public reckoning’ when the community would resolve their debts to one another based on a person’s ability to pay.[vi]

    Such a system reflects a passage in the New Testament (Matthew 20:1-16) in which a landowner pays workers the same sum at the end of the day despite each one working different hours. When one of the workers complains the landowner responds:

    ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

    So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

    In any community there are those less fortunate than others, and a pre-capitalist system of resolving debt, and rewarding work, acted as an impediment to excessive accumulation of resources in a few hands. Importantly it was not simply barter, as value was ascribed based on an ability to pay, and material needs, as much as on the labour or other input into the good or service. A cobbler might therefore produce shoes for an impoverished widow at a lower price than that set for a prosperous miller. No doubt it wasn’t idyllic, but it seems to have led to a fairer and more harmonious existence than what followed in its wake.

    Graeber argues that ‘this upsets our assumptions [as] we are used to blaming the rise of capitalism on something vaguely called the market’, but these ‘English villages appear to have seen no contradiction between the two.’[vii]

    John Constable – Parham Mill, Gillingham.

    Money was Trust

    In this world trust was everything: ‘Money literally was trust.’ Neighbours appeared he says ‘quite comfortable with the idea of buying and selling, or even with market fluctuations, provided they didn’t get to the point of threatening poorest families’ livelihoods.’ Thus Graeber describes the origin of capitalism as ‘the story of how an economy of credit was converted into an economy of interest.’

    The new legal order of strictly enforceable loans had serious consequences for debtors, a position which was connected to sinfulness, and led to imprisonment. Graeber goes so far as to argue that this amounted to  ‘the criminalization of the very basis of human society. It cannot be overemphasised that in a small community, everyone normally was both lender and borrower.’

    He also argued that this transition provided ample space for swindlers and cheats:

    What seems to have happened is that, once credit became unlatched from real relations of trust between individuals … it became apparent that money could, in effect, be produced simply by saying it was there, but when this was done in … a competitive market place, it would almost inevitably lead to scams … causing the guardians of the system to periodically panic and seek new ways to latch the value of the various forms of paper onto gold and silver.

    Moreover:

    Only the wealthy were insulated, since they were able to take advantage of the new credit money, trading back and forth portions of the king’s debt in the form of banknotes.[viii]

    Eventually the price of bank notes stabilized once notes became redeemable in precious metal. This is referred to as the Gold Standard, which emerged following the South Sea Bubble Crash of 1720. But this crash was far from the last in what appears an inherently unstable system. As Graeber puts it: ‘it does seem strange that capitalism feels the constant need to imagine, or to actually manufacture, the means of its own imminent extinction.’[ix]

    Hogarthian image of the 1720 “South Sea Bubble” from the mid-19th century, by Edward Matthew Ward.

    Separate Legal Personality

    Companies were established in canon law by Pope Innocent IV in 1250, and applied to monasteries, churches, guilds and other institutions, but were in no sense profit-seeking enterprises in the modern sense. However, according to David Graeber ‘once companies’, such as the East Indian Company, ‘began to engage in armed ventures overseas … a new era in history might be said to have begun.’[x]

    The inherent danger of profit-seeking corporations was once widely recognised. Thus, between 1720 and 1825 it was a criminal offence to start a company in England, during a period of rapid economic expansion.

    In the United States until the nineteenth century there were two competing ideas regarding the purpose of companies: the first involved those with charters restricted to the pursuit of objectives in the public interest, such as canal building; the other regime issued charters of a general character, allowing companies to engage in whatever business proved profitable.[xi]

    The latter category emerged triumphant, divorced from responsibility to fellow citizens; an unaccountable abstraction with separate legal personality established in the landmark 1897 case of Salomon v. Salomon. Thus capitalism discovered the perfect vehicle for wealth accumulation, and as wealth begets wealth, increasingly multinational companies overwhelmed smaller family-owned businesses as a wander down any high street today confirms.

    Moreover, as corporations have swelled in size, a chasm has opened up between the pay levels of senior officers and rank and file workers. Thus, whereas in the 1950s the CEO of General Motors, then the model of a successful US business, was paid 135 times more than assembly-line workers, fifty years later the CEO of Walmart earned as much as 1,500 times as much as an ordinary employee.

    Moreover, according to Theodore Zeldin: ‘In the twentieth century, the British colonial empire was replaced with a less visible but even more powerful financial empire compose of an archipelago of some sixty offshore tax havens presided over by the City of London.’[xii]

    As companies grow in size and internationalize, the pursuit of profit becomes an overriding purpose, and the connection between management and workers diminishes to a point where companies are no longer embedded in communities. This is particularly evident in financial services, where making money out of money has become a conjuror’s act, increasingly incomprehensible to the uninitated. It was surely only a matter of time before property would be adopted as a speculative asset to an all-consuming leviathan.

    Property Today

    For obvious reasons, throughout history land has been a paramount concern for peasant societies, primarily as a source of food, grown for subsistence and as a commodity. Agricultural land, however, must be worked, so speculation in rural land produces scant reward unless there is skilled labour and capital attached. A surviving aristocracy has continued to draw incomes from rural rents, but this has been severely dented by agrarian movements that emerged in Ireland and elsewhere to produce a class of petit bourgeois peasant proprietors.

    Similarly, at least until the end of World War II, in urban areas property brought significant trouble and relatively scant reward for any landlord, with tenancy considered a transitory existence associated with student years; while public housing schemes assisted the urban poor to leave tenement dwellings that had bedevilled many cities, including Dublin, which had the worst housing conditions of any city in the United Kingdom at the turn of the last century.

    However, since the post-War period workers, including those engaged in monotonous ‘unskilled’ work, joined forces to win a series of improvements to their conditions. These included a five-day week and eight-hour working day, along with aspirations to a living wage. It allowed scope for many, if not most, of those pointedly referred to as ‘the working class’ to enjoy a reasonable, and improving, standard of living across the Western world. Importantly, a steady job permitted home ownership.

    Moreover, in the wake of the so-called Green Revolution in agriculture after World War II – which led to a radical reduction in the cost of food – steadily rising living standards in the U.S and Europe brought a profusion of recreational activities including sports, and unprecedented access to the arts, especially film – the defining cultural form of the twentieth century – along with access to higher education, even for the children of the poor. In these circumstances property became an increasingly prized asset – pent-up demand ripe for exploitation if circumstances permitted.

    Crucially, from the 1970s, an ascendent neoliberalism led to governments around the world withdrawing from the housing market, leading to dramatic decreases in the stock of social housing. In 2015 in Ireland, for example, by which time economic growth for the year was at 7.8%, a mere 334 social and affordable units were built.[xiii]

    In the meantime, regular stock market crashes underline to financiers the reliabiity of bricks and mortar as an investment. Pension funds especially relish the assured income that property generates. Thus, even when there is a crash in property prices, as in Ireland, rents continue to be paid, and with assistance from the State – socialism for the rich – property prices rise once again.

    Throughout most of history the quest for a crust of bread has been the dominant struggle for the bulk of humanity. Today, in the Western world at least, somewhere to rest one’s head in a place of one’s own has become the overriding concern. At the heart of the housing crisis in Ireland, and elsewhere, lies a yearning for the good life that most us see as a right, but which is being exploited by a buccaneering class of financiers, many of whom survived the Crash of 2008, and continue to exert control over the institutions of the Irish state.

    It appears that just as governments had to regulate food supplies in order to avert famines and accelerate development in the early modern period, similarly today it has become necessary for states, especially the Irish State, to regulate a property market which is working to the detriment of a growing proportion of the population. More generally, whether we can do away with the rigidity of a capitalist system of debt enforcement, and return to a market based on greater social solidarity and reiprocity remains to be seen. But at least we should radically reform an inherently unstable and unfair housing market, which is failing to deliver the good life we have a right to expect.

    Feature Image: Stockbrokers, New York, 1966 from United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsca.03199.

    [i] Roderick Floud, Robert W. Fogel, Bernard Harris, Sok Chul Hong, The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, p.116

    [ii] Floud et al, pp.117-118

    [iii] David Greaber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Melville House, London, 2011, p.49

    [iv] Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘Braudel on Capitalism, or Everything Upside Down’ The Journal of Modern History Vol. 63, No. 2, A Special Issue on Modern France (Jun., 1991), pp. 354-361 (8 pages) Published By: The University of Chicago Press.

    [v] Graeber, 2011, p.321

    [vi] Graeber, 2011, p.327

    [vii] Greaber, 2011, 327

    [viii] Graeber, 2011, pp.328-341

    [ix] Graeber, p.360

    [x] Graeber, p.305

    [xi] Theodore Zeldin, The Hidden Pleasures of Everyday Life. A new Way of Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future, Maclehorse Press, Quercus, London 2015 pp.232-233

    [xii] Zeldin, 2015, p.109

    [xiii] Dan MacGuill, ‘FactCheck: How many social housing units were actually built last year?’, 9th of February, 2016, www.thejournal.ie, https://www.thejournal.ie/ge16-fact-check-election-2016-ireland-social-housing-2587923-Feb2016/