Ireland’s unemployment was recently revised down from 15% to 14%. Nonetheless, there are over 200,000 people in Ireland looking for work but who can’t find it. This post scratches beneath the surface and highlights three trends – by gender, by region and by sector – that those in charge of trying to create new jobs should bear in mind as the drive to bring meaningful recovery gathers pace. Read more
This post takes a step back and looks at progress being made in relation to closing the Irish Exchequer deficit. Unfortunately, the focus of spending cuts so far has been on low-hanging fruit, meaning the painful adjustment is still ahead of us. Worryingly, neither the Croke Park Agreement nor recent figures by the Department of Finance show any appreciation of the scale of savings needed. The new Government needs to use Budget 2012 to stamp its authority – and some realism – on its finances. Read more
This post reviews the Programme for Government agreed by Ireland’s new coalition partners, across three headings. The first is the urgent problem of Ireland’s debt burden, the second is the more medium-term issue of the deficit, while the final heading covers the long-term issues of mortgage arrears and unemployment. While there are many things to be welcomed in the new Programme for Government, on these headings at least, there is an alarming lack of coherence and detail. Read more
Last week, Ireland had its most momentous election since 1932, when the Fianna Fail party that would dominate politics for 80 years was born. Aside from the politics, there are clear messages in the election. This post reviews, primarily for a non-Irish audience, two messages relating to Ireland’s debt burden – that voters do not want sovereign default but do not regard bank debt in that category – as well as the real underlying issues behind the voters’ choices. Read more
The most important General Election in Ireland’s recent history takes place on Friday. RTE have published an overview of the five main parties’ policies across the ten most important policy areas, as chosen by their audience. Eight of these policy areas are economic. This post goes through the parties’ policies in each of the eight major economic policy areas and scores them out of five in each. While the criteria for scoring parties is unlikely to be populist, hopefully it will be of use to those voting later this week. Read more
With the general atmosphere in the country so depressing, the Leaving Cert Class of 2011 could be forgiven for thinking they are a bit unlucky. However, as they get ready to submit their CAO options, a little perspective should reveal that they are incredibly lucky, not just compared to their counterparts who picked courses at the height of the boom, but also compared to pretty much every previous generation. This post reminds the Class of 2011 which has the chance to choose future-proof skills of just how lucky they are. It outlines two key areas, one for those who like numbers, one for those who like words, where Ireland will have huge demand for skills over the coming years. Read more
This post looks at the case for allowing the international bondholders of Irish banks to get away scot-free from their responsibilities as lenders and finds it wanting. It outlines the two great excuses that have emerged since the “Great Financial Crisis”, one by borrowers and the other by lenders. Neither rings true in the case of Ireland, a microcosm of the global finance environment over the past ten years. Irish banks stand in the middle of a sandwich between Irish households and international bondholders. Each must pay their price, including bondholders. Read more
This post attempts to put some shape on an answer to the question: Just what exactly is the scale of Ireland’s mortgage arrears “time bomb”? In particular, it takes issue with Morgan Kelly’s article suggesting that for bank balance sheets, mortgage arrears will dwarf NAMA write-downs. It does this by looking at some basic arithmetic. Whatever about the costs of repossessions for society, for the banks, the scale of the problem is much more likely to be closer to €1bn than the €100bn required to dwarf NAMA-related bank losses. Read more
Last week, the Department of the Environment published the findings of their survey on ghost estates. This post outlines what the study was – and wasn’t measuring – and why the focus was on ghost estates, not oversupply of property. It then highlights some important findings from the survey, including the scale of the problem in the Upper Shannon region and to a lesser extent in the Midlands. Read more
This post uses the latest CSO data to estimate unemployment rates for each county, by age group and by gender. It also presents to interactive tools, a map and a motion chart, for visualising Ireland’s unemployment crisis. It finds that unemployment is highest among young men & in the Border, Midlands and South-East regions. Read more