Unemployment session from Friday

Below are links to the unemployment session materials so that this thread can be used for thoughts people have on the contents of the session.

Podcast

Chair: Minister Joan Burton T.D.

David Bell (Stirling)
Unemployment in the Great Recession: More Misery for the Young?

Aedin Doris (NUIM)
Employment and Unemployment: What do Sectoral and Demographic Patterns Tell Us?

Philip O’Connell (ESRI)
The Impact of Training Programme Type and Duration on the Employment Chances of the Unemployed in Ireland

Slides and Podcasts from Friday

Slides and audio podcasts from Friday’s session are available at the following link. Let us know if there are any problems. Some technical glitches with the policy evaluation session but we will put material up later.  We are working on the videos and they will be available at some stage but the audio and slides should be fine in terms of getting complete content. As is the norm, we dont include the Q+A components of the sessions. The hashtag is still ieconf for people commenting on twitter. It would be good if different posters started threads on specific sessions and a couple of people have already committed to do this later. Perhaps use this thread if general comments about the conference or suggestions for future events.

Treaty Agreement: January 30

Information on the Treaty agreed last night by 25 EU member states is available here. Somewhat remarkably, given that draft texts have been circulating for weeks, there is no version of the agreed text.  Anyone out there have a link?

I’d note that the materials released all point to the need to implement the structural deficit rule at “constitutional or equivalent level” while the Independent reports that “preferably constitutional” is in the final draft.

If indeed it turns out that we need a referendum, this is a pretty bad start.

Update: The EU Council have finally released the text here. Anyway, “preferably constitutional” has been retained, which begs the question as to what van Rompuy and his officials were up to with their statements about “constitutional or equivalent level”.

Incoherent privatisation policy a cause for concern

Eoin Reeves and Dónal Palcic write in today’s Irish Times on the issue of privatisation, and they don’t pull their punches. From the piece:

Not only is there a lack of clarity about the companies to be sold and the timing of any sales, but it has also emerged that there are significant differences between the Government and the troika on the role privatisation should play in contributing to any economic recovery. These differences do not bode well in terms of making the best decisions about the future ownership of critical infrastructure industries.

At this stage, two key points of difference between the Government and the troika can be discerned. First, the drip-feed of information provided during the latest visit indicates that the troika views privatisation as a structural reform issue that should be implemented to improve the overall competitiveness of the economy. The Government, meanwhile, appears to be focused on privatisation as a means of raising exchequer revenues.

The second point of difference concerns how the proceeds from privatisation should be used. Whereas the Government wants to direct revenues towards job creation, the troika views proceeds as a means of paying down the national debt.

The troika’s view of privatisation as a tool for reducing costs and improving competitiveness is an orthodox proposition that is traditionally associated with multilateral organisations such as the International Monetary Fund but it is one that can be readily challenged.

Palcic and Reeves finish by making an important point about the dangers of short term political thinking applied to long term strategic assets. This problem is rarely discussed, as far as I can see, in Irish public policy. Hopefully we’ll see some more discussion in the comments about this problem.

Quote of the evening

“Europe would not function any more if it changed course after every election.”

(Angela Merkel, quoted here, poo-pooing the notion that French voters might have any say over whether the next government ratifies this treaty or not.)

Words fail me, but they’re hardly necessary,