We made a submission to the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities.
We argue for privatisation of everything that is not a natural monopoly, but not without proper regulation first. We also say that the government should stop giving away intangible assets. We cast the net a bit wider than the interim mandate of An Bord Strip.
We made a submission to the public consultations on waste policy. It refers back to our earlier work.
The proposed waste policy is roughly equal to the Eunomia report (available on the consultation site), ignoring all the critique raised. Our submission therefore just repeats points made earlier. We also emphasize the procedural lapses in policy formulation.
Here’s our conclusion:
Waste policy development in Ireland is essentially on hold. In the past three years there have been a number of consultations, but, by and large, no definitive decisions by government. The development of waste policy in Ireland appears to have imposed costs with no discernable benefits in terms of policy development. It is a
case study in how not to go about consultation. Instead of being driven by a desire to set and meet environmental goals in a cost-effective manner, the proposals are to a considerable extent based on a predetermined view that incineration, especially large incinerators, should be discouraged but with no coherent economic or environmental rationale as to why policy should have as its goal this technology-specific bias. It is not supported by the government’s own international review.
Submissions received by the DoEHLG in this area have neither been published nor responded to, even where there has been ample opportunity and time to do so. There is no sign that this paralysis will come to an end shortly. The Draft Waste Statement promises that there will be an RIA undertaken as part of “further significant consultation and engagement”. This is likely to defer any decisions until 2011 and beyond. The reputational damage to Ireland, which is likely to spread to sectors of the economy beyond waste, as well as the likely failure to reach landfill targets in 2013 and 2016, is something that should not be contemplated lightly. It is somewhat ironic that a Draft Waste Statement that talks about sustainability and moving away from landfill may well end producing a less sustainable policy and more extensive use of landfill than anticipated.
The Economist Intelligence Unit has a report on women’s economic opportunities, indexing and ranking countries’ relative performance. Leo Abruzzese discusses the general issues over at VoxEU. Let us focus on Ireland.
Ireland ranks 16th out of 113 countries. Better than most, worse than some. We cannot afford to hold back part of the workforce. Increasing productivity is one way of getting Ireland back on its feet.
Here are the factors that are keeping Ireland’s women down:
* Provisions for maternity and paternity leave
* Legal restrictions on job types
* De facto discrimination at work
* Access to child care
* Access to credit
* Adolescent fertility rate
* Non-ratification of the convention against all forms of non-discrimination against women
None of these issues were raised in the latest report on the Smart Economy. Making better use of existing resources is, apparently, not smart.
Another day, another committee. Forfas has established a high-level group to identify research priorities for Ireland. The group’s composition suggests that its recommendations will be demand-driven. Research is no good, however, unless it is top class. Ireland should research those things at which it can beat the world — and import all other knowledge.
Batt O’Keeffe reminds us that economic growth and job creation are driven by technological progress but forgets that this is true in the medium- to long-term. In the short-term, other factors are more important, as reported earlier by John McManus. Ronnie O’Toole adds that it is all good and well to focus on the export sector, but that the domestic sector urgently needs to be smartened up too — through regulatory reform rather than by spending money we don’t have.
Last winter saw some of the most dramatic floods in Ireland’s history. The rainy season is about to start. Will we see half the country under water again? We don’t know what the weather will be like. We do know, however, that everything else is much the same as last year.
It takes time to build or reinforce flood defenses. Monies have been allocated to the OPW to do that, and we’ll see the results in years to come. Other matters should take less time, but our dear leaders have been otherwise occupied.
An Oireachtas committee concluded that too many agencies were part-responsible for flood management. They still are. The same committee argue that a single minister should be in charge in case of an emergency. He is still not. Last winter, it was not clear who should call in the army and when. It still is not.
One of last year’s problems was that there was no early warning system. There is still no national one at either floodmaps or flooding, and the county councils do not seem to have put anything in place either. Hydrometric data are still incomplete and out of date. Last year, ESB filled up its reservoirs just before the rainy season. Did they do so again? The latest data I could find on the river Lee are from 2008, and do not cover the reservoirs.
The ESB is still in charge of these reservoirs. In last year’s panic over potential dam failure, the dam operators did not warn the people in Cork. Do the authorities now have automatic access to data on water levels and releases? If they do, they have kept silent about it.
So, Ireland is still as vulnerable to flooding as it was a year ago. Let’s hope it won’t rain as much.