That an assessment of the budget must be done strictly in terms of considerations of political expediency is a reflection on the degeneracy of Irish politics generally. In a report on the Labour Party in this issue, we show how removed that party's deliberations are nowadays from any socialist perspective.
The author of the Fianna Fail 1977 Election Manifesto defends its economic strategy, pointing out that the employment targets were actually exceeded and that the critics of the policy have never defined an alternative way of meeting the massive employment problem the country faces.
The economic background to Gene Fitzgerald's first Budget could scarcely have been less favourable. Government borrowing was 145 per cent of GNP and the annual deficit on the balance of payments was more than £700 million or 9 per cent of GNP. For the second successive year the borrowing targets set in the Budget had been missed by large margins; in each case, actual borrowing far exceeded planned levels. There was a lot of measured comment about the incontrovertible deterioration in the national finances, much of it responsible and non-partisan.
Brian Donaghy on everything you always wanted to know about why the country is going broke.
From a study in his Blackrock, Co. Dublin, home, Tom Roche directs multi-million projects as if it were the most natural thing in the world. There is a traffic problem in Dublin, so Roche decided to build a bridge.
The decision by Fujitsu of Japan to base its European micro-chip manufacturing venture in Ireland has put the IDA on the spot. With two of the world's leading chip makers Mostek and Fujitsu - established in Ireland, the Industrial Development Authority will now have to really concentrate on encouraging the down stream activities, the spin-off from the import of overseas electronics. Brian Donaghy has more.
Almost as soon as they touch ground - and they do that at the rate of one or two a week - prospective investors in electronics manufacturing are taken on a tour of educational and training facilities. Brian Trench on high -tech industry in Ireland.
Martin O'Donoghue defends the economic policy of the Lynch government.
One million people in the Republic of Ireland live in poverty. Poverty is endemic to Irish society and extends not just to the unemployed, the travellers, and the slum-dwellers, but reaches right into the middle classes.In Ireland, social inequality is greater than in any other EEC country. The proportion of total income which goes to the poorest 30% is smaller here than elsewhere in the EEC, while the richest 30% here get a higher proportion of total income than the EEC average. The 300,000 at the top of the pile receive six times the income which goes to the 500,000 at the bottom.
The size of the gap between the economic reality and people's expectations is frightening