Category: TIME CAPSULE

THE FIRST ELECTION BUDGET ?

“With one bound our hero was free.” Not quite. Nevertheless the 2014 Budget, introduced in mid-October, was noteworthy. Hard on the heels of an embarrassing defeat for the Government on the Referendum to abolish the Senate, it was billed as “ the last of the tough budgets.” Maybe. Certainly with breath-taking panache – some would say cynicism – the paper targets were achieved without increasing direct taxation or disturbing most of the major pressure groups in receipt of government hand-outs.

The budget was gift wrapped for Labour, necessary given its poor poll ratings. Not only could the Government announce, triumphantly, that Ireland should be able to leave the Troika’s embrace ahead of schedule at the end of the year – the one fig leaf Labour in power had clung to – but crucially, from Labour’s perspective, old age pensions, child benefit and unemployment payments weren’t touched.
Whether this will be sufficient to reverse Labour’s slide remains to be seen, but it now has a foundation on which to build. If the omens remain good, next year’s budget could be at worst neutral, at best able to offer some sweeteners. The Coalition is in for the long haul and if its luck holds it could achieve a Fine Gael – Labour first by being re-elected, though there is still a long way to go.

The mortgage crisis elephant remains but the Government has bought time with the new insolvency regime and can plead that the public give it a chance to work. Recent deals on debt restructuring, combined with a carryover effect of measures in the last two budgets provided some wiggle room. Increased emigration and unexpectedly high levels of job creation added to this with the double effect of reduced unemployment pay-outs and increased tax revenues.

The net result was that the Budget cut spending by $ three billion instead of four. This was achieved on paper through enhanced cheese paring at the margins of the sort seen in the past two years, further tax increases on alcohol and cigarettes, more stealth taxes in areas such as private health insurance (something which may yet rebound) and maternity benefits, plus the factoring – in of anticipated enhanced yields from the property tax and public sector pay cuts. The remaining shortfall was made up by a balancing figure heaped on the Department of Health, to be achieved inter alia through an overhaul of the medical card system – another potential banana skin.

The few sweeteners include maintenance of child benefit without means testing, plus the introduction of free GP care for all under – fives. These will do Fine Gael no harm either, though neither is defensible in other than political terms. Obviously a plateau has been reached and elements dear to special interest groups are not going to be touched this side of an election.

Fine Gael clearly took a tactical decision to give a helping hand to its junior partner. Yet it needs to tread warily in the health area. The measures proposed will impact most heavily on its traditional middle class support, already hard hit in recent years. The questionable under- fives measure is a zero sum one, paid for in effect by substantial reductions in the income threshold for medical cards for the over -70s. It is justified as a first step in the provision of universal free G.P. care – an election promise – but hardly makes sense in terms of any holistic approach to health care. The generally healthy young will be subsidised at the expense of the group most likely to require medical attention and expensive medicines– the elderly.

Another problematic health element in the budget, the capping of income tax relief for private health insurance, also affects almost exclusively the middle class. Here too it would appear to be game set and match to Labour. As I write, there is considerable uncertainty as to the precise financial implications of the changes but what IS apparent is that Michael Noonan’s dismissive comment that only “ gold –plated” health insurance policies would be affected was wide of the mark. Many, perhaps most, ordinary families with quite modest health insurance are going to be further affected on top of already spiralling annual premium increases.

Those with private health insurance comprise for the most part people with no hope of qualifying for medical cards – which provide for free medical care – on income grounds, though the threshold is modest. There are certainly advantages in terms of fast tracking for some medical procedures but private insurance still leaves considerable costs to be met from taxed income for medicines, consultations and tests. Premiums have risen steeply in recent years with the old VHI now facing competition from rival companies cherry picking the young and the healthy. Throw in a 50% surcharge for over 65’s and top it off with further restrictions on medical cards for the over 70s and the seeds of discontent are there.

Health is a sensitive issue all round. Ireland, for better or worse, has a two tier health system. Political correctness dictates that all parties state publicly that this is undesirable, inequitable and socially divisive with the left shouting that it is unacceptable that those with money should be able to buy better health care and, indeed, to queue jump for routine operations.

The problem is that Ireland, unlike most advanced Western European countries, never had a single universal health system and the health sector was until recently chronically underfunded. Historically the gap between health care for those on low incomes, for whom the state provided rudimentary care based on social insurance, and the bulk of the population, was bridged by a state sponsored voluntary health insurance system (VHI), which provided reasonable cover at modest rates.

However the last two decades has seen a dramatic expansion of free medical care for those on lower incomes, in the form of medical cards, for the most part, but not exclusively, means tested. The current situation is that almost half the population, including all those on social welfare, hold medical cards, possession of which also provides free access to a variety of other welfare and educational programmes and benefits. There are, moreover, considerable variations in the percentages holding cards in different counties, for whatever reason.

The other half of the population, including many on very modest incomes, enjoy none of this. One result has been poverty traps with possession of a card and its benefits proving a disincentive to seeking work. The system, in short, is a mess, hence the announced root and branch overhaul. Media focus since the budget has been on recent hard cases where, on review, cards have been denied or withdrawn . The mess will take some sorting. The political fallout may be considerable

The Government now looks more secure and united than for some time. The challenge it poses to the lukewarm electorate is what, in practical terms, is the alternative? In theory, correct. But in practice matters can evolve differently. Albert Reynolds remarked that it was the small hurdles which tripped politicians up. The Government, Fine Gael especially, should beware lest medical cards and remarks about gold plate do for it also.

October 20 2013

DEATH OF A POET

By the time you read this we’ll know whether Mayo have finally overcome the hoodoo that has seen them lose their last six All Ireland Finals. One pundit commented wryly that another way of looking at it was that Mayo had a very good record in semi-finals! Whatever; after one of the most exciting and entertaining championships ever, Mayo and Dublin emerged after two enthralling semi-finals. The Hurling Championship also has been the best and most open for years, with, as I write, a replay scheduled between Clare and Cork.

The summer – better than usual, or at any rate a welcome, and warm , relief after an unusually cold spring – has also helped people forget the dismal prospect of another harsh budget and more tax hikes next year. As I observed last time, on the macroeconomic front matters are evolving reasonably well. There are now also some signs of minor economic growth (green shoots, an increase in employment), if only because the economy appears to have bottomed out. There are even signs that the housing market is beginning to pick up, at any rate in the Dublin area.

On the down side, the mortgage crisis and the problem of personal debt continues. It will be some time before the effects of the insolvency legislation and accompanying measures to assist those in debt can be assessed but even at this stage the omens do not look good. One of the experts tasked with helping debtors has already pointed out that the legislation will be of no benefit to many if not most of those in need, whatever way politicians have talked the legislation up. Some revisiting of the issue seems likely – but when?

Certainly not before the two events due this month, the Senate Referendum and the 2014 Budget. The Senate Referendum is the brainchild of the Taoiseach, an idea he launched several years ago. The Senate (Seanad) is not like the U.S. Senate in that it has no real power and its members are not directly elected, with almost one fifth in the political patronage of the Taoiseach. In practice it has become a testing ground for rising politicians (Garret Fitzgerald and Mary Robinson both started off there) or a pensioning-off ground for defeated and retired politicians.

It is hard to justify continuing the Seanad in its present form. It is expensive to run, adds sixty politicians to the public payroll at considerable expense and has contributed little since it was established. Its abolition now, however, is hardly a political priority, given the other issues begging for attention and would not be on the agenda had the Taoiseach not invested considerable political capital in the issue. The result is a poll few want after a short campaign that will see issues aired but not discussed in sufficient depth.

As I write the result looks too close to call. A debate on possible reform rather than abolition has begun with some of the various reform proposals made over the years being dusted off and recycled , begging the question of why no actual moves to reform have been made in seventy five years up to now. Predictably, Fianna Fail, which was in power for most of those years, and did nothing, has come out against abolition.

The whole issue of second chambers, their role, powers, relations with the electorate and their place in the democratic structure is one meriting careful and detailed consideration. This may well prove a potent factor in persuading the electorate, conservative on constitutional change, to reject or postpone abolition. We could well, therefore, see an outcome in which the best becomes the enemy of the good. The abolition proposal offers the Irish people a rare gift- wrapped opportunity to remove some of the political and constitutional deadwood at a stroke. It would be a pity to see this central fact obscured and the opportunity thrown away.

The Budget comes hard on the heels of the Referendum. Suffice it to say here that, politicians being politicians, the government parties are manoeuvring in a damage- limitation exercise to seek to make the spending cuts still required as palatable as possible. The Budget may contain also some populist gesture towards the doubly unfortunate apartment owners of Priory Hall, saddled with mortgages and negative equity on properties too defective to live in. The tragic recent suicide of one of their number has highlighted their plight.

Occasionally an event occurs that puts everyday concerns into a different perspective. For a brief period last month normal service was suspended for one such event as Ireland took time out to mourn the death of Seamus Heaney.

It was only fitting. In any poll of who best embodied those elements of the Irish identity in which people took most pride, Seamus Heaney would have been there or thereabouts. The expressions of loss at his passing were almost universal, akin to the mourning for the death of a favourite relative or close friend. It is doubtful if any other contemporary Irish person has been held in as much affection by the Irish people. He gave the lie to Dr Johnson’s dictum that “ the Irish are a fair people – they never speak well of one another.”

His appeal is easy to understand. He wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t a churchman. He was a poet; and Ireland likes poets. Within Ireland, in a time of dramatic change, political social and economic, his was a presence that endured in a writing career spanning over four decades. Poems of his learned at school remained fresh in the mind of successive generations. His modesty and accessibility, combined with his perceived personal and professional integrity in a period when others on pedestals proved to have feet of clay, cemented his reputation.

He enjoyed worldwide acclaim and popularity, as the many awards he received, culminating in the 1995 Nobel Prize, attest. Indeed, at his death his poems made up two thirds of the sales of living poets in Britain. Of his Irishness he was proud. An attempt to include him in an anthology of “ British poets” in 1981 met with the gentle but firm rebuff in “ Open Letter” to the effect that “My passport’s green,/ No glass of ours was ever raised,/To toast the Queen.”

He wrote of the years of violence in the North with quiet passion, yet with an equally resolute determination not to be used as a propaganda tool, responding, famously, in “ The Flight Path” that, if he did write something, “Whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.” There are similarities of approach here to the lines of the other great Irish poet Nobel Laureate, Yeats, who in 1915, responding to demands for a war poem wrote ” I think it better that in times like these/A poet’s mouth be silent.”

One commentator, noting the oft – used observation that Heaney was the greatest Irish poet since Yeats, observed that perhaps now it could be said that Yeats was the greatest Irish poet till Heaney. He will be missed. His last words, texted to his wife, were in Latin “ Noli Timere” – Don’t Be Afraid. Ave atque Vale.

September 15 2013

ON THE CLIFF EDGE ?

My local village pub has just closed its restaurant “until further notice” after two years of losses. It offered good value, unpretentious, food. It closed because of lack of custom, its fate in some ways a metaphor for what’s been happening in the real Irish economy. Elsewhere one of my favourite Dublin bookshops now closes every Monday and has reduced hours during the rest of the week.

Ordinary punters, assailed by a flood tide of direct, indirect and stealth taxes, have hunkered down. In a society where government taxes on a standard bottle of wine are $5, 20 cigarettes cost over $12, and gas and electricity prices are among the highest in Europe, dining out has become a luxury. The anecdotal evidence for this has now been backed up by the just released latest Quarterly National Household Survey – for the third quarter of 2012. Things have certainly not improved since.

The Survey paints a stark picture. 82% of those surveyed have cut back on some spending, 25% have cut in multiple categories. 66% have cut back on outings to pubs and restaurants, 65% on clothing and footwear and 51% on groceries. 60% have cut back on foreign holidays and over a third their spending on automobiles. A quarter of those surveyed have dipped into savings to pay everyday bills.

2014 promises little solace. The property tax will apply for twelve months instead of six, already overpriced public utilities are pitching for price increases from later this year, while health insurance premiums – for those who can afford them – are set for another substantial rise. The full impact of the solid fuel carbon tax, introduced last May, will be felt as soon as the home heating season begins. Public sector workers are now beginning to experience salary cuts imposed from July 1st. Hikes in many other basics and services like public transport will further squeeze what’s left of disposable incomes.

So much for the micro level.

On the macro level things seem to be panning out well with most of the heavy lifting on the economy done. The Troika targets have largely been met and the end of their stewardship seems in sight, leaving Ireland free reassert to its sovereignty by borrowing afresh on world financial markets, probably towards the end of next year.

Reducing borrowing to the recommended 5.1 % of GDP next year looks easily achievable despite the projected need of the government to continue to borrow well in excess of $ 1 billion monthly just to keep going. Some pundits are already arguing that we are so far ahead of schedule that some easing of austerity should be attempted in October’s budget, where the tug-of-war is already under way.
“Normal” politics has begun to re-emerge. The usual opposition voices calling for a reversal of policy are now being joined by significant sections of the Labour Party. With the government’s term well past half way and European and local elections due next year this is hardly surprising.

Labour has taken a hammering and is desperate for anything to restore its fortunes . While the party leader continues to speak bravely about its role in saving the economy, on current polls at least half of its deputies will lose their seats. The forthcoming budget represents perhaps a final chance for the junior government party to salvage something.

Support for Fine Gael, by contrast, is holding up well. This despite the decision to legislate on the thorny issue of abortion. The resulting law, while very limited in scope, criticised from all sides, and subject to a possible constitutional challenge, has been a watershed. Not just socially, but politically. It has established Taoiseach Enda Kenny, as a formidable political leader and Fine Gael, finally, as a tough professional political party. On his hind legs Enda is not a man to be trifled with; nor, increasingly his party.

This year’s budget is yet to be decided. As I write we are stuck at the skirmishing stage, with the actual amount of the savings required –roughly $4 billion – still in dispute. Labour wants less – given the perceived wiggle room now appearing; Fine Gael wants to keep to the pre-set target. The wrangling over cuts versus taxes has yet to hot up.

What IS clear is the message coming from the real economy that consumers have little if anything more to give. Domestic demand is in crisis; people have had to adapt, but at a price – considerable collateral damage to the retail economy. The argument advanced in favour of not slashing welfare payments because they tended to be spent, thus supporting economic activity, has now acquired relevance also for the spending power of the slightly-more-affluent.

Up to now there has been widespread stoical acceptance of what needed to be done to repair the economy, and, in the main, this has been achieved without wholesale dismantling of the welfare state and social safety net. Few would dispute that some of the spending cuts imposed at the margins, especially those affecting disparate small groups at particular disadvantage, have been ham fisted at best, incomprehensible at worst, and require redress as a priority, but by and large the system remains intact. Hence the absence of the type of public and street protest seen in Greece.

However, with different signals now coming from Europe about the efficacy of austerity policy as a panacea for the Eurozone’s economic woes, opinion is shifting here. The argument is that if some of those in Frankfurt are now having a rethink on austerity why the hell is the government here persisting with it. This argument is, of course, too simplistic. Relevant is Keynes’ comment that “When the facts change, I change my mind.” The economic situation, in Europe and worldwide, is evolving, and, with policy input feeding into and affecting economic developments, it behoves those in the ECB to take stock and amend their thinking accordingly.

There are additional flies in the Irish ointment. The target of bridging the budget deficit, so that eventually at least we can pay for our services and welfare without borrowing, continues to restrict the government’s freedom of manoeuvre and means that in practice there will be little relief for the populace next year no matter what.

Additionally our economy is heavily dependent on exports and our recovery hopes ( and plans, and strategies) are pinned on expanding those exports. There has been a double hitch. Firstly the world economy is showing at best only sluggish growth, retarding our export drive. This partly contributed to a fall of $4 billion or 6.4% in manufacturing exports this year to end June.

Pharmaceutical exports, however, which represent over half of total manufacturing exports, fell by around 10%. Much of this was the consequence of the so-called “ patent cliff “ when some extremely lucrative drugs – like Viagra(!) and Lipitor – came off patent. New drugs are being developed, so the fall has not been as precipitous as feared. Nevertheless the combined effect is to depress GDP this year, with negative implications for the budget arithmetic.

When will the hard-pressed taxpayer get some relief?

Echoes of another Keynes bon mot: “ In the long run we’re all dead.”

THE GOOD THE BANKS AND THE UGLY

Contestants on a recent RTE Radio competition were required to mimic a well-known Clint Eastwood quote: “ In this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns…. And those who dig…..You dig!” A pithy summation of the state of the nation.

Equally apposite, if less dramatic, would be the observation that there are the banks and their (few) supporters – and there are the mugs. Public anger with the banks has flared again with the recent publication of transcripts of phone conversations at Anglo Irish Bank in the run up to the fateful “ bank guarantee” night of 29 September 2008. The brazen hubris of the Anglo executives, their contempt for the outside world at the time, has shocked even the most stoical and apathetic.

But will it matter? The hand wringing will go on, politicians will point to the thorough – if glacial -pace of the criminal investigations ( perhaps a trial or two in 2014) and to the new and improved regime at the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator. And there’s the rub. The banks will not be reformed, or purged, or transformed into socially responsible institutions. They will be dusted down, and pushed and prodded to get going again – to act like…. banks.

One of the mantras of current official thinking is that a major key to kick-starting the economy is to “get the banks working again.” (This phrase was actually said to me by one of the key official players soon after the bank bailout.) That pious statement is surely open to question – and, indeed, critical analysis. Do we really want the banks resuscitated to function as they did in 2006 or 2007, or should we seek something better ? However a government trying to cope simultaneously with a bust economy and a chronic fiscal crisis does not seem inclined to take initiatives. The minimum possible has been done, coated in rhetoric.

The result has seen the banks get most of what they want, particularly in the detail. An example is in the small but significant area of state savings and investment schemes. These have traditionally offered reasonable and guaranteed returns to small savers. However the interest and prizes on offer have now been drastically reduced, apparently in response to whining from the banks about unfair competition. This has gone hand in hand with the banks ratcheting up their everyday charges to ordinary customers and reducing interest paid on deposits to derisory levels.

The current glib phrase is that banks are acting “to repair their balance sheets” with the hint that, when this is done, it will be back to “normal” and the banks will start lending again. But how much and to whom and under what conditions? Meanwhile the mortgage crisis remains unresolved, though we are now in a period akin to a phoney war. The rules against bullying those in mortgage difficulties have been relaxed, under what has been euphemistically entitled a revised code of conduct – revised, yes, but with nothing in it for the punter in difficulties. The effects of the new regime will take several months to trickle down.

This at a time when the numbers in arrears have reached 12% of residential mortgages and 20% of buys to let. The latest proclamation from the Central Bank has been a wholly unachievable timetable for the banks to “sort out” the mortgage issue, including reaching “sustainable solutions” for 50% by the end of the year. The first target, to end June, was considerably undershot. The long threatened sharp increase in repossessions and/or evictions is now much closer, with Ulster, the major bank not shored up by the taxpayer, first to up the ante. The process is just beginning; the
next six months should see all the banks begin to circle their prey. The elaborate structures enacted in recent months have yet to be tested, but one thing is certain: the individual, rather than the bank, will be left with the short straw.

The basic underlying reality is that the banks’ balance sheets are askew by billions in terms of overvalued private mortgages and that until this reality is faced up to there will be no solution. The balance sheets will continue to paint a false picture. Palliatives will not work. The government has no more cash to inject into the banks ( on this at least there is unanimous agreement) and therefore are loath to sanction or endorse individual mortgage write downs, which would contract the banks’ assets further with a knock on effect on credit. The net effect seems to be to allow the banks to wring every last cent out of debtors, an approach overwhelmingly borne out by the available anecdotal evidence.

“Moral hazard” is quoted at the debtors, with no sanction for the institutions which blithely financed them. The straw figure in this is the “can pay, won’t pay” bête noire for whom there are no figures, but who, Orwellian-style, has been caricatured in the abstract as some evil Emmanuel Goldstein, brazenly refusing to pay his lawful debts. There is no NAMA in prospect for the distressed mortgage holder.

However, the solutions on offer, including the laughably inadequate personal insolvency legislation, as well as the hair shirt suggestions for family lifestyles for up to five years to qualify for even partial debt relief, are so patently inadequate that it is inevitable that this issue will have to be revisited. In this regard, what happens on the macro (I.e. Troika and ECB) level over the next year or so could offer the Government – and the distressed – a lifeline.

The ECB is lurching towards a system under which bond holders and large depositors rather than the taxpayer will be burned if a bank goes under. Currently under consideration is a proposal for retroactive recapitalisation of already bailed out banks by the European Stability Mechanism , one of the new instruments under establishment by the ECB. In layman’s terms Ireland may get back some of the money the Irish taxpayer ploughed into the banks.

It is likely to be at least a year before any of this comes to fruition , and there are issues still to be resolved, including some opposition from more fiscally conservative member states. Nevertheless Ireland has earned considerable brownie points for sticking to the Troika bailout programme and outperforming the other PIGS in this and other regards, so some political quid pro quo may well be forthcoming as a reward. Michael Noonan, broadly supportive, is officially maintaining a poker face.
Any refund will not, of course be anything like the amounts the taxpayer put in, but some commentators have speculated that it could be up to € 8 billion – a sizeable sum for the government to play around with. Much will depend on whatever strings may be attached, but there could be scope for earmarking some of any monies received to help with the mortgage mess. Expect, however, a feeding frenzy around that particular trough, which, should it come to pass, will represent the first and only bonanza for this government.

All this, of course, is speculative.

In the meantime: “ You dig!”

SUDDENLY, WHILE ABROAD

HITLER’S IRISH SLAVES

AUTHOR: DAVID BLAKE KNOX

NEW ISLAND 315 pages; €16.99

On 2 March 1945, William Hutchinson Knox, from Dun Laoghaire, a merchant seaman aged 59, died in the Farge concentration labour camp just outside Bremen after five years in captivity. He died some days after an operation performed without anaesthetic, with four of his Irish comrades holding him down. This moving book by one of his relatives is the story of William and his 31 comrades, seamen from Ireland, who became Hitler’s Irish slaves.

Their story is harrowing. During the early years of the war, the Germans, using less than a dozen specially designed and disguised ships – Hilfskreuzers – wrought havoc on Allied ships, sinking or capturing almost a million tons of shipping. In the process they took thousands of prisoners, including a number of Irish merchant sailors.

Ireland was neutral during the Second World War though its neutrality was weighted very much in favour of the allies. Many Irish fought on the British side honourably and with distinction. Many thousands more worked in Britain’s factories.

Allied military straying into Ireland were routinely repatriated while their German counterparts were interned for the duration . There was close military and official cooperation between Ireland and Britain. The number of Irish siding with the Nazis was minute.

This neutrality may have been a factor in the treatment meted out to the Irish sailors. In those early years, with the outcome of the war uncertain, some on the German side, in part misinformed by some IRA figures, thought that Ireland could be of strategic value to Nazi Germany, and that some of the captured Irish could be persuaded to work for the Germans. Accordingly the Irish sailors were segregated out and sent to Drancy camp, near Paris.

When they refused to serve the German war effort, they were sent first to a POW camp in Germany, where the regime was tough but where there were limited but acknowledged guarantees of protection, while pressure on them was maintained. When they remained steadfast, they were eventually handed over to the SS in February 1943.

They were sent to a concentration labour camp in Farge in North Germany, being savagely beaten on arrival, some of the hundred thousand odd forced to work in the Neuengamme complex, building the Valentin Bunker, an enormous construction project ( ultimately unfinished) dreamed up by Albert Speer to house the assembly of a new type of super submarine.

Two years of “sheer hell”, as Christopher Ryan described it, followed. Their limited protection under the Geneva Convention and from the Red Cross was terminated. As civilians they should have been repatriated, as happened to some other seamen, but they received no consular visits until 1944 when the Irish Charge gained access and made attempts to have them repatriated, one of which was thwarted, ironically, by Allied bombing. The author is critical of what he perceives as official Irish inaction on their behalf for over a year.

The Irish group remained united, sustaining each other over two years of constant ill treatment, savage beatings and near starvation, as well as the ravages of camp disease, filthy clothing and the absence of any form of hygiene or decent medical attention . They were forced to work twelve hour shifts (with one half hour break) which began and ended with a four km forced march from the camp. Their diet consisted of black bread and turnip soup.

The work involved lifting, carrying and emptying 50 kg bags of cement ( inhaling the dust) or shifting heavy steel girders, where accidents were frequent. Sometimes the prisoners were made fight each other for an extra ration of bread. The camp guards included sadists and murderers. The camp regime included routine beatings and arbitrary murder for minor infractions. Bodies of those shot were left lying for days.

Disease was a major threat. Apart from William Knox four others died , all from typhus, (which killed Anne Frank) which was endemic in the Nazi concentration and slave labour camps. Patrick Breen (58) from Wexford died in May 1943, Gerald O’Hara (50) from Ballina in March 1944, Thomas Murphy (53) and Owen Corr (29), both from Dublin, died a month later.

The rest made it home after the war, weak and emaciated, some ill for months or years; Christopher Ryan lost almost half his body weight and had typhus and T.B. They were largely ignored in an era in which those who had deserted the Irish armed forces, many to serve with the British, were blacklisted from public employment . However, four of the survivors, including Ryan, were well enough to travel to testify against their tormentors in Hamburg a year later. Some of their captors at least were punished.

The book is not an easy one to read. Interspersed with the story of the Irish are tales of the atrocities committed against other nationalities, the Jews, the Russians, the Poles, who were treated much worse than the Irish. Collectively the atrocities beggar belief. The death rate throughout the Neuengamme system, including Farge, exceeded 50%. 43,000 of those who died have been identified; many thousands more remain unknown. The unfinished bunker remains. There is now a monument at Farge and when the author visited last year he saw a wreath placed by the last Irish survivor, Harry Callan above the crosses for the Irish who died.

The War was a titanic struggle between the two mightiest armies the world has ever seen – the Wermacht against the Red Army and the Allies. We know who won. We know what happened afterwards. This book gives an appalling glimpse of what might have resulted had it gone the other way.

February 2013

A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

I write from Spain.

Being out of Ireland, even temporarily, offers the chance for some perspective. Spain, the fifth economy in Europe, the twelfth in the world, is in trouble. And one figure leaps out from the many: over 50% of those under twenty five are unemployed, almost 40% with a third level qualification. Moreover, what jobs there are on offer are for the most part temporary or part time.

Greece is in a worse situation. The economy is virtually a basket case with figures for youth unemployment a staggering 60 plus %. The Greek government recently shut down the State Television service overnight to save money. Both countries, incidentally, have welfare systems and benefits at the lower end of the EU scale. In Italy youth unemployment has touched 40%.

Seen from here, then, Ireland is actually doing quite well, with “only” around 30% of youth unemployed. Given the different interpretations of what constitutes “youth unemployment” it can be difficult to draw any definite conclusions, beyond the fact that these percentages are frightening. Even when the better performing European economies are included, the overall unemployment figure for those in the 15-24 age group is 22.9% – almost one in four. The figure for Ireland, of course, does not factor in emigration, the traditional safely valve, now returned with a vengeance. In the last four years an estimated 300,000 have left the country, 40% of them aged between 15 and 24.

Some other indicators show the economy here to be holding up well, given the cross of austerity it has been bearing. Irish exports have done well, despite the slowdown in the global economy and the hiccups in the pharmaceutical sector as some very lucrative patents expired. Irish business is markedly more competitive than several years ago. Employment has actually risen and the overall unemployment rate, though stuck stubbornly at around 14%, is not too far off the EU average of 12.2%, though here again the emigration effect probably flatters the figures.

Politically the targets set by the Bailout Troika have for the most part been met and the country seems on target to exit the austerity programme on schedule. This also without the wholesale dismantling of an idiosyncratic but still generous welfare system.
The welfare cuts have undoubtedly caused distress at the margins but this could have been avoided had the government not ducked some of the harder political choices. We still, remember, pay generous child benefit irrespective of means and pay the unemployed roughly $230 per week without any cut off date. And here it is worth pointing out that, in one respect at least, Ireland is not doing well. Once unemployed in Ireland it appears difficult to secure employment again. Irish long term unemployment (a minimum of twelve months) is 61% of the total – the second worst in the EU; this despite the emigration effect.

The overall European figures, which show little indication of improvement in the short term, do not augur well. How can Spain or the others in trouble generate the growth required to dent these frightening percentages (overall Spanish unemployment is 26.2%) ? Long term unemployment seems set to rise significantly over the next year in Spain, Greece and Italy unless something happens. But what? The debate on austerity in Europe is now finely balanced, with political opposition to current fiscal policies mounting, certainly among the PIGS. However there is unlikely to be any marked shift in overall policy this side of the German elections due in September. Then we shall see.

For consideration is whether the European institutions, in particular the ECB, as currently structured, are capable of effecting significant sufficient changes in policy. In the USA the Federal Reserve has engaged in quantitative easing – a euphemism for printing money – since 2009, and most commentators credit that policy with preventing a world recession morphing into a depression. The ECB has done some tinkering, and printing money, under a different name in the last two years, but remains subject to a more restrictive mandate and a political climate strongly influence by fears of inflation among the fiscal conservatives of Germany and the Netherlands.

A second consideration, not always addressed, is just where the desperately needed new employment is to be found. Time was there were export opportunities in new markets or new sectors. The Celtic Tiger offered a prime example. It was followed by a domestic building boom which reached unsustainable levels and eventually collapsed. A somewhat similar boom (and collapse) occurred in Spain. Can the boom be repeated? Certainly not for the foreseeable future in the domestic construction area. Yes, there are new emerging markets as the BRICs and the economies emerging behind them become more prosperous. However, there are now more competitors, spearheaded by China.

Early last month the EU imposed sanctions against Chinese exports of solar panels, initially for a two month period, to allow for negotiation. The EU argument, led by France and Italy, was that China, by dumping billions of euros of panels, had captured 80% of the EU market. China has threatened retaliation against European wine exports. The European hawks contend that virtually everything China produces is subsidised, either directly or through exchange rate manipulation. The European doves fear a trade war, with exports to China threatened.

Déjà vu anyone? Consider what happened to traditional industries in Europe and the USA during the sixties and after as first Japan and then Korea systematically targeted sectors. Shipbuilding, cameras, motor bikes, cars, televisions, electrical goods were among the areas to succumb.

A compromise of sorts was reached, with essentially Asian management methods and techniques accompanying increased Asian investment in Europe and the USA. European and American manufacturers found enough in new, niche or luxury markets to replace some of what was lost. Rising world prosperity, increased global demand and the information revolution meant there was enough cake to go round. Then.
It is by no means certain that this is the case any more. The comparative advantages that the EU (and the West) enjoyed, in terms of education, intellectual capital, levels of capital investment and an international trading environment skewed in its favour have all been eroded.

I remember a decade ago addressing a women’s symposium in Estonia on the subject of “Security.” Estonia was in the process of joining NATO and the European Union, and inter alia the Estonians were interested in how Ireland had managed to maintain military neutrality. In the Q and A which followed I was asked what I regarded as the biggest threat to the security of the West. In response I pointed to my silk tie: “You may not like the tie, Ladies, but the salient point is that similar ties in Europe sell for $ 30 or more; I bought this in China for $1 last year.” I suggested that, in the years to come, the willingness of those in poorer economies to produce similar goods much cheaper than us would pose a stern test for the West. That time may now be here. Where will the jobs Europe needs come from? Our moment in the sun may be past.

2011- 2016: HALFWAY THERE

The Government is now over 800 days in office and is either at or past its half-way point , with an election scheduled, at the latest, for the spring of 2016. While nothing is certain in politics, the history of Irish governments, particularly coalitions, would suggest that a full five year term is unlikely. However, this time may be different. Provided the coalition does not implode, a full or nearly full term seems in its best interests.

Only three governments have actually lasted the full five years, roughly 1800 days plus – De Valera’s administration 1938 – 1943, and the two Fianna Fail governments headed by Bertie Ahern from 1997-2007. Some other governments were terminated early, by decision of the Taoiseach – for it is his call – with De Valera, in particular, either tactically astute or just lucky by calling snap elections on three occasions and returning with enhanced majorities each time.

The fate of coalitions involving Fine Gael and Labour have been less than stellar with some collapsing after defeats in the Dail, and none securing re-election. It could be argued that the defeats in 1977 and 1987 were against the background of particularly difficult economic circumstances home and abroad, and that the opposition on both occasions, Fianna Fail, bought the elections, most extravagantly in 1977, undermining public finances for a generation through tinkering with the tax base to win votes.

What chance then for re-election on or before 2016, after the enforced austerity of the present administration, grappling with the disaster inherited from its predecessor? Blaming the last lot will not suffice for an increasingly fickle electorate, with opinion polls demonstrating one consistent trend – the high level of “ undecided “ voters. The government now “owns” the economic situation and will be judged above all on how it copes with that situation. It is also likely to be taken to task on its record in fulfilling its election manifesto, where its brave talk of reform will be scrutinised. In either scenario, hanging on offers the best chance.

The first political priority of the government has been to wriggle out from under the Troika, and chalk up that achievement. Indeed at the moment the progress made in this regard represents one of the few fig leaves proffered by Labour over the austerity measures taken to carry out the Troika’s ukase. On the present course, if government claims are to be believed, and barring something unforeseen, the Troika’s requirements will be met some time next year, whatever about the state of the economy, and Ireland will “regain its economic independence” – code for continuing to borrow to fund the state, but this time on the financial markets.

There are a lot of ifs and pious hopes in this. Last time I commented on the current woes of Labour, getting it in the neck for the necessary but unpopular measures taken to tackle the problem of the current budget deficit. How matters will pan out in the next few months remains to be seen, with a number of factors, not just economic, coming into play. First up will be the showdown with the public sector unions, where the government seems determined to hold firm on securing cuts from July in the public sector pay bill. At best there will be residual resentment, at worst some industrial unrest, including possible work stoppages.

Apart from the mortgage crisis, where the next six months will show whether the latest sticking plaster approach will work, there remains the possibility of a banana skin on the issue of Abortion, which, in Ireland as elsewhere, continues to generate strong emotions at either extreme, coupled with a more general sense of unease. While there is tacit acceptance in Ireland of abortion as a reality, in the sense that at least 90 women per week giving Irish addresses receive abortions in England, the issue of legislating for abortion domestically, in whatever limited circumstances, is a different matter.

The government is determined to legislate to regularise the constitutional position laid down in the Supreme Court decision in the X case of 1992 which provided for abortion in limited circumstances where there was a real threat to the life of the mother. The battleground is over the inclusion of the threat of suicide, with the Pro-Life lobby arguing strongly against.

As I write, there is a significant clamour for a “ free vote” on the issue, as opposed to the strict discipline of the party whip which the government is advocating. A “free vote” would, of course, leave T.D.s prey to heavy pressure from the Pro-Life lobby in particular. Fianna Fail, which has been making a recovery of sorts in the polls, has thus far stayed its hand on the issue. At the very least there will be a number of defections from Fine Gael on the issue. Could the outcome prove worse?

The next economic milestone for the government is the 2014 Budget, set to be announced on October 15. The talk heretofore has been of two more austerity budgets, for 2014 and 2015, but past half way and with the next election already in view, expect some nuancing on this. There are already hints that, following the deal on debt restructuring secured earlier in the year, and references to better than expected fiscal returns, the government will have some “flexibility” in October, with the figure of one billion euro being bandied about.

The government has been at pains to stress that first call for any spare cash will be job creation or further movement towards plugging the unsustainable level of day to day borrowing, so little relief can be expected for 2014. 2015, however, should present differently. For a start the election will be firmly in everyone’s sights, with backbenchers, already worried enough, demanding something positive to offer . To maximise its chances of getting back in the government will have to introduce some sweeteners sufficiently far in advance of any poll for their effects to be felt and to negate the imminent and pending property and water taxes.

There is another factor also. The Centenary of the 1916 Rising will be on 24 April 2016, i.e. just or close after the next election. There are already articles in the media pointing to that anniversary and posing questions as to how far the ideals of 1916 have been or will be achieved. Even allowing for hyperbole, 2016 will be a watershed, a time for taking stock, and no government will want to be criticised for shortcomings in achieving these ideals.

This “Centenary Factor” – though little talked about now – will certainly come into play in terms of the government’s plans as the date nears. On top of the natural desire to secure re-election, there will clearly be a strong desire on the part of the current incumbents to be in power to bask in whatever reflected glory the Rising Centenary generates. It would be bitter sweet indeed to have steered the country out of the economic tsunami only to see a new government strut the stage of the Centenary celebrations. Let us hope, however, that there are no extravagant promises or hostages given to fortune in the process.

THE SCORPION THE FROG AND THE SUCCESSFUL OPERATION

Political pundits here studying the current socio-political situation might consider the relevance of two stories, one a joke, one a fable. The joke is the old medical one about the operation being a success but the patient dying. The fable is the well-known one about a scorpion hitching a ride across a river from a frog. Despite giving assurances for the frog’s safely, the scorpion stings and kills the frog in midstream, dooming them both, telling the frog, “because it’s my nature.”

The current patient is the Irish Economy and its Siamese twin – the government. The operation, or rather the medical team carrying it out, is the Troika and the procedure itself the Troika Rescue Plan. As I write, the Plan is largely on target and collateral political successes within Europe on the pace and scale of Irish borrowing , with hope of more to come, have raised the prospect of an early Troika departure. But this is only part of the story.

The Troika came to Ireland in late 2010 to provide life support, i.e. cheap credit, to an economy which could no longer borrow money elsewhere to sustain itself. The price extracted from reluctant Irish politicians has been the, on paper, not unreasonable one that the country should seek to live roughly within its means, or at least get down borrowing to an annual 3% by 2015. This to be achieved by a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, within broad parameters, including the widening of the tax base.

The devil, of course, has been in the detail, aggravated by the shadows cast on Ireland’s cave wall by changing and evolving external circumstances within the Eurozone and the EU and exacerbated still further by the red herring of the bank bailout. Arguably the most relevant of these images has been the recent spectacle of the banks closure in Cyprus, something that could have been sprung on us had the infamous bank guarantee not been given in 2008. Arguably also the Eurozone is lurching slowly towards an eventual US – style system with the ECB a type of Federal Reserve, shouldering the debt burdens of member states, solving, inter alia, Ireland’s problems.

The snag with any “ with one bound our hero was free” solution is that, in the real world this does not happen overnight (we may be talking five years) and in the meantime politicians have to face angry and disillusioned electorates ( witness Greece and Italy).

Ireland is not immune to this, as the recent Meath by- election showed. It was nemesis of a sort for Labour which was beaten into fifth place, securing less than 5% of the vote. Whether the damage will be temporary or fatal remains to be seen, but with the double whammy of a property tax and water charges to come within a year, public disaffection seems likely to grow in the short term.

Certainly also Labour did not help its own cause by focussing on issues such as same sex marriage in a constituency where the electorate (as elsewhere) were concerned with jobs, the cost of living and the mortgage crisis.

As spending cuts and tax increases have been introduced there have been predictable howls from every interest group affected. Given that cuts in welfare spending are more likely to hit Labour supporters, these have proved particularly damaging for the junior government partner, Labour, which gained votes and seats in 2011 on a completely unsustainable and unrealistic election platform. Fine Gael was more realistic, promised less, vacuumed up the floating (and decisive) middle class vote, and has at least managed to hang on to its core vote and more.

Labour’s survival, and that of the government in its present form, now seem to rest on Fine Gael agreeing to raise more direct taxes from the better off in the October budget. This was resisted last time and there have been well flagged statements from Fine Gael that the direct taxation limit has been reached. With two new indirect taxes pending, which will squeeze disposable income further, as well as cuts to public sector salaries and pensions from July, most family budgets are delicately balanced, making the scope for any tax increase extremely limited in October.

By then, however, there could be preoccupation with another major issue. Long brewing, long signalled ( I wrote about it in October 2010), the Mortgage Crisis is now firmly centre stage, with 94,488 mortgages (12% of the total) now 90 days plus in arrears, including almost 20% of buy-to-let mortgages. What has changed in recent months has been that the government now at last seems seized of the issue – having managed to do deals in the macroeconomic areas – but its reaction seems to be one of sleepwalking towards potential disaster.

The main elements of the new official approach all heavily favour the banks. These involve the plugging (through legislation) of the loophole that has blocked bank repossessions, a change in the terms of the “ code of conduct” under which the banks have been obliged to conduct negotiations with those in arrears, the introduction of new insolvency legislation, reducing the period of bankruptcy from a horrendous twelve years to a still awful three years, and the “ setting of targets” by the Central Bank for the commercial banks – most of which the taxpayer owns and funds – to “solve” the problem of mortgages in arrears, beginning with the buy-to-lets, all this to be achieved over the next twelve months or so.

As I write, also, “guidelines” are being drawn up under which, in the case of those deemed hopeless debtors ( most of that 94,488), personal and family budgets for up to five years will be dictated by the banks to the debtors as quid pro quo for relief ranging from partial debt write off to “parking” the capital sum owing for a number of years.

Some elements of the guidelines have already been leaked. These include severe restrictions on all spending, including holidays, cars, consumer goods, casual entertainment, children’s education, private health insurance, satellite television, expenditure on clothes and even on food, where $7.00 per person per day is the suggested maximum. For those taking the insolvency route, i.e. accepting immediate bankruptcy, which means losing the family home, jewellery items above a certain value are among those proscribed during the three year purdah period.

This is not some gigantic leg pull. Mixing metaphors, the resuscitated and unrepentant banks, like the scorpion, are to be let off the leash to pursue those who owe them money. Those without sin in the community are quoting that odious concept of “ moral hazard” as justification for supporting/advocating a regime that is not far off some form of indentured servitude. Those potentially affected range from first time buyers through small investors to a handful of (once) well off speculators. There was no talk of “moral hazard” when the banks – and bankers – were being bailed out. Those in difficulties represent collateral damage for the national economic mismanagement spearheaded by the banks.

If this regime goes ahead along the lines currently envisaged the government would do well to remember the fate of the frog. Bankers will be bankers.

A WATERSHED DATE?

July First could prove to be a watershed for this government and for the Irish economy. At the very moment the right decisions are put into force, the government may be signing its own death sentence.

Recent opinion polls show growing disenchantment with the government’s performance. Labour in particular are taking a battering, with suggestions that a poll now would see them lose up to two third of their seats. The most striking feature of the polls, however, has been the one third undecided, for which read disenchanted with the current lot but not convinced the other lot will be any better. This loss of support was probably inevitable, given the tough measures necessary to get the job done.

The Government has attempted to talk up its recent achievement regarding the bank promissory notes after getting the nod from Euro partners to reschedule the annual payments over several decades rather than one.

Finance Minister Noonan tried to over-egg the pudding by suggesting that a repetition of the cumulative inflation of the last four decades would eliminate entirely any future burden of repayment, a scenario that is not only totally speculative but flies in the face of stated ECB – and German – policy. It didn’t matter. The opposition realised that it had lost one of its major government-beating sticks and failed to drum up indignation about the long term burden of debt. ( Cue Lord Keynes: “ In the long run, we’re dead.”)

However, while the deal can be judged a success, the issue was essentially a red herring compared to the problem of the budget deficit proper. The bank debt deal has freed the government to concentrate on this, but it is not a vote winner. The pressing need to do something on this has been exacerbated by the continued sluggish state of the Irish – and world – economy.

The gap between what we take in taxes and pay out to run the country remains dismayingly large. In the real world the gap can be bridged only by cutting expenditure and/or raising realistic taxes. The two years of the Coalition have shown how difficult it has been to do either. No solution is easy. The battle lines are now being drawn, with Sinn Fein firmly in the camp of the socialists and fellow travellers on the left with demands to bridge the gap by punitive taxes on all those earning €100,000 plus per year, with a wealth tax to boot.

Precisely who would pay the wealth tax or how it would be constituted remains a mystery. Apparently, family homes and farms would be excluded for a start, thus exempting most of the population. “ Not me” is the rallying cry for the left for whom the notion of such a tax has great appeal, with the implication that there is a great swathe of wealth out there which can be raided, saving everyone else pain.

Two new taxes are already on the cards. The property tax, commencing July First, is a big step, if fraught with political danger. A water charge is to follow sometime in 2004. The property tax payable will depend on the revenue-assessed market value of the property, something which will bear most heavily in Doblin and the east, with people living in modest houses in Dublin paying more than persons with far superior houses who live in rural areas. Both these measures, predictably, are opposed by the left.

The real impact of the property tax will not be felt until the full year kicks in 2014. There are no signs so far of the government caving in to special pleading with no nonsense about wholesale exemptions, and the Revenue Commissioners being given sweeping powers, including raiding bank accounts and attaching as necessary wages and welfare payments. With these new taxes the government has signalled that the direct taxation limit has been reached, though only time will tell on that one.

Which leaves cutting. On the welfare side child benefit has been cut again, with a trial balloon of further cuts floated. A melange of welfare and health cuts have also been announced, some quite harrowing in their impact on marginal groups, to be phased in over the year with some to impact from I July. The sacred cows of unemployment assistance (roughly $240 per week ad infinitum) and the old age pension (coming in at close to $300 per week for a single person) have been left alone, for the moment at least.

The other big component of expenditure, public sector pay and pensions was thought inviolate until next year under the Croke Park Agreement but the government has now moved to renegotiate. As I write the public sector unions are considering an offer which will be difficult to refuse, given that refusal will lead to more savage and wide ranging emergency legislation.

The package includes changes in working conditions and some allowances together with salary cuts from 5% upwards on anyone earning over €65,000 per year, i.e. middle management and up; the package again to come into effect on July First. For those affected, many of the middle class backbone of the country, July One will mean, therefore, a double whammy with pay cuts on top of the new property tax. The carrot on offer is that there will be no fresh demands until 2016 – i.e. coinciding with the next election. Again, this should perhaps be taken with a dose of Lot’s wife.

Several other issues are set to come up before July including inter alia the abortion issue which seems likely to test the mettle of the government . More ominously, as the mortgage arrears crisis continues to intensify, the government has signalled its intention of introducing legislation shortly to close off a loophole which has thus far prevented the banks from repossessing properties.

Initially the target will be those properties to let which are in arrears but miscellaneous cross guarantees suggest that, inevitably, family homes will come under threat at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later. So far the authorities have eschewed lateral thinking on the issue but at the very least the government courts more unpopularity by its apparent tough line attitude on this.

The problem the government faces overall is that much still remains to be done economically, which means more pain, piled on top of the pain already suffered, even as the countdown to the next election begins. Last year moreover it got the benefit of the doubt. This year it is being called to account on its election promises on governance. While nobody expected miracles, the record to date on issues such as public appointments and the closure of quangos is disappointing, to put it mildly, with no discernible difference from Fianna Fail’s performance.

Machiavelli prescribed taking the harsh decisions early on and some have argued that the Coalition should have been tougher at the start. Perhaps, but politics is the art of the possible and there was, after all, the fig leaf of the programme for government. Too much too soon might have frightened the horses. The trouble is, it’s now year three, and they’re taking fright in any event.

WINDOWS ON THE PAST

I wrote last time about Europe and the impact four decades of EU membership has had.

Three things recently have demonstrated just how much Ireland has changed. The first is the newly released report on the Magdalen Laundries. The other two relate to books I was asked to review, one fiction, one non-fiction.

The Magdalen Laundries were run by several Orders of Nuns throughout Ireland for most of the Twentieth Century, the last closing only in 1997. Their heyday was up to the 1970s. The laundry workers were exclusively women and girls who were housed on the premises, were unpaid and subject to a strict regime including long silences and much prayer. Originally they were intended for “ fallen women”, i.e. prostitutes or single women who became pregnant at a time when single parenting was frowned upon and many of the women ostracised, even by their own families.

Later, girls from broken homes or who were judged to be disruptive were lodged in the laundries. Considerable numbers of minors or adolescents were sent to the homes by their families. Myths abounded, particularly against the background of revelations of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic religious which surfaced in the 1980s, culminating in several reports which detailed the dreadful physical, sexual and emotional abuse meted out to children in state financed institutions and orphanages.

The Government commissioned a working group of civil servants to ascertain the level of state involvement in the laundries, including whether the state had sent girls in its care into what were in effect workhouses. Its report, still being digested as I write, though less awful than had been anticipated, exposed yet another sad aspect of Irish society in the last century.

Some (8%) had certainly been committed by the state, quite often in the belief that the laundries were a better alternative to prison, but, for most inmates, entry had been “voluntary”, prompted by family, friends, or do gooders, and they had, in theory been free to leave at any time. The problem was that no one appears to have made this clear to the women involved, and while typically the period spent at what was in effect hard labour was around seven months, many women spent years incarcerated, some becoming institutionalised, and many more emotionally scarred and unprepared for life outside.

The report is there to be read. The point to register is that the laundries could never happen in today’s Ireland. They represent yet another example of the failure of the Irish state for most of the last century, by commission or omission, to look out for some of its most vulnerable charges. Ireland was not a place for the marginalised to find state support. And, arguably, official policy (or lack of it) reflected the popular view; out of sight, out of mind- someone else’s problem.

An interesting portrait of the background to that vanished Ireland can be found in the recently released atmospheric thriller, “ City of Shadows” by Michael Russell. Set in the Dublin of the 1930s, the story opens with John McCormack singing at the 1932 Eucharistic Congress Mass in the Phoenix Park in 1932, an event widely regarded as the high point of resurgent Catholicism in 20th Century Ireland. There are particularly evocative scenes of the Dublin of the time.

The book offers fascinating insights into Irish society and the politics of the newly independent state at a time when the institutions of state were still bedding down and democracy was under threat. De Valera, Eoin O’Duffy and the Blue Shirts, the Broy Harriers, are all there, with constant reminders that the civil war was in the very recent past and that violence still lurked just below the surface.

The powerful and all pervasive influence of the Catholic Church, exercised through devices such as the Ne Temere decree and supported by the activities of its right wing civilian supporters, dominated the scene, while under the surface there was another Ireland, with a covert gay scene and cupboard skeletons of many, epitomised in an abortion clinic, fashionably located, for the rich and powerful. The book even has a visit to a Magdalen laundry.

A no less revealing screenshot of that Ireland is to be found in a very different new book, “Suddenly, While Abroad,” which traces the misfortunes of a group of Irish merchant seamen, captured by the Nazis during the early part of the Second World War when the British vessels they were sailing on were sunk. Sub-titled” Hitler’s Irish Slaves” the book narrates how and why the 32 seamen were segregated out from thousands of captive civilian sailors to be pressurised into working for the Nazis. When they stubbornly refused they were eventually handed over to the SS and sent to a concentration/labour camp near Bremen in North Germany, to be worked as slaves until the war ended.

The book does not make for easy reading. Over 50% of the 100,000 sent to the Neuengamme camps died there and the atrocities committed against the Russian, Jewish and Polish inmates, including some children sent by Mengele for experiments, are stomach churning and beggar belief. Five of the Irish died – four from typhus. The other, William Hutchinson Knox, from Dun Laoghaire, aged 59, a relative of the author, died in the Farge concentration camp in March 1945 after five years in captivity, following an operation, performed without anaesthetic, with four of his Irish comrades holding him down.

The War was a titanic struggle which saw the German war machine eventually overcome, at enormous human cost, by a coalition of most of the world powers. We know the imperfect world that emerged from it. This book, with its nightmarish accounts, offers a glimpse of what might have been had the Nazis won.

Ireland managed to stay neutral in the conflict, ultimately because she was peripheral to the war aims and interests of the combatants. This neutrality, while it definitely had a pro-allied bias, with tens of thousands of Irish serving in the British army, is now presented as the ultimate affirmation of Irish sovereignty and independence.

But one facet of it was a stultifying censorship regime, which kept most Irish in ignorance of what was happening. Post war, there were many holocaust deniers to be heard. The official line regarding army deserters, many of whom joined the British army, was to prosecute, punish financially and blacklist from future state employment many thousands under the “Starvation Order.”

Irish neutrality may not have helped the merchant seamen’s plight. It certainly led to them being singled out as a group; some Nazis believed that many Irish were anti-British and arguably took it out on the sailors when they refused to serve. They were denied consular access for a long time and efforts to repatriate them – as happened with some other “neutral” seamen – came to nothing. When the survivors returned to Ireland they were ignored and remain unrecognised. While the book is critical of Irish government inaction, there were probably practical limits to what could be achieved in dealing with a criminal regime in the throes of collapse. But again, like the Magdalens, this took place in the past – another country. It would not happen today.