The false election promises being made to Ireland’s under-40s

Backloading liability on to people under 40 is the theme of this election. Unhoused, under-pensioned, and liable for more dependents as demographics shift against them and climate change comes towards them, they will reap the reward of profligacy, stupidity and selfishness. Only 15 years after the economic crash, politics is re-enacted as a spending spree destined to leave little behind except the cost.
Where the fault lies between a multi-seat constituency system that leverages localism, short-termism or a want in the national character is an open question. But what is clear is the consequence. A week to go before polling day with the policies on the table, there is no political choice for voters who believe that making choices is what government should be about. The parlance of a lost era that coined the phrase of “one for everyone in the audience” is now updated as politics that provides two for everyone in the audience. Double payments that were once for Christmas only are regularly repeated at enormous cost.
The Irish model that promised you a house, paid a mortgage and allowed you to retire on a pension that was yours to live on because the roof over your head was your own is broken. That is not happening for younger voters. The house is elusive, and 20-year mortgages are historical relics. A mortgage now is for 30 years, and you will hardly have it paid before you retire. Unless you are a public servant, your chance of a defined benefit pension is negligible and that is just the hard drive of economic reality.
Added to that, are the shifting gears of demographics and climate change. Births were down 10 per cent in 2022 and primary school numbers are falling since 2018. Public spending is a Ponzi scheme that is dependent on new payees being recruited to ensure payments continue to existing members. Our dependency ratio of people over 65, compared with the population aged 15-64, will be 31.5 per cent by 2037, compared with the 25 per cent we are approaching now. By 2047 it will be 41.5 per cent and 49.8 per cent by 2057. That is the context of the next 30 years for the relatively lucky few who will start paying a mortgage soon. They at least will have their own roof over their head. The rest won’t be so fortunate.
Back in the throes of campaigns whose only strategies is to stuff the mouths of voters with their own gold, Fine Gael deserve special mention for its cloyingly named Acorn scheme, which promises €1,000 for every newborn, and a guaranteed return of 4 per cent for those whose parents can pay up to €2,000 into the scheme annually. It is a silver spoon for better-off babies. The cost is the opportunity to make the choices a good government should and invest in what is most needed for others. But no Irish government, or opposition, has had to make real choices for nearly a decade.
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That culture is set to continue seamlessly from cot to college. Undergraduate fees, or contributions as they are called, will be abolished by Fine Gael. The net cost will be about €300 million. The real cost will be taxes paid by everyone to make up the difference. But not everyone benefits because the money needed for targeted interventions to get hard-to-reach people into college is frittered away on a political pledge. More than 27,000 students in fee-paying schools will move on to free college education, and the increased subsidy will be partly paid by those who will never get there. It beats Banagher – and we haven’t even talked of the downward drag on investment that delivers standards in third level, which Ireland’s future depends. But the future be damned.
If the decline in political standards in this campaign is most acute in Fine Gael, there is little to distinguish others from the morass. Worse than reckless spending is the relentless attack on the tax base. This will afflict the future for younger voters more than anything else. It kicks away the capacity to deal with both a sudden shock and longer-term trends. It is the point where stupidity passes into greed. The Greens, Labour and Social Democrats at least recognise that there is a link between spending and taxes. It is less clear how they are on widening the tax base to ensure the future they seek.
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On the question of attacking the tax base, Sinn Féin wins among the big parties. It is not just the particulars of its proposals. There would be no more carbon taxes, and excise increases on fossil fuels would be reversed, the local property charge will be abolished, and the USC likewise for incomes under €45,000. The issue is not any specific measure. It is that a volatile future is left in hock to an ever-narrower tax base, dependent on fewer sources of income, for a declining percentage of workers supporting an ever-older society. We have an Opposition, but we do not have an alternative Government. What we know of the Government parties is that each say of the other that their sums do not add up. I agree.