YES

Conor McMorrow
Political Correspondent

ROMANTIC IRELAND is dead and gone. It is with Ahern in the cupboard. Any mention of the IMF coming in to sort out the nation's public finances is quickly followed by warnings that, if it happens, "we will be surrendering our economic sovereignty", "it would be an act of economic treason to let THEM in" and "we fought hard for our independence so we can't surrender it to the IMF".

While these arguments have merit, surely some of the people who rehearse them have lost credibility after turning such a blind eye to the antics of Ahern. The symbolism of a sitting TD and former Taoiseach being driven in a state car to participate in a tacky TV advert for a British tabloid newspaper would make the mind boggle and the blood boil.

Fair play to the News of the World for a piece of marketing genius but the former leader of this Republic showed a complete lack of respect for the office he once held with the cupboard stunt. The deafening silence from many of his party colleagues over the ad is in complete contrast to the "we need to don the green jersey" line the government has trotted out since the start of the recession.

Nobody knows exactly what he looks like but the IMF?has become the bogeyman. We are told to don the green jersey and don't dare contemplate the IMF paying a visit to sort out the mess.

But Ireland is in a terrifying state of paralysis and if we put the 'bogeyman' argument aside for a moment it is possible to see that a temporary intervention from the IMF would have some merit.

Two of the fundamental problems with the Irish economy are the broken tax system and the fact that the public service is in desperate need of reform.

Firstly, after years of an over-dependence on taxes that were derived from the construction industry, we are now left with too narrow a tax base that has contributed to the crisis in the public finances.

In fairness to the government, they did set-up the Commission on Taxation to analyse our entire tax system and that came up with recommendations on how it can be repaired. But the commission's report has been gathering dust for over a year. This is partly because the government is afraid that the measures proposed in it are too unpalatable for the electorate.

And if there was a general election in the morning, a Fine Gael-Labour government would have exactly the same reservations about carrying out a root and branch reform of our tax system.

And that is where a temporary visit from the IMF would have merit. They would come in without any emotional, sentimental or political attachment to the electorate, dust down the report and implement it. This would be a bitter pill for us to swallow but the reality is that if the report was acted upon when it was completed then we might not be in our current state of paralysis.

Secondly, Colm McCarthy's 'An Bord Snip Nua' report has been used by the government as a 'softening-up' mechanism.

It was waved in our faces and we were effectively told that if we think the last few budgets were bad, things could be a hell of a lot worse if McCarthy's 'D4 economics' were allowed to take hold.

If the IMF comes to visit, they would force the implementation of the report and banish scores of ridiculous quangos into the cupboard with Ahern.

The political system, regardless of which parties are at the helm, simply finds it too unpalatable to make the really hard decisions such as reforming the tax system, closing quangos and properly reforming the public service.

Romantic Ireland is dead and gone. But with a temporary visit from the IMF, perhaps we could start to recreate our Republic by
September 2013.

NO

Shane Coleman
Political Editor

THE best thing on television right now, by a country mile, is 1916 Seachtar na Cásca, TG4's series profiling the seven signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

The series provides a riveting account of the men's struggle to finally win Irish independence from Britain, a cause for which they were willing to lay down their lives.

The timing of the programme seems particularly apt because, almost a century after it was hard won, our sovereignty is once again at issue.

Before we won that independence, it was claimed by some across the Irish Sea that the Irish people were not up to the task of self-governance.

It was a charge that motivated the Free State's first government, led by WT Cosgrave, who were determined that whatever they did, they were not going to go cap in hand to London for help.

Given the hugely difficult budgetary problems facing the new state, this involved some very tough – and heavily criticised – choices, including a cut of a shilling in the old age pension. That government reduced spending from £42m in 1923/24 to £24m in 1926/27. They were enormous cutbacks but there was little alternative.

There is a wonderful story of how, shortly after Fianna Fáil took over in government, Eamon de Valera responded when his son Vivian made a partisan comment about the previous administration. De Valera gently corrected him, stating that he had seen the books and, on the contrary, they had done a "magnificent job".

It's an anecdote that reflects well on de Valera and that first Cumann na nGaedheal government. Both understood the importance of maintaining our sovereignty.

Nearly a century on, there is a seductive argument that a dose of reality from the IMF is exactly what the country needs. That, after a decade of ludicrous excess, what is required is the kind of root and branch reform that no government would be able to implement for fear of a public revolt. With the IMF gun to the head, it would be an opportunity to start again from scratch.

But this argument completely ignores the huge negative consequences of outside intervention. For starters, the IMF measures are likely to be extremely blunt in nature rather than reforming. And the reputational damage to Ireland after such intervention would be enormous – particularly devastating for a state that is so dependent on foreign trade and inward investment. What message would it send to US multinationals thinking of investing here if the sign 'economic basket case' was hung on the door?

It is true that it will be very difficult to get political buy-in for the kind of tough medicine that is undeniably required. But having those tough decisions imposed on us cannot be as effective in the long run as the Irish, as a people, diagnosing and solving our problems – however difficult that might be.

The impact on the already brittle Irish psyche of us as a nation saying 'we can't cope; we can't manage' cannot be underestimated. Eventually Ireland will come through this crisis. That is clear. For all sorts of reasons, when that happens, it will be so much better if we can say 'we sorted our own mess' rather than 'the IMF or the EU bailed us out because we weren't up to the job'.

Just as we didn't need Britain's help in the 1920s, we don't need the IMF or the EU now.

The best way of commemorating the centenary of the 1916 Rising is by celebrating it as a sovereign, independent state.

The final line of the aforementioned Proclamation reads: "In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called."

It's arguably as valid today as it was 94 years ago.