What will be said of the Irish crisis when finally it can be spoken of with hindsight? On that happy day, we may be speaking of the deregulation of the financial sector that allowed the riskiest of debts to be bundled together as if there were safety in the herd. Perhaps people will note the dramatic redistribution of income towards the richest 1%, which now has over 10% of Irish wealth. No doubt folk will be full amazed that even when bad bets were made, the financial whizz-kids kept their bonuses and passed their losses to the state.
It will perhaps be a matter of remark that the state decided that those best able to bear these costs should be cosseted from tax demands, so that the painful adjustment was instead demanded from those most deserving of state assistance. The Central Statistical Office estimates that in 2012 some 12.9% of households have had to without necessary heating of their home at some time in the year, up from 6.3% in 2008, and that 23.3% of households reported not being able to afford a morning, afternoon, or evening out in the previous fortnight, up from 11.1% in 2008.
It may be noted that all this contradicts the clear instruction of the 1937 Constitution, which directs that ‘in what pertains to the to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole,’ and which imposes upon the state a duty ‘to safeguard with especial care the economic interests of the weaker sections of the community.’
From David Meredith and Jon Paul Faulkner, ‘The nature of uneven development in Ireland, 1991-2011,’ in Kearns, Meredith, Morrissey eds. Spatial justice and the Irish crisis (RIA, 2014) 107-127. Used with kind permission.
Now, all of this injustice takes place somewhere and when we speak of the Irish crisis we should remember its landscapes of despair. Future archaeologists may one day walk through the rubble of our crisis and bemoan the planning deficit that allowed houses without services, and new shopping centres to compete with half-empty ones. The people who camp inside houses marooned within landscapes pockmarked by the shells of abandoned constructions, the people whose local A & E services have been closed and who find that under-provision in the Ambulance Service mean that should they need timely care there is an odds-on chance they won’t get it, and the folk decanted from their community while their houses were to be repaired and who now find those repairs repeatedly deferred, all know that national averages hide the multiplying and accumulating deprivation inflicted upon themselves and their neighbours. We know that even the children of these sinks of poverty register the appalling reputation of their home area and feel less trusting of other children on their streets. We also know that stress and lack of opportunity translate into sickness, drug dependency, crime and violence.
A new geography of exclusion has been produced by the crisis. It works at multiple scales and it targets particular housing estates, particular small towns, particular parts of cities, and everywhere it corrals the poor and the disadvantaged to protect the property values and refined sensibilities of the rich. When asylum seekers are warehoused in remote places and when they self-harm or go on hunger strike to protest years spent in isolation and limbo, we get glimpses of a new geography of marginality, but we also know that the vicious asylum system is a consequence of under-funding and of a wish that Ireland not be, as so many foreign places once were for the Irish, a haven for the dispossessed and needy. Instead Ireland is once again open for investment and the property porn begins again in the weekend supplements. The government has shown foreign investors that they can bet on foolish speculation and still recover not only their bet, but also the promised winnings.
Will things be any different this time around? Well, the state sector will be carrying cuts already inflicted, and yet more already placed into the pipeline. Instead of addressing financial regulation and implementing directive planning, the predominant ideology of successive governments has been that it was the Irish state sector that over-spent the country into recession. So, we must expect further rounds of spatial injustice, further concentrations of poverty, and further marginalization of those who deserve assistance. Perhaps water charges will fund metering so that the privatization of water can be made attractive to investors. Perhaps the property tax will continue as a most regressive taxation. Perhaps the 1% will continue to milk the state for the subsidies that coax the speculation on which they thrive. Or, we just might hazard a wealth tax. We might build social housing. We might even direct government to ‘safeguard with especial care the economic interests of the weaker sections of the community.’
Gerry Kearns is Professor of Human Geography at Maynooth University and with David Meredith and John Morrissey has edited Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis, published by the Royal Irish Academy, ISBN 978-1-908996-36-7, €20.00.
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Progressive Economy
Ireland after NAMA 
October 6, 2014
Economic Recovery or Spatial Injustice? The Legacy of the Crisis
Posted by irelandafternama under #Commentaries, Politics | Tags: economic recovery, Inequality, poverty, spatial justice |[2] Comments
What will be said of the Irish crisis when finally it can be spoken of with hindsight? On that happy day, we may be speaking of the deregulation of the financial sector that allowed the riskiest of debts to be bundled together as if there were safety in the herd. Perhaps people will note the dramatic redistribution of income towards the richest 1%, which now has over 10% of Irish wealth. No doubt folk will be full amazed that even when bad bets were made, the financial whizz-kids kept their bonuses and passed their losses to the state.
It will perhaps be a matter of remark that the state decided that those best able to bear these costs should be cosseted from tax demands, so that the painful adjustment was instead demanded from those most deserving of state assistance. The Central Statistical Office estimates that in 2012 some 12.9% of households have had to without necessary heating of their home at some time in the year, up from 6.3% in 2008, and that 23.3% of households reported not being able to afford a morning, afternoon, or evening out in the previous fortnight, up from 11.1% in 2008.
It may be noted that all this contradicts the clear instruction of the 1937 Constitution, which directs that ‘in what pertains to the to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole,’ and which imposes upon the state a duty ‘to safeguard with especial care the economic interests of the weaker sections of the community.’
From David Meredith and Jon Paul Faulkner, ‘The nature of uneven development in Ireland, 1991-2011,’ in Kearns, Meredith, Morrissey eds. Spatial justice and the Irish crisis (RIA, 2014) 107-127. Used with kind permission.
Now, all of this injustice takes place somewhere and when we speak of the Irish crisis we should remember its landscapes of despair. Future archaeologists may one day walk through the rubble of our crisis and bemoan the planning deficit that allowed houses without services, and new shopping centres to compete with half-empty ones. The people who camp inside houses marooned within landscapes pockmarked by the shells of abandoned constructions, the people whose local A & E services have been closed and who find that under-provision in the Ambulance Service mean that should they need timely care there is an odds-on chance they won’t get it, and the folk decanted from their community while their houses were to be repaired and who now find those repairs repeatedly deferred, all know that national averages hide the multiplying and accumulating deprivation inflicted upon themselves and their neighbours. We know that even the children of these sinks of poverty register the appalling reputation of their home area and feel less trusting of other children on their streets. We also know that stress and lack of opportunity translate into sickness, drug dependency, crime and violence.
A new geography of exclusion has been produced by the crisis. It works at multiple scales and it targets particular housing estates, particular small towns, particular parts of cities, and everywhere it corrals the poor and the disadvantaged to protect the property values and refined sensibilities of the rich. When asylum seekers are warehoused in remote places and when they self-harm or go on hunger strike to protest years spent in isolation and limbo, we get glimpses of a new geography of marginality, but we also know that the vicious asylum system is a consequence of under-funding and of a wish that Ireland not be, as so many foreign places once were for the Irish, a haven for the dispossessed and needy. Instead Ireland is once again open for investment and the property porn begins again in the weekend supplements. The government has shown foreign investors that they can bet on foolish speculation and still recover not only their bet, but also the promised winnings.
Will things be any different this time around? Well, the state sector will be carrying cuts already inflicted, and yet more already placed into the pipeline. Instead of addressing financial regulation and implementing directive planning, the predominant ideology of successive governments has been that it was the Irish state sector that over-spent the country into recession. So, we must expect further rounds of spatial injustice, further concentrations of poverty, and further marginalization of those who deserve assistance. Perhaps water charges will fund metering so that the privatization of water can be made attractive to investors. Perhaps the property tax will continue as a most regressive taxation. Perhaps the 1% will continue to milk the state for the subsidies that coax the speculation on which they thrive. Or, we just might hazard a wealth tax. We might build social housing. We might even direct government to ‘safeguard with especial care the economic interests of the weaker sections of the community.’
Gerry Kearns is Professor of Human Geography at Maynooth University and with David Meredith and John Morrissey has edited Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis, published by the Royal Irish Academy, ISBN 978-1-908996-36-7, €20.00.
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