Ghost estates

For those interested in what is happening in Ireland with respect to so-called 'ghost estates', I've just published a short paper on the issue:

NIRSA Working Paper 67 – Unfinished Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland by Rob Kitchin, Cian O’Callaghan and Justin Gleeson.

Summary

In the wake of the global financial crisis, and the ongoing financial and fiscal crisis in Europe, much attention has focused on Ireland and its beleaguered economy given its status as one of the PIIGS and the fact that it had to be bailed out by the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB in November 2010. Whilst much of the gaze has been directed at Ireland’s banks and the strategy of the Irish government to manage the crisis, a substantial amount of interest, both nationally and internationally, has been focused on the property sector and in particular the phenomenon of so-called ‘ghost estates’ (or in official terms, unfinished estates). As of October 2011 there were 2,846 such estates in Ireland and they have come to visibly symbolise the collapse of Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. In this paper, we examine the unfinished estates phenomenon, placing them within the context of Ireland’s property boom during the Celtic Tiger years. We detail the characteristics and geography of such estates, the various problems afflicting the estates and their residents, and the Irish government’s response to addressing those problems. In the final section we speculate as to the fate of such estates given the approach adopted and the wider political and economic landscape.

Full paper is here.

Review of Ship of Fools by Fintan O’Toole (Faber and Faber, 2009)

Fintan O’Toole is one Ireland’s best known social and economic commentators and cultural critics, and Deputy Editor of the Irish Times. Never shy about airing his views, he doesn’t pull his punches in telling it as he sees it, and in Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger he provides a damning critique of both the Celtic Tiger model of development and the Fianna Fail (and coalition partners) government since 1997. Rather than focus on one particular aspect of the present crisis – as with The Builders or Banksters – O’Toole provides a broad sided polemic on how Ireland went from bust to boom and back again in a twenty year period.

Written in a clear, engaging prose that is often angry and sometimes witty, he makes a compelling case that Ireland has experienced an acute case of crony capitalism – that is, the Irish government rather than steering the ship for the benefit of all its crew, became the vehicle for capital accumulation for the small group of friends milling about on the bridge. Indeed, it is telling that the book starts with two shipping anecdotes – one about the Sean Dunne’s (a developer) wedding to which high profile developers, bankers and politicians were invited for a two week Mediterranean cruise on board the yacht Christina O, owned since 2000 by an Irish consortium who wrote off up to two thirds of the €65 million cost against tax; the second about the Irish national yacht, the Ashgard II, which sank in September 2008 and which remains on the sea bed with little hope of salvage or replacement. The book consists of nine polemical essays, each focusing on a particular theme that together provide an overview of why Ireland finds itself in the mess it’s in.

The first chapter takes to task the notion that Ireland ever had a planned and coherent model of economic development (which it has recently been selling to every other wannabe developed nation), but rather was the beneficiary of a series of fortunate events largely outside of its control (such as the general, huge overseas expansion of US capital, structural funds from Europe, English language competence, social partnership, access to European markets, Northern Ireland peace process, etc), aided by lax regulation and a tax regime which enabled the attraction of significant foreign direct investment. Rather the narrative of economic development happened after the fact to explain Ireland’s catching up with other advanced economies, rather than forging ahead. And it was an economic model that had two fatal flaws: it only worked if there was sustained growth, and in O’Toole’s terms it was driven by stupidity and corruption that meant it became dangerous overheated so that collapse was inevitable. Simply put the economic model was geared towards over-extending ordinary citizens and over-rewarding those that were already wealthy.

The stupidity was the policy decisions of government and the head-in-the-sand approach to fiscal management and regulation, and the corruption was the blatant use of the state system for the benefit of high powered Fianna Fail supporters, the very close ties between business and state (particularly in the banking and property development sectors), and the general lack of accountability, transparency and prosecution of those defrauding the state (the focus of chapter 2). This corruption was powerful because it not only worked on a system of bribes but it: 1) fostered a sense of insider and outsider, wherein all other interested parties knew they had to participate to maintain competitive advantage (if one stock broker paid a bribe, they all had to to their maintain access to decision makers); 2) was largely condoned by the both the public sector regulators and the general public; 3) there was a culture of impunity wherein nobody was ever prosecuted for corruption and what is more if their corruption was ever exposed they maintained their access to power. In other words, corruption was allowed to flourish, and even now in the depths of the crisis it is still at work – for example in relation to how the banks have been bailed out, especially Anglo-Irish, and the setting up of NAMA protects the interests of high powered friends of Fianna Fail.

The vast majority of the electorate, he argues, let this happen because corruption, self-interest and self-duplicity and denial are embedded into Irish society. Low-level corruption, such as DIRT evasion or social welfare fraud, was widespread. Moreover, lots of people did well out of the boom with rising salaries, home equity, and small business growth. The politicians might have been corrupt, but many people were the beneficiaries. And if all politicians are corrupt, why wouldn’t you re-elect one that you knew to be so (because a tribunal had exposed them)? As long as they served local needs, they were welcome to skim a bit off the top.

In turn, he writes about the banking system, financial regulation and tax evasion; property development and the new class of super-wealthy; land speculation and development tax incentives; Ireland’s role in global financial markets and the crash; the failure to future proof Ireland for the next phase of development with respect to education, information communications infrastructure, and key transport and energy infrastructure; and the ad hoc approach to addressing the crisis once it appeared that seemingly had more to do with protecting self-interests than the national interest.

Central to O’Toole’s analysis is the notion that Ireland is not yet democratically mature, with a weak civic morality and underdeveloped system of political governance, and an electoral system that encourages and condones local clientelism and corruption. He suggests that Ireland failed to create a proper democratic republic, to go through a process of political and social reform, the establishment a strong welfare system and collective interest, and to create a state independent of Church and local interest, as in other post World War Two, European countries. Instead Ireland persisted with two, essentially ideologically barren, middle right parties that were for all intents and purposes identical and which used a form of machine politics that were highly clientalist, reactionary and short-termist.

For him, the Celtic Tiger represented an opportunity to lay the foundation for long term economic prosperity, but it was squandered by a political party more interested in short term economic gain for a small elite. The solution is to complete the democratic project in Ireland through a radical overhaul of our political system and consciousness. This means in the short term the election of a party with a radically alternative vision to Fianna Fail, and in the long term the establishment of a ‘second Republic’ with reform of the Irish electoral system, reform of the tax system, and systematic tackling of political and economic corruption accompanied by much stronger modes of governance and regulation

Overall, O’Toole’s analysis is compelling. The first half of the book is a lucid, tour de force polemic. The second half is more patchy in its argument and content, and its focus drifts a little. The book is driven by strong observational analysis, and to my mind could have benefited from some explanatory frameworks derived from the social sciences, particularly political science. There has, for example, been a debate between social scientists in Ireland as to the extent to which Ireland is a developmental state. It would have also been nice to have some comparative analysis that placed Ireland – economically, politically and socially - in relation to other European nations. Personally, I felt the conclusion also needed further elaboration on what needed to change and why, using examples from elsewhere, to really push the point home. Nevertheless, it’s a fine piece of work that will no doubt be popular reading for many people in Ireland keen to understand the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger. I’ve already recommended it to a number of people.

Review of Banksters by David Murphy and Martina Devlin (Hachette, 2009)

In Banksters, RTE business correspondent, David Murphy, and Martina Devlin, columnist with the Irish Independent, seek to chart the rise, collapse and rescuing of the Irish banking system. The story they tell is split into four parts – the origins of the crisis, an overview of each of the banks and the key banking officials, the crisis, and the fallout. Their tale can essentially be boiled down to the following:

1) In the early 2000s, Irish banks stopped using their deposits to underpin loans and started to borrow money from other (international) banks and to offer easier forms of credit to home buyers (such as 100% mortgages over longer time spans) and investors (such as deferred interest payments).

2) Property prices, especially development land spiralled exponentially and unsustainably upwards (and did not meet stress test criteria) and yet the bankers kept lending money to developers driven by personal bonus schemes and inter-bank rivalry to generate record annual profits.

3) Regulation was very light and the financial regulator failed to intervene in poor and suspect banking practices or overheated property speculation; the Irish Central Bank could not directly influence consumer spending as it did not have control of interest rates (which resided with the European Central Bank); and the political establishment were in cahoots with the developers and were not only blind to the potential problem but poured scorn on anybody who tried to warn of the impending disaster. Crony capitalism was in full swing.

4) As property markets slowed and financial crash hit, international banks stopped lending Irish banks money.

5) Banks thus didn’t have funds to lend to investors and businesses, nor did they have the means to pay back loans to international banks.

6) This prompted a share price collapse. (Between May 2007 and November 2008 Irish shares fell in value from €55b to €4b).

7) Which in turn spooked depositors who, worried that the bank might fail, withdrew their deposits to move them to a more secure institution.

8) This took all the liquidity out of the Irish banking system and reduced the share price further.

9) A run on the banks thus became inevitable without intervention which, given that the Irish government had decided that the banks could not be allowed to fail, came in the form of the Irish government underwriting the entire banking network (to the tune of €440b), thus halting the outflow of deposits.

10) By guaranteeing the banks, the Irish government in turn put the country’s future on the line, making tax payers liable for all bad debts.

11) Once the brake was in place the Irish government needed to decide how to proceed to put liquidity into the banking system. Initially it wanted to avoid recapitalisation and nationalisation and instead it tried to force mergers between financial institutions to gain economies of scale and to recapitalise the banks through private equity investment.

12) Ultimately though it had to nationalise Anglo-Irish Bank and partly recapitalise the others, taking the role of a preferred shareholder, and also created NAMA (National Assets Management Agency) – the world’s largest, state-owned, property portfolio - to take the bad debts off the banks' books.

For the rest of the review see Ireland After NAMA blog.

Ireland after NAMA

I spent most of yesterday at the ‘Geography after NAMA’ workshop that bought together some of the leading geographers in Ireland to consider the NAMA legislation and its implications for Irish communities. The title refers to both the geography of Ireland after NAMA and what the discipline of Geography might add to the debate and our understanding of the situation.

For those not familiar with how the financial crisis has played out in Ireland, NAMA is the new National Assets Management Agency. It is, in effect, a toxic bank that buys the property loan books of five Irish banks for any transaction worth more than five million euro. That covers circa 21,500 assets held by around 2,000 companies and individuals which were collectively valued at €88 billion at the time of the loan (for which €68b was borrowed and €9b is presently owed in interest payments). (The building right is what was to be Anglo Irish Bank's new HQs, now on hold and almost certainly in the NAMA portfolio - €28b of Anglo's loans will be transferred to NAMA, more than any other bank).

Ireland has particularly suffered following the global economic crisis because its property market was so overheated, inflated and poorly regulated. Average land prices at the peak of the market were twice that of any other European country, with the banks borrowing heavily on the international money markets to lend onto individual buyers and developers. This left the banks massively overexposed with assets that were rapidly losing value as well as plummeting share price, resulting in the banks becoming vulnerable to failure as liquidity dried up. Unwilling to let any of the banks fail or to recapitalise or nationalise them, the Irish government initially tried to force some mergers and to recapitalise the banks through private equity investment. Ultimately it has had to nationalise Anglo-Irish Bank and partly recapitalise the others, taking the role of a preferred shareholder, and also create NAMA – the world’s largest, state-owned, property portfolio - to take the bad debts off the banks' books. Ironically, because the state has effectly bailed the banks out it has had to make NAMA a Special Purpose Vehicle, with 51% of the projected €100m running costs provided by private investors in order to keep the debt off the state accounts!

Geographically, NAMA's assets roughly breakdown as: 66% in Ireland, 6% Northern Ireland, 21% Great Britain, 4% Europe, 3% USA, though we do not know how these are geographically configured at the sub-national scale. And although we don’t have a full breakdown of the kinds of assets in the portfolio, Ronan Lyons estimates them as Irish commercial (€11.8bn), Irish residential (€12.4bn), Irish land (€31bn), all foreign (€31.6bn). In fact, we have no real idea as to the true worth of the assets in the portfolio, despite the fact that the government have agreed to pay €54b for what they acknowledge are assets estimated to be worth at best €47b. It seems likely to many analysts that the real value might be somewhat less than this given the amount of development land in the portfolio, much of which will not even be zoned for planning, and even if it was it’ll not be needed for some time given the surplus of vacant and half-finished commercial and residential properties around the country (the so-called ghost estates).

The purpose of the day was to try and work out a research agenda that seeks to take space and scale seriously and acknowledges how NAMA will play out is spatially uneven and unequal, affecting parts of the country in different ways, and its grounding in particular communities is the result of processes operating at different scales from the local through to the global. Too often the analysis of the crisis in Ireland takes a journalist form that focuses on the role of elite actors at the expense of an analysis that examines the neoliberalisation of the Irish state and economy, or works from a macro-economic perspective that treats the country as a universalised, flat plane wherein all places have equal opportunities and risk. The reality is that how the crisis is playing out in rural Tipperary is quite different to Dublin 4, which is quite different to the commuting belts and the border counties for a variety of reasons. What we’ve agreed to do is to collectively try and get a relatively quick handle on what is happening in four different spatial arenas – cities and their commuting zones; the border counties; rural areas; and specific sites of Irish capital investment abroad such as Liverpool – to provide some case study material. This material will form the basis for interpreting what is happening and to set that in an international context. Should be an interesting exercise. We aim to communicate our analysis through a new blog - Ireland After NAMA - which should hopefully start to take shape soon.

Review of The Builders by Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan (2008, Penguin)

Written by well-respected Irish Times journalists Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan The Builders charts the rise of the property boom in Ireland during the late 1990s and into the 2000s, a period in which hundreds of thousands of new housing units were built, and office blocks and shopping malls popped up all round the country, transforming the landscape. Principally it traces the stories of some of Ireland’s best known developers, most of who came from unassuming, rural backgrounds to build multi-billion euro property empires, much of which is beyond Ireland’s shores. As such, while there is some analysis of the regulatory, legal and financial conditions that fuelled the construction bonanza and spiralling land and unit costs, the principle focus is on the main movers and shakers, and how they built up their businesses.

What the book reveals is that, not unsurprisingly, that the most successful Irish developers are workaholics and ruthless business operators willing to grease palms, exploit loopholes, drive up productivity and reduce costs, and to fight tooth and nail over contracts, using the courts when necessary. While personality and drive is undoubtedly important, the book also exposes how developers benefited from: 1) very close relationships with TDs and councillors, especially those representing Fianna Fail, who fixed the planning process, 2) a relatively weak planning system that struggled under sustained pressures of demand, lobbying and corruption, 3) a deregulation of personal and corporate financing that flooded the market with credit, 4) tax incentive schemes, including the significant reduction of capital gains tax, that enabled them to avoid taxation and to plough their profits back into new investments, 5) the hoarding of zoned land to restrict supply and push up demand and price, 6) the creation of a relatively large investment class that were amassing small portfolios of properties for rent or were ‘flipping’ new properties for tidy profits, 7) unregulated price phasing of developments.

While a fascinating read, the book does have some shortcomings. The principle one is that by focusing on the personalities the book really fails to systematically examine how political, regulatory and financial structures were configured in such a way as to make the property boom almost inevitable, regardless of who the developers were per se. In particular, there is very little attempt to draw on academic explanations with regards to urban development, even that by Irish academics who have been researching the property boom for a number of years such as Andrew MacLaren. As a result, what McDonald and Sheridan provide is effectively a regime analysis (where in development is driven by a small, tightly networked group of political and business elites), rather than, say, employing regulation theory which would provide a neo-Marxist explanation of what was occurring. The result, I feel, is that analysis is quite descriptive but really lacks explanation – and to that extent its mostly surface with little depth. In addition, although published in October 2008, The Builders feels oddly out of date. I suspect most of the book was written in 2007 at the point where a slow down was occurring, but the crash was still a little way off and commentators and developers were hoping for a soft landing. Since publication some of the developers discussed have gone bust, others have lost fortunes, and almost certainly all have been NAMAered (their portfolios drawn into a toxic asset management unit owned by the Irish State). A year can be a long time in an economic crash.

From boom to bust

Just three years ago Ireland was the place that every developing country wanted to emulate. It had transformed itself from a poor, peripheral country on the edge of Europe (in 1987 its GDP was 67% of the EU average) to one of the richest nations on the planet (with a GDP 139% of the EU average in 2004). For over a decade GDP growth per year was over double that of nearly every other European country. Employment rose from 1.16m people in 1991 to 1.99m people in 2005, and unemployment dropped from 15% in 1993 to run at about 4% between 2000-2005. Standands of living and quality of life rose rapidly, as did propert prices, and the population grew by 17% between 1996 and 2006 (from 3.62m to 4.23m). In turn there was a cultural transformation away from social conversativism to liberalism and consumerism. Ireland seemed to be a conundrum with low personal and corporate taxes, high indirect taxes, yet with a public health system and free education at all levels - to use Mary Harney's phrase it resided 'somewhere between Boston and Berlin', blending European social welfarism with American neoliberalism. And then the global financial crisis occured and Ireland's boom rapidly heads for bust with plummeting house prices, rapidly rising unemployment, personal tax hikes, and salary cuts across the private and public sector.

In 2006 I co-edited 'Understanding Contemporary Ireland' with Brendan Bartley. The book consisted of 22 chapters examining all aspects of society and economy, written by a collection of leading social scientists, all of whom challenged the myth that the Celtic Tiger had done nothing but good and were sceptical as to government policy and the sustainability of the economy. I don't think any of those writing anticipated the wheels coming off Ireland Inc. quite so spectacularly though. We were probably all hoping for a soft landing even if we feared the worst. What we're experiencing is anything but soft, although it's still a long way from Iceland's demise (and certainly the joke that Ireland was Iceland but for one letter and six months has not come to pass). I thought it was about time I got beyond the newspaper reports and started to read some of the analysis that seeks to explain what went wrong. To that end I went and bought a number of books over the weekend (from The Reading Room) which I'll be reviewing over the coming weeks as I get myself back up to speed with the state of contemporary Ireland.







I'm also co-organising a one day workshop on Nov 23rd entitled 'Geography after NAMA' (the government's plan to buy the bad property debts off the banks) and it'll be interesting to see what other social scientists make of what is occuring.

Planning for a sustainable Ireland

I drafted this editorial on planning and economic recovery in Ireland a little while ago and it never saw the light of day, so I thought I'd publish it here.

Creating a sustainable, successful society and economy requires a well thought out, comprehensive planning system that works to maximise efficiencies, returns and quality of life, balanced against fairness and social justice, and minimises wastage, inconvenience and deterioration of services. Effective planning works both sectorially (e.g., economic, health, transport) and spatially (local, regional, urban and rural), blending and balancing the needs of different social and economic sectors within and across areas and scales. Good, strategic planning, along with associated targeted investment, is vital to ensure short and, in particular, long term solutions to the present economic crisis. It will work to position both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland favourably to benefit from a global economic recovery when it occurs.

Over the past twenty five years planning in Ireland has been both progressive and regressive. Planning was transformed from the mid-1980s onward by the rolling out of a new form of entrepreneurial planning that designated certain zones for regeneration using tax exemptions and public-private partnerships as a mechanism to encourage and drive development. The new approach targeted very select, flagship sites such as the IFSC that would seek to attract specific industries, notably those of the service sector. Similarly, the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) was charged with encouraging inward investment by skilled, manufacturing companies to selected, ready-made and serviced sites, accompanied by grants and other incentives. As a result, planning became more pragmatic, flexible and results-orientated, focusing on areas that were perceived to have the highest potential for success. This approach, while not free of problems, was successful in providing the planning conditions conducive to encouraging inward investment, gentrification, and speculative property development that drove the Celtic Tiger economy. Planning thus became more responsive to creating the environmental and spatial conditions necessary to attract inward investment (whilst at the same time creating an abundance of problems through poor implementation that ultimately has led to NAMA).

From the late 1990s this was complemented by a spatial planning approach driven in part by the new territorial strategy devised for Europe by the European Spatial Development Perspective. This led to the formulation of the National Spatial Strategy in the Republic and the Regional Development Strategy in the North. The NSS and RDS aim to achieve a better balance of social, economic and physical development across Ireland, supported by more co-ordinated and effective planning at the regional and local level through Regional Planning Guidelines and Local Development Plans. In order to drive development in the regions, the NSS proposed that areas of sufficient scale and critical mass be built up through a network of urban gateways and hubs that links Ireland more effectively into a European and global economy. Effectively the NSS is designed to build connections between urban centres and the creation of new relationships between urban and rural areas to capitalise upon the potential of all regions to contribute to sustainable development into the long term.

Despite these initiatives, the public perception of planning in the Republic is that it is at best weak and at worst corrupt, and that the economic successes of the Celtic Tiger happened in spite of planning decisions and provisions rather than because of them. While the latter assertion can be debated, there is plenty of evidence – both from the press and anecdotally – that planning has been performing sub-optimally. There are many reasons for this including cronyism, too many different institutional bodies and vested parties being involved in the planning process (there are 88 local planning authorities in the Republic plus government departments and semi-state agencies such as the EPA and NRA), a reluctance to prosecute planning offenders, a high turnover of planners from the public sector to private sector developers, and a failure of elected parties to deliver on political promises. The result has been widespread, inappropriate development projects consisting of poor quality housing with weak infrastructure and services (such as no or low public transport provision, a lack of schools, health services and shops), an oversupply of one-off housing, and disinvestment in public housing. In addition, the timing of the NSS was unfortunate as it missed the opportunity to be tied to the NDP 2000-2006 funding stream and was undermined by the decentralisation plan that ignored its recommendations. It now underpins the NDP 2007-2013, although that plan is being massively revised in the face of budget cuts.

While an economic recovery might happen regardless of planning decisions, the chances of long term, sustainable success are greatly increased through a strategically aware and robust planning system. This means, on the one hand reform of the planning system, and on the other the implementation of the NSS and RDS and investment in sectorial and spatial planning initiatives. If these two reforms take place then planning will help create balanced regional development by ensuring equal access to infrastructure and resources necessary to ensure the businesses are not disadvantaged by locating beyond the major cities; regenerate areas blighted by social issues; enable the rolling out of the green economy; implement a sustainable/low carbon transport infrastructure that promotes economic development; and put the housing and commercial property sectors back on an even keel. Moreover, planning on a cross-border basis, where there is a matching up of investment on key infrastructure projects and the sharing services, will lead to new opportunities and cost savings and efficiencies.

Our long term future needs to be driven by a strategic, sustainable, robust planning system that formulates and implements investment decisions that will pay back handsomely into the future. Planning needs to be seen and positioned at the forefront of providing long term solutions to our present economic predicament. It has to become a central plank of our strategy for recovery, not seen as a distraction or a hindrance. This means, in particular, reform of the planning system and pushing ahead with the NSS initiatives.

The Global Irish Economic Forum and the Irish Diaspora Strategy

The Global Irish Economic Forum takes place in Farmleigh over the weekend, bringing together business leaders from the Irish Diaspora to create a large think-tank to consider the ailing state of the Irish economy and how it might recover as well as to consider relations with the diaspora. A number of media commentators have in recent years been suggesting that Ireland does very little to engage its diaspora. It is certainly the case that there is more that could be done, but a gross exaggeration to suggest that the state and other agencies do practically nothing. Nearly every government department has a programme that reaches out to the diaspora. These programmes recognise that the Irish diaspora constitutes both an obligation and a huge potential resource. It is an obligation because Irish citizens, on the one hand, remain Irish citizens and, on the other, because many of them have served and continue to serve Ireland while overseas. The diaspora is a massive potential resource because the millions of people worldwide who claim some Irish ancestry possess an abundance of skills, knowledge, contacts, business acumen, and financial and political resources that could help Ireland as it tries to rebuild its economy. Indeed, one of the ironies of the negative press concerning Ireland’s engagement with its diaspora is the fact that many other countries consider it to be one of the world's leaders in diaspora engagement.

Earlier in the year I co-organised a two day workshop - Exploring Diaspora Strategies - that bought together 8 countries and the World Bank to discuss how countries protectively engage their diaspora. Resulting from that was a set of reports, including one that used the workshop presentations to think through what lessons Ireland could learn from other countries and to consider what new programmes might be implemented. This report was submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs to feed into their on-going review of diaspora engagement. The Global Irish Economic Forum is a new and welcome initiative through with Ireland can engage with the global Irish business community, but it must be noted that it builds on a broad base of existing engagements - Enterprise Ireland already supports over 60 Irish business networks with over 30,000 members who work to support Irish businesses overseas and form a key social network for the Irish business diaspora. It is this broad base which differentiates Ireland from other countries who have also pursued the business elite route, such as Scotland and Chile, and in my view this is the great strength of Irish policy and should be strengthened and expanded as a priority.

The two tables below, taken from our report, detail the programmes that Ireland presently runs and ones that we think it should consider implementing to build and reinforce its diaspora engagement.

Table 1 – Summary of Irish State supported diaspora policies/programmes

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT APPARATUS FOR OVERSEAS POPULATIONS
* Department of Foreign Affairs – Irish Abroad Unit
* Network of embassies and consulates around the world
* Participation in EU, UN, WHO, OECD and OECD
* Government’s Emigrant Services Advisory Committee (formerly known as Díon)
* Enterprise Ireland and Business Networks
* President’s Office : Moral and Cultural support for engaging the diaspora

INFRASTRUCTURE CONECTING DIASPORA AND HOMELAND
* Emigrant media including Emigrant News Online and RTÉ, plus a plethora of Irish newspapers and radio stations broadcasting online.
* Irish socio-cultural websites such as IrishAbroad.com and Europeanirish.com
* Government supported online services, including Irish Network of Great Britain, * Crosscare Migrant Project and EAN

EXTENDING CITIZENSHIP : PROVISION OF WELFARE SUPPORTS
* Emigrant Support Programme (coordinated by Irish Abroad Unit)
* Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas
* The Department of Education and Science - overseas child abuse victim redress; grants for overseas Irish to attend Irish third level institutions

CULTURE AND SOCIAL BUILDING OF THE DIASPORA INCLUDING TOURISM POLICY
* Ireland’s Cultural Policy and Culture Ireland
* Irish clubs and local organizations abroad
* Worldwide celebrations of Saint Patrick’s Day
* Research Centres such as the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, Irish Diaspora Forum
* Irish University Alumni Societies
* Tourism Ireland
* National Archives of Ireland and Irish Ancestral Research Association
* Emigrant Support Programme community & heritage funding

PHILANTHROPY
* The Ireland Funds
* The International Fund for Ireland
* The Atlantic Philanthropies

BUSINESS NETWORKS
* Enterprise Ireland, Industrial Development Agency (IDA)
* Specialist Knowledge Networks: the Irish Technology Leadership Group, Biolink USA-Ireland, Techlink UK-Ireland
* Professional Knowledge Networks : Irish Network New York, Irish Network San Francisco, Irish Professional Network of London
* Transnational Business Networks: “Irish-other nationality” business associations
* Global Knowledge Networks: Asia Pacific Ireland Business Forum, The Ireland Funds
Global Irish Economic Forum

RETURNEES
* FÁS sponsored international recruitment fairs
* The Department of Social and Family Affairs – funds emigrant advice services (including for returning Irish)
* Crosscare Migrant Project (Emigrant Advice)
* Safe Home programme
* Dept of Environment capital assistance programme
* The Aisling Return to Ireland Project - annual supported holiday to Ireland for long-term, vulnerable Irish in Britain

AFFINITY DIASPORA
* IBEC (Irish Business and Employers Confederation) Export Orientation Programme (EOP)
* Ireland’s International Development work (e.g. Irish Aid)



Table 2 – Summary of possible extensions to and new diaspora policies/programmes

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT APPARATUS FOR OVERSEAS POPULATIONS
* Irish State to consider formally appointing the DFA (perhaps IAU) to be co-ordinator of Ireland’s diaspora strategy (a role which critically requires light networking and not a muscular command)

INFRASTRUCTURE CONNECTING DIASPORA AND HOMELAND
* A state-sponsored website portal should be created that provides links to (but not content) all diaspora programmes and the networks/projects that they support and all other sources of information, advice, social and business networking, etc.
* A diaspora forum should be established that meets twice a year – once in Ireland, once abroad – to discuss the relationship between Ireland and its diaspora
* Rewarding diasporeans who make a significant contribution to Ireland and the diaspora through an awards scheme

EXTENDING CITIZENSHIP : PROVISION OF WELFARE SUPPORTS
* IAU budget to be expanded, focus continuing to broaden to other vulnerable Irish abroad including youth, homeless, and undocumented Irish, and geographical reach continuing to widen

CULTURE AND SOCIAL BUILDING OF THE DIASPORA
INCLUDING TOURISM POLICY
* A programme should be developed to help finance websites and Internet ventures that seek to better inform and mobilise the Irish diaspora at different scales
* A dedicated social networking fund should be established
* A homecoming style event should be considered
* The state should consider specific funding for RTE to develop services for the diaspora, including satellite broadcasting abroad
* Extend the Aisling Project, or creating a similar parallel scheme, to enable vulnerable Irish abroad of all ages to visit Ireland
* Invest in and develop genealogical supports for those researching their family tree
* Develop a supported programme of summer schools for higher education students from the diaspora
* Continue promoting the Irish language through language workshops and summer schools organised outside of Ireland, parallel to the Ciste na Gaeilge intensive summer courses
* Develop school curriculum and project materials concerning Ireland and the Irish diaspora suitable for second-level teaching and project work in diaspora communities
* Establish a research programme that creates and populates diaspora community archives, undertakes oral histories, and examines present-day life of the diaspora as a means to stimulate interest in Irish identity and culture. This should be supported by the creation of a diaspora research fund that organisations can apply to support their activities

PHILANTHROPY
* A strategy should be formulated to develop philanthropic relationships with non-elite members of the Irish diaspora

BUSINESS NETWORKS
* Facilitate the creation of more ITLG type networks, wherein successful Irish entrepreneurs and business leaders are encouraged to invest in and nurture Irish start up companies or existing small-to-medium sized businesses who demonstrate high potential for growth
* Establish networks of other professional groups such as doctors, lawyers, finance, and other producer services
* The state markets specific investment opportunities (including PPPs) in infrastructural projects or specific businesses to diaspora investors
* Implement a highly skilled professional partnering programme
* Implement a scheme similar to GlobalScot and ChileGlobal targeting high achieving diaspora members.
* Implement a student mentoring scheme that places the brightest Irish graduates with top diaspora companies

RETURNEES
* Facilitate professional mobility for people of Irish descent, who are not European-Union passport-holders and who are willing to come and work in Ireland, temporarily or permanently, through a special visa regime
* Market developments in Irish education to attract both families with younger children to return as well as children of diasporeans who might wish to return to study in Ireland.
* Extend the possibility to apply for subsidized accommodation to any returnees – beyond the vulnerable elderly diasporeans willing to come back to Ireland targeted by the existing Safe * Home programme – on a temporary basis, so as to give them some time to find suitable housing and/or a job for themselves and their families.
* Host a Homecoming event like Scotland to attract a significant volume of diaspora members to visit Ireland and to encourage them to consider making the move more permanent.
Prepare a ‘welcome back’ package for diaspora visitors that encourages them to consider moving to Ireland.
* Prepare a scheme that eases the relocation of belongings from abroad.

AFFINITY DIASPORA
* Develop a scheme that places foreign-national postgraduate students with Irish companies
* Develop new Ireland-Other Country Associations that could help Irish businesses expand into new markets
* Support the work of other countries’ diaspora organisations in Ireland
* Develop a ‘Team Ireland’ ambassadorial scheme that recruits foreign national business people to represent and act on behalf of Ireland
* Work with Irish universities with regard to overseas alumni that might help Irish businesses in local contexts

Well, I wasn’t imagining it …

This summer it’s felt like I’ve been living inside of a washing machine – it seems to have been raining every day accompanied by blustery winds. Ireland has always had its fair share of rainy days (that’s why there are forty shades of green) but the last three summers have been a washout – literally. The year seems to have blurred into a single season. Met Eireann have just confirmed my suspicions. To quote, “Rainfall totals were above normal everywhere for the third successive summer, with around twice the average rainfall at some stations.” For some parts of the country, including where I live, it has been the wettest summer since records began – rainfall was 199% higher than the season average between 1960 and 1990. It rained more than 1mm for over 50 days during the three months of June, July and August.

I thought climate change was meant to bring us warmer, sunnier weather. Instead, I’m starting to forget what the sun looks like (especially since we took a staycation this year, wandering around in the pouring rain out West). Can we please go back to how it was a few years ago? I know we used to moan about the fact that it rained all the time back then, but we were wrong. It only rained most of the time. I’ll take most to all every time.

The Neutral Isle

It’s 70 years to the day that Ireland declared its neutrality in the Second World War. After Germany’s invasion of Poland on Sept 1st, the Irish Government led by Eamon de Valera declared a state of emergency and neutrality on Sept 2nd and ratified the The Emergency Powers Act on Sept 3rd. The Act, which led to the war rather euphemistically being termed The Emergency in Ireland, effectively gave the Irish government license to run the country as it saw fit for the duration of European hostilities including powers of censorship of media and mail and internment.

Neutrality was broadly welcomed by all political parties in Ireland. The country had been an independent state for less than 20 years and was still working its way through the legacy of its civil war and division from Northern Ireland. It was also a poor nation that was ill-equipped to fight any kind of war or defend itself from the kind of Blitzkrieg attack as unleashed on Poland (there were only a handful of anti-aircraft guns, a couple of obsolete planes, and a tiny professional army).

Officially favouring no side, neutrality was strictly adhered to throughout the war with British, French, German, Japanese, the United States and other states representatives based in Dublin. The government nor the press endeavoured to show any partiality to either side (the media were particularly hamstrung as they could not print or play newsreels or films that explicitly favoured one side or could be considered propaganda) and sought to repress all foreign intelligence activity regardless of source (which it actually did effectively despite the rumour-mongering of the British that Ireland was awash with German spies).

Neutrality was designed to both to stave off an attack from either side (and contingency plans were made to deal with invasion by both Britain and Germany) and to maintain harmonious relations within the Irish population many of whom were anti-British (though not necessarily pro-Nazi) after independence and the on-going debate over Northern Irish sovereignty. This neutral position clearly annoyed Churchill who repeatedly tried to bully de Valera into passing the treaty ports back into British hands and cast quite scurrilous accusations about Ireland’s role in the war, which were largely unfounded.

In practice, Ireland lent towards the Allies. Allied airmen and sailors were passed back across the border, intelligence gathered by Irish agencies was secretly shared with the British, over 50,000 Irish men served in the British armed forces (there are only a handful of documented cases of Irish men serving in German forces), hundreds of thousands of men and women worked in British factories, and German Legation activities were heavily monitored and policed. In addition, de Valera interned scores of IRA men – those most likely to be sympathetic to Germany - in the Curragh camp where 3 died on hunger strike seeking political status. The wish to remain neutral to the very end of the war though did backfire to a certain degree in the final days of the European conflict when de Valera presented condolences on the death of Hitler to the German Legation in Dublin (the only official head of state to do so). At this time it was clear the war was over and the atrocities of the death camps were well known and the gesture almost certainly did great damage to Ireland’s political reputation at the time especially with respect to the United States.

Review of Bombs Over Dublin by Sean McMahon, Currach Press (2009)

The Irish government, under the leadership of Eamon de Valera, declared its neutrality on September 2nd 1939, the day before Britain and France declared war on Germany. In a hectic day of Dail business, de Valera pushed through The Emergency Powers Act, a piece of legislation that effectively gave the government license to run the country as it saw fit for the duration of European hostilities and which led the Second World War being termed The Emergency in Ireland.

Over the past couple of years I have been collecting books on The Emergency including those relating to life, politics and espionage in Ireland, and also direct Irish involvement in the war, for example Irish people working in Britain or serving in the British forces or likewise living in and serving Germany. I therefore snapped up Sean McMahon’s short book (127 pages) on a recent visit to The Reading Room in Carrick on Shannon.

Bombs Over Dublin sets out in general terms the basis of Irish neutrality and the extent to which Ireland was affected by what was happening elsewhere in Europe, in particular documenting its preparations for war (including how to respond to possible invasion from the South by the Germans as a prelude to invading Britain, and from the North by Britain seeking to protect its western flank), the handful of times bombs were dropped on what was then named the Free State or Eire (especially those in Dublin), and the instances where the Irish fire brigade headed north to help in tackling the much more severe bombings of Belfast.

The book is generally well written and structured providing a sound, basic account of Ireland’s approach to the war and what preparations were made, before setting out the various instances of bombs being dropped onto Irish soil. I particularly enjoyed this quote from the Irish Times editor, R.M. Smyllie, about censors:

'troglyditic myrmidons, moronic clodhoppers, ignorant bosthoons, poor cawbogues whose only claim to literacy was their blue pencils.'

Whilst short, the book is informative, but lacks the depth and breath of other texts on the period. My impression is that the book is probably best thought of as a kind of primer, providing a readable introduction to the material that is treated in more detail in other texts. Indeed, while the book claims to be the first to focus exclusively on the bombings, they are discussed in brief elsewhere, and McMahon’s coverage of the events is fairly rudimentary. My sense is that the primary sources of information were other texts and some newspaper research, rather than extensive archival research of Irish, British and German government and military sources concerning the bombings, or in-depth interviews with surviving eye-witnesses. As a result, the book lacks the depth of material and analysis that would satisfy scholars of The Emergency, although it does provide a nice, basic introduction for a generalist audience. Given that this is what I think the book aims to do, it adequately fulfils its brief.

Review of Inspector Mallon by Donal McCracken, Irish Academic Press (2009)

Inspector John Mallon (1839-1915) was the first Catholic to reach the position of Assistant Commissioner in the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), having climbed the ranks through clever police work and political skill. During his life time, and for a considerable period afterwards, Mallon was the most famous policeman in Ireland, having successfully led the investigation into the 1882 Phoenix Park murders of Lord Frederick Cavendish (Chief Secretary of Ireland) and Thomas Burke (Under-Secretary), and crushed the so-called Invincibles, a secret band of republicans who carried out the attacks and who sought Irish independence from Britain. McCracken’s book sets out Mallon’s career and in particular his role in suppressing Irish revolutionaries in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The DMP was divided into six divisions (A-F) and the elite G Division, the detective branch. Mallon joined the DMP in 1858 and was transferred to G Division in 1862 at the age of 22. He served most of his career in G Division, much of it focused on combating politically motivated crime.

Given the very rudimentary nature of forensic science at the time, Mallon’s modus operandi was to try and prevent a crime occurring in the first place by breaking apart conspiracies through informers and intimidation (though not the use of agent provocateurs which he strongly opposed). In solving a crime he would use an extensive network of paid informers (who were often compromised by their own sheer poverty) and would play the protagonists off against each other so that they would inform on each other in an effort to try and save themselves. They were strategies that worked incredibly effectively much to the detriment of the republican cause and much to the liking of moderate nationalists who wanted to achieve home rule through non-violent means and unionists.

McCracken’s book is a fairly pedestrian piece of historical biography. While the book is fascinating in places, the writing is rather dry and it lacks the flair and story-telling of much contemporary popular history. Whilst the book is an academic text, it is undoubtedly meant to appeal to a wider, generalist audience, and I suspect some will struggle to stay engaged. Personally, I would have liked the book to be more widely situated and contextualised by the broader historical frame of Ireland in the late nineteenth century and in particular the nature and politics of policing. This would have helped to explain the wider situation in which Mallon was operating. Some of this context is there in places, particularly in relation to specific events, but not enough of it. At one point, McCracken berates Mallon’s biographer of 1910, Frederick Moir Bussy, for always returning to the case of the Invincibles and the Phoenix Park murders, something that McCracken repeatedly does himself, not unsurprisingly given it was his career highlight, the yardstick against which his subsequent endeavours were measured.

Overall an interesting enough read. I got roughly what I wanted, which was to see how the Dublin Metropolitan police operated and the strategies of detection they used. I picked up my copy in The Reading Room in Carrick on Shannon.

Stealing honey

In the last couple of days the two dogs, probably on the trail of a badger or possibly a fox, have come across two wild bee nests in the long meadow grass that have been raked up and the honeycomb plundered (click on the images right to enlarge). We're assuming its the work of a badger given the paw marks in the dirt surrounding them. It's fascinating watching the bees frantically trying to rebuild, pulling grass roots back over exposed holes. I've found a great website called Bees of Ireland run by Trinity College Dublin and I think the species is Bombus Pascuorum (map distribution below - grey dots are recordings pre-1980, red dots post-1980). There are 101 bee species in Ireland (there are 260 in the UK and many more in continental Europe), but only one unique species the Bombus muscorum var. allenellus, which is found only on the Aran Islands. Many of the Irish species are on the 'red list' of endangered species due to loss of habitats, disease and competition. Hopefully our two nests will manage to survive.

Review of Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan published by Harvill Secker (2009)

I’ve read two of Gene Kerrigan’s non-fiction books – Hard Cases: True Stories of Irish Crime and This Great Little Nation: An A-Z of Irish Scandals – and one of his previous novels, The Midnight Choir. I thought latter was a good read and had a great twist, so adding Dark Times in the City to the ‘to read’ pile was an easy choice. I picked it up in Murder Ink in Dublin.

‘I want something – I get it. That’s the way it works. We’re not equals. I say what happens.’ He leaned down, his face close enough so he could smell the fear from Finnegan. ‘I don’t have to make an effort.’ He pursed his lips, made like he was blowing out a candle. ‘Like that, you’re gone. Ten minutes later, I’ve forgotten your name. You’re not even a dead body, you’re just a missing person and your family doesn’t even have a grave to put flowers on.’

In Dark Times in the City Kerrigan gives as a good a portrayal of the relations between the new, vicious and ambitious gangsters and the older generation of Dublin’s underworld, and the ordinary folk caught in cross-fire, as any media investigative report (perhaps not unsurprisingly given he’s a highly experienced reporter). Anybody familiar with Dublin will know there have been on-going feuds between criminal gangs and tit-for-tat killings for a number of years. On Friday another gang member was shot dead at four o’clock in the afternoon in Ballyfermot, despite wearing a bullet proof vest. Kerrigan draws out what motivates the gang leaders, how they operate and the tactics they use to run their operations, and how they exert power over the innocent people living in their principle haunts, forcing them to submit to the gangster’s demands in the knowledge that going to the police will have dire consequences for them and their family and friends.

The novel’s principal character is Danny Callaghan whose has spent eight years in prison for manslaughter when he stepped into help three lads taking a beating. Eight months on the outside and repeats the mistake, intervening when two gunmen walk into a pub looking to kill petty criminal, Walter Bennett - for a short time Callaghan’s cell mate. Unsurprisingly the assassins are not happy at Callaghan’s intervention and coerce him into fulfilling Walter’s role in a struggle for territory and control between two criminal gangs, threatening him with the death of his ex-wife and her new husband if he doesn’t perform as instructed. Aided by his friend and mentor, Novak, Callaghan tries to keep himself and those that matter to him most alive as his life spirals out of control.

The writing is taut, using short half page to two page scenes to drive the narrative along. The prologue is good, but then I struggled to get into the story for the first 15 pages or so. After that the pages kept turning. The reason I think I had trouble with the opening was revealed in part three of the book which jumps back in time to provide the back story as to why Walter Bennett was the target of an assassination. Personally, I think the book would have worked a little better if it had started with this section. I don’t think it would have mattered if the reader wasn’t introduced to Callaghan until 40 or 50 pages in as the back story grabs immediately. Kerrigan is good at writing about the police and I would have also preferred to have had more scenes involving them, particularly Bob Tidey, who looked like he was going to develop into a great character and then all but disappears. Similarly there is a sub-plot with Oliver, Callaghan’s neighbour, that wasn't as fully developed as it could have been. These though are just personal plotting preferences and the book does work as is.

Dark Times in the City was an enjoyable read, though for my money not quite as good as The Midnight Choir (). I’ll be keeping my eye out for the next offering and in the meantime I’ll keep a look out for Kerrigan’s first novel, Little Criminals.