"Bosses want McCreevy back"

[Sheridan]

Headline from Sunday Indo article by Shane Ross.

This is presumably the first in a series of coruscating insights from Sen. Ross, to include "Fascists want Mussolini back", "Housewives want Gaybo back" and "Arsonists want matches back."

[monutdfc]

To be followed by his insightful articles about "Double-jobbing Members of the Oireachtas" and "Tax-Exile Media Magnates looking for Government Handouts for failed investments"

[Macy]

Nah, must be at least 2 weeks since he's had a go at FAS...

[OneRedArmy]

Prosperity and Celtic Tiger = Charlie McCreevy
The ultimate in Pavlovian psychology.
So put Charlie back as Minister for Finance and regardless of the global slowdown, ECB controlled interest rates and all the things outside of our control, Charlie will make it all better again.......

You've got to love the logic!

(Of course, I haven't even mentioned that Charlie was the one who arguably should've put the brakes on the property market towards the end of his rein).

[pete]

Is he coming back to solve decentralisation?

[monutdfc]

The one thing that was in his control - Public Spending - he did keep control over (he even boasted of the fact). Then enter Cowen who increased Public Spending at approx double the rate of GDP growth...now we have a overweight public sector where the biggest cost by far is salaries and there is not a lot can be done about that expense in the near term. (I could be cynical and point out that 15,000 votes would swing an election.)
I don't like McCreevy's political outlook (the best MoF the PD's ever had), but he knew what he was doing. Whether he could do anything about the current impending recession is a different matter.

(On the property market, my bet is he would have ended Section 23 and Section 50 a lot sooner, but that's only hypothesising.)

[Macy]

The one thing that was in his control - Public Spending - he did keep control over (he even boasted of the fact).

Just because he boasted about it didn't make it true. What actually did for him was that he raised public spending, and then promised even greater spending and then welched on it post election. Like only Bertie could do, this lead to a promotion out of that ministry.

I don't like McCreevy's political outlook (the best MoF the PD's ever had), but he knew what he was doing. Whether he could do anything about the current impending recession is a different matter.

He happened to be in power when we had record growth. Hard to know how he would cope with the current situation. What he did do was continue to make the tax system more and more regressive, with cuts of the top rate of tax and several years where he took effective tax rises by not increasing bands in line with inflation.
2 major things he royally fooked up were the privatisation of eircom, which has left us with a pathetic telecommunications infrastructure (and then he compounded it by changing the tax laws to facilitate a further take over of the company), and as pete has mentioned, how could anyone responsible for such a nonsensical scheme as decentralisation actually be held as an example for controlling public spending?

(On the property market, my bet is he would have ended Section 23 and Section 50 a lot sooner, but that's only hypothesising.)

Definitely hypothesising, but I would suggest most of his policies favoured big business and developers. Why would he buck the trend later on? he probably should've been reigning them in before he left

[monutdfc]

Like only Bertie could do, this lead to a promotion out of that ministry.

Him moving to Brussels was definitely not a promotion. Bertie shunted him out precisely because he wouldn't do his bidding.

2 major things he royally fooked up were the privatisation of eircom

Arguably that was more Harney than McCreevy's responsibility

how could anyone responsible for such a nonsensical scheme as decentralisation actually be held as an example for controlling public spending?

Decentralisation was nothing but a political stroke. Nobody even pretends otherwise (especially given the total disregard for the National Spatial Strategy announced only weeks previously). The fact that it was announced in the budget doesn't mean that it was McCreevy's idea.

[Macy]

Him moving to Brussels was definitely not a promotion. Bertie shunted him out precisely because he wouldn't do his bidding.

Politically yes, money wise it was a promotion. It was because he didn't have to balls not to do Berties bidding - he was the fall guy for the pre-election lies.

Arguably that was more Harney than McCreevy's responsibility

There's a reason he was thought of as a PD and it was his ideology of privatisation and more money for the rich, and damn the consequences. The way he facilitated the valentia takeover was shameful, but then look at how supportive O'Reilly controlled businesses still are of him.

Decentralisation was nothing but a political stroke. Nobody even pretends otherwise (especially given the total disregard for the National Spatial Strategy announced only weeks previously). The fact that it was announced in the budget doesn't mean that it was McCreevy's idea.

It was totally his idea and was only worked on by Finance Officials. Infact papers have shown they argued against it. It was a total stroke designed to hide the fact that he had effectively raised taxes in that budget. Typical short termism - spend a couple of billion in the long term to hide a short term embarrassment.

[NeilMcD]

Yeah it was his idea. Just listen to him on Dunphys show on RTE and he confirms it was his idea. A total joke of an idea and even worse in practice.