Monopoly gains from land rezoning which has made land scarce in a country that is 4% urbanised, has been Ireland's biggest stealth tax and bonanza for vested interests for decades. Click here for detail on Irish property values and control of land - - NASA says Ireland seems beyond the reach of winter’s icy grip in this true-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Earth Observatory image from January 4, 2003. The rugged cliffs that mark the island’s west coast are showing their red-brown rocky surface, but the low-lying interior region is still wearing the island’s signature green.

Conservative Ireland rules despite the economic crash and its terrible human toll. Glacial change is the best that can be expected.

The majority support for Enda Kenny's continued leadership of Fine Gael, confirms the durability of the status quo and the reaffirmation of the conservatism of the three principal Irish political parties: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party.

In fairness to Enda Kenny, he has proposed some reforms of the failed governance system and his proposal that the powerless legislative ornament known as Seanad Éireann be abolished, prompted one incumbent of more than three decades to compare such a move with the Nazis in the 1930s. While in itself, it would not be a seismic change, it would however put vested interests on notice that other cherished sacred cows of the orthodoxy could be in peril. Strange as it may seem, a Fianna Fáil minister once called publicly for his department to be abolished - - a rare event in the Irish political system where the modern Age of the Spoilsmen has eclipsed the notion of public service first and self-interest second.

As for the other two parties, Taoiseach Brian Cowen struggles to douse fires he helped to set alight and he probably views the Croke Park deal with the public service unions as an accomplishment but it's hard to see significant reform in the public service in the absence of managers who are effective drivers of change. What should one expect from the people who within two weeks of the announcement of public pay cuts in the Budget last December, presented Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan with a paper to sign exempting themselves from most of the cuts? It was an urgent issue for them at a time when some of them knew that the minister had just got some worrying news about his health.

The Labour Party and its leader Eamonn Gilmore are popular because they have no policies and given that an election could be held anytime between now and 2012, a manifesto would be published with headline aspirations and in government, the first stimulus spending program would be for the consultancy industry which would be tasked to fill in the blanks of the government program with a raft of reports - - recall Micheál Martin as Minister for Health, commissioned 46 reports; when John Gormley became Minister for the Environment, his first big step in saving the planet was to order up a €15m public awareness campaign on climate change and then start commissioning reports on waste policy. Three years later, a high-earning senior counsel is working on another report on the planned incinerator in Gormley's own constituency - - it's always easy to spend other people's money.

The three parties have no credible ideas on tackling unemployment and the easiest option is to hope that an international recovery will solve it but that assumes that the pre-crash days will return. This is the greatest delusion.

Eamonn Gilmore's big idea is a 4-year gabfest on the Constitution. If only we could all become rich by talking, our problems would be solved!

Ireland is a very conservative society which is slow to embrace change.

From the trade unions on the Left to professions and farmers on the Right, the status quo is the safest position and for rent-seekers, a bountiful harvest.

What is striking across the political spectrum is that so many depend on income from the State directly or from European taxpayers via the EU budget. Nobody will easily surrender money privileges.

We are all socialists now and wonder why no member of the scientific community has publicly queried the flawed Innovation Taskforce report which requires well-meaning but ignorant politicians to deliver truckloads of public money with little accountability?

Credit is due to Fine Gael and Labour for pushing for social reform in the 1980s against implacable FF opposition and there can be little doubt that an alternative government combination to FF and their PD lapdogs would have saved the country much human misery and devastation.

However now, when Gilmore does not propose change in failed areas of governance, what chance has he when immersed in day-today issues of government?

The Greek Prime Minister has promised the most radical public spending transparency in Europe; what has Gilmore to say on such issues which can have a significant impact on accountability for public spending?

Greeks have lived beyond their means for years, coveting public-sector jobs and demonizing entrepreneurs, Papandreou said in April. “We learned to live on loans” rather than increasing our incomes.

Greek trade unions plan to stage more strikes to protest against measures to raise the retirement age from 58 to 65 for men and women from 2015 and reduce the average pension from 90 per cent to less than 70 per cent of final salary

France plans to raise the retirement age to 62; currently French men retire at 59.

For women, the longest retirements are in France, where retirement stretches on for about 27½ years; France also holds the OECD record for men  - - 24 years spent in retirement, compared with just over nine in Mexico.

In Ireland, the majority of private sector workers have no occupational pension while public servants can retire on pensions, now at 70 per cent of income and with increases linked to current salaries.

No party that avoids addressing the serious choices that have to be made to convert the economy into a credible competitive one, deserves support.

In 1986, the late UCD constitutional law professor and Fine Gael TD, John M. Kelly, said: "Ireland's political and official rulers have largely behaved like a crew of maintenance engineers, just keeping a lot of old British structures and plant ticking over... The challenge is to evolve structures - - within which the people can be drawn to individual and community responsibility for their own development." 

How little has changed in 24 years!

Just 2 examples of Irish socialism:

The cost of Irish State financed drugs schemes doubled from 2002 to over €1.6bn in 2008. Fees and other income earned by pharmacists doubled accordingly. It cost the taxpayer an exorbitant €640m to get €1bn of drugs from factory gate to patients in the community in 2008.

The DPP paid €10.2m to lawyers in 2004; it was €15.2m in 2009, including €234,766 to political pundit Noel Whelan, after an 8% government mandated cut in fees.

DPP James Hamilton wrote to the Minister for Finance earlier this year to express his “serious concern” over the impact the planned cut would have.

Enda Kenny and Eamonn Gilmore appear to be no threat to the insiders.

Relevant articles:

Ireland: A jobs crisis in search of a national strategy

Ireland, Eamonn Gilmore and free lunch economics

Political and economic reform in conservative Ireland and the promise of an "everlasting boom"