If government is the group of people who run a state and the formal rules and institutions by which they do so, governance is how they go about that through networks, processes, interests, ideologies and political actors at different levels.
The Republic of Ireland has a well-defined and clearly identifiable government structure, formally accountable through elections and the Oireachtas and amply covered by media. In contrast its governance is much more opaque, less visible to its citizens and its media coverage is patchy and uneven.
This matters because the Republic currently suffers from a series of problems – in housing, energy, water, climate, health and care infrastructure and in its economic model – that arise from suboptimal governance just as much as from short-sighted or incompetent governments. These problems are often made more visible by comparisons with similar states in Europe and elsewhere.
This State is one of the most centralised in Europe, whether defined by the functional and geographical concentration of executive and political power in Dublin or the comparatively puny powers of both parliamentary and local government. Such centralisation puts an onus on political leaders and executive managers to get things right through coherent, integrated policymaking.
Cost of former CEO employment dispute at Children’s Health Ireland exceeds €160,000
‘It keeps you awake at night’: A year in the life of an Irish secondary school
‘We cannot save these trees’: The Dark Hedges, made famous by Game of Thrones, are dying
‘My friend monitors her boyfriend’s phone and eavesdrops on his therapy sessions’
The abiding localism of Irish life is channelled to the capital by networks of TDs, private lobbying and clientelism that dominate the distribution of resources. That perfectly matches the retail, consumerist and reactive side of everyday Irish politics – and provides much of the media agenda. Less often discussed are the resulting poor outcomes across a range of public services because more local and regional structures of governance are unavailable to policymakers.
[ Fintan O’Toole: The three pillars of Ireland’s political system are crumblingOpens in new window ]
Instead policymaking is often outsourced to quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations). An OECD report identified 800 of them and said they clog up Irish governance and inhibit local government. Notorious examples of poor practice and opaque structures in health and educational bodies provide daily headline news. If we are over-quangoed we are also over-lawyered in planning and insurance per head of comparable European populations.
These issues show up plainly in how Irish governments responded to the growing population over the past decade during the economic recovery and expansion after the financial crisis. Immigration of skilled labour through work permits has increased the population by 16 per cent, or more if refugees are also factored in. Imperatives of economic growth drove the expansion; but it was not accompanied by plans to increase housing and infrastructure to provide for a growing and more complex society demanding greater public services. Instead market forces prevailed, but they failed to meet that demand.
[ Chronic inability to build anything big in the State is baked into the systemOpens in new window ]
These widening gaps were identified by some analysts and commentators, and they then became part of the political and election agenda. But they have dominated public debate only since being put there squarely by big economic players and international organisations over the past year. Infrastructure deficits inhibit new investments, they say – and that coincides with wider concerns about how vulnerable the Irish economic model has become to international shocks, particularly from Donald Trump.
Hence the level of interest in the National Development Plan and its methodology. Rather than base it on an analysis of changing demographics, economic trends and social needs which generate development priorities, its method is more ad hoc in response to the uncertain international backdrop. Detailed project plans await definition, as the scale of the Trump tariff shock is assessed. In the meantime, different Government departments are allocated capital expenditure envelopes based on their bargaining power.
How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come?
It’s a far cry from the strategic foresight approach to governing increasingly advocated by analysts, companies, the EU and international organisations. That involves gathering information about relevant trends and potentially disruptive risks, developing scenarios about plausible futures and integrating such insights into anticipatory planning. The OECD has advocated such an approach for Ireland and there are several initiatives in government and academia to apply them.
Had they been deployed over the past decade we could have been better prepared to tackle these development gaps – not to mention linking them to the equally plausible prospect of a united Ireland. Notwithstanding the highly centralised nature of Irish government, it has lacked the capacity to aggregate governance coherently and to resist particular interests. The consequences of changing demographics and economic growth should have been more effectively foreseen, but were not. For that politicians and executive managers should share the blame.
[ Tariff ‘uncertainties’ could ‘weigh heavily’ on Irish economic growthOpens in new window ]
The problems are exacerbated by the narrow base of Irish taxation, in which 10 US corporations provide 40 per cent of corporate tax revenue, along with the glaring six-fold contrast between the multinational sector’s high productivity and that of indigenous industry.
Tackling these problems requires structural change in the Republic’s governance to decentralise and redemocratise power, by prioritising and co-ordinating development gaps more effectively with better analysis. That would help repair the seriously widening distributional and political gaps between older and younger generations.
