This was an election of extravagant promises

Elections, at least in theory, are about making big decisions on our future direction as a country.

After this election, are we any clearer about that? What steps we will take if tariffs are placed on exports to the United States, and our revenues start to run dry? Do any of us know where we now stand in addressing climate change? Does anyone know what we will do about the complete change in the international environment, and how Ireland might respond to that much more threatening world?

What plans and provisions are we making for a future where so many of us are older? More and more older people means more and more demand on health services. Is there a limit to what we can spend on those services, and if we have decided that there isn’t, what does that mean?

Artificial intelligence is going to change most everything we do, and certainly how we do it. It may replace whole lines of work, ending the need for all sorts of paid work to be done by humans. After this election, how clear are we on what our response to all of that will be?

We make our money in the world in a pretty sophisticated way – in pharmaceuticals, financial services, tech. That means we need to stay a cutting-edge country with universities that can rival any in countries like ours around the world. Our universities are drained of resources and are falling down the international rankings. How are we going to address that?

Those are just some of the questions that face us a country over the next five years. How many of them got more than a reference in this election? Maybe housing got a good hearing, but I’m not sure we are any the wiser and clearer as to how we might fix it. Do we have a clear sense of how the government is going to literally bulldoze through objections, attack vested interests, and do whatever it takes to find the capacity we need to build anything close to the number we need?

To address those questions – including the housing one – we are going to have make choices as a society. We are going to have to do things that some people will like, and some won’t. We are going to have to decide not to do some things so that we can do others. We are going to have to make choices, and elections are supposed to help us do that. Elections are intended to give governments the authority they need to do at least some of those hard and difficult things we elect governments to do our on our behalf, based on the options they have offered us and the choices we made.

What did we get instead of options? We got promises. Big expensive promises to spend lots and lots of money, on this, or that, on the other. Did it feel joined up? If all that promised spending had a theme, for most voters it got lost in the confetti effect.

Everyone in the election campaign to a greater or slightly lesser extent was at it. One effect of that was apparent early on in the campaign: voters tended not to believe promises and so most tuned out, and that is surely behind some of that disappointing turnout. This campaign has resulted in promises for everything, but mandates for nothing.

You can blame PR-STV to an extent for this. Our voting system means that alienating even small slices of voters can cost you dear. Not wanting to lose a third or even fourth preference means you are walking on eggshells. As a result, parties and candidates find it very difficult to address anything frankly in an election. If you wonder why politicians are so awkward about speaking frankly, that electoral reality lies at the root of much of it.

But there was more than that involved this time. The inability of our political and electoral system to talk about hard choices is not the fault or doing of any individual politician or leader.

That view arises from the old question as to whether people make the circumstances or the circumstances make people. The circumstances certainly made this election.

The country is awash with money. The public finances are bursting to the seams with corporation tax. As a result this election campaign was no more than a competition in extravagance. The amount of monies being promised would have made Michael Foot – the most left wing of British Labour leaders – blush. The apparently restrained position in this election campaign was saying we would only spend around €50 billion extra whereas you would spend around €70 billion.

It is one of the ironies of this period of Ireland's history that every party sounds socialist because of a bonanza from capitalism. We should have all been voting number one for Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. He’s paying for the promises.

There is of course no doubt that we need to increase spending, both in the current and capital accounts. The population is growing, there is pressure on services, and we need water, transport and most of all housing infrastructure. But spending at this scale and on everything that all the parties were promising? What happens if we get a downturn, or even if the rate of growth of corporation tax slows?

The corporation tax revenues are flowing in from a small number of companies. Large chunks of those revenues do not reflect real activity in the Irish economy, which is why the tax arising is often referred to as ‘windfall’. We have no idea what they will amount to in a few years. Maybe they will be up, maybe down.

Does anyone, therefore, really think that we have any idea what our public finances will look like in three years? If we look back over the last 20 years, we have never got that forecast right over any sort of time horizon. Why? Because we are a small open economy, and the international winds determine our positions. The government has put some money away in case it happens, and that is a good idea, but will it prove enough – or remotely close to enough – if things start to go wrong?

Why are we ignoring this elephant in the room? It is because all that money flowing around our system is giddying, even intoxicating. People see the money, and they want to spend it. Everyone who has a grievance in Ireland understandably says they want their piece of it to solve their particular problem. But nobody needs to ask too hard about what the trade-offs are if money is to go to their cause and not to another – because all the other grievances can be addressed as well. Competing priorities and hard choices are washed away in the deluge of cash. It is like winning the Lotto when you are 21. Exciting, but probably not good for you. But that is the reality of what all these extra monies in our exchequer have meant.

Politicians respond to that reality. And that is why we have had the election campaign we have had. It won’t be much use now we have to get back to the governing.