Paul Sweeney: The bid last week for Eircom is yet another nail in the coffin of the Anglo Saxon model of liberal economics. Even Fine Gael called for its nationalisation. In the same week, 20 economists, some of them on the hard Right, called for all Irish banks to be nationalised!
The bid of a mere €95m for Eircom is in stark contrast to the market value of €8.4bn when it was privatised almost ten years ago. The taxpayer got €6.2bn on an investment of only €562m (plus a pension contribution of €1bn)
The low offer price is because Eircom is now laden with debts. This is in stark contrast to the debt free, rapidly growing and heavily investing state enterprise which Mary O’Rourke stupidly privatised. Of course, O’Rourke was not alone in 1999. The whole country was gripped by the privatisation hysteria. Nearly everyone with money wanted to make a profit from the sale of the company they already owned. Nearly all got badly burnt and so learned a hard lesson about stock markets.
But the real lesson was strategic. Sadly, it has not yet been absorbed by official Ireland, constrained as it is by ideology. Eircom, as a state company, was investing massively. Broadband was vital for the knowledge economy. The second set of new owners, private equity firms, led by Tony O Reilly and George Soros, sweated the company and used its cash to pay off the cost of buying it. (The new bidders are proposing similar moves, hence the opposition by the unions). The rapidly growing mobile arm was flogged off to Vodafone.
On an investment of €676m, the private equity firm (and the ESOT) made a gain of €954 in a few years (for the details see Chapter 3 of my book Selling Out? Privatisation in Ireland). These gains included huge dividends on losses. Investment was cut to one-third of its peak when it was a state enterprise.
When Forfas, the intellectual arm of the Department of Enterprise and Employment, made a study of the deficiencies of Irish broadband, the strategic error of the privatisation was not mentioned, even in a footnote! This indicates that official Ireland does not learn lessons which are not ideologically acceptable. With mass nationalisations, will Forfas and this government now learn to put aside its out-dated ideas?
The ideology of privatisation and marketisation has collapsed as a panacea for economic efficiency. The state was portrayed as inefficient, plodding and bureaucratic. Commercial State companies, which have contributed much to Ireland’s economy and society since 1927, are not perfect. But they still have a major role to play in the economy, especially given that it is small and open. Ireland, unlike some countries, has some very fine and well-run state enterprises. With some minor changes, the lagging state companies can be made much more efficient.
With the collapse in the Anglo-Saxon model of Capitalism, will a new government learn that commercial state enterprises still have a major role to play in our future economic well being?
Fine Gael, in addition to nationalising Eircom, recently proposed setting up a State Holding Company, (remarkably similar to Congress’ proposal of some years ago). This shows that some Irish politicians are finally shaking off the defunct Anglo-Saxon economic ideology and are being innovative.
One thing is sure. We have seen clearly that banking, as the artery of capitalism, is too important to ever again to be left in the hands of the private sector. When this crisis is sorted out, it is vital, in my opinion, that one substantial Irish bank must remain in state ownership, run at arms length from the government.
In the meantime, we should re-nationalise Eircom. It’s a steal at €100m. We are spending more on subsidies to private firms on haphazard broadband provision.
Paul Sweeney @paulsweeneyman
Paul Sweeney is former Chief Economist of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He was a President of the Statistical and Social Enquiry Society of Ireland, former member of the Economic Committee of the ETUC, a member of the National Competitiveness Council of Ireland, the National Statistics Board, the ESB, TUAC, (advisor to OECD) and several other bodies. He has written three books on the Irish economy and two on public enterprise, including The Celtic Tiger; Ireland’s Economic Miracle Explained and Selling Out: Privatisation in Ireland, chapters in other books and many articles on economics.
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