So with the new leadership election due with the PDs what should they do about their main policy platform the economy. This is what is going to make are break them. They veered off it recently going after Justice and Health and they got broke. So what they need to do.

First off they have to identify what has gone wrong with the economy. The world economy is in choppy waters. I am living in England at the moment and many of the same stories you hear about falling house prices in Ireland are the same over here as well. The fall in the Irish property market is not an isolated case and it would be wrong to think of it as so. The question that they need to look into in Ireland is what government policies increased its damge and what to do about it.

The main government policy that caused the building boom was banning condoms. Well not really but probably had a large factor. The reason that we had a building boom is that we have had a population boom. Our usual valve for relieving the bonking like rabbits associated problems, emigration was closed off due to people able to work in Ireland. So suddenly we had to house them. We never had the population we had so we needed the housing stock. Now Conor McCabe (I have never meet the guy yet because I know his blogging feel like I should be on first name terms with him. Weird.Yet I digress ) pointed out a while back about the national average for unoccupied housings is 12.1% - and it’s 15% when holiday homes are added into the picture which would seem to suggest as Michael Taff put it in the comments as.

shows the extent to which the housing ‘boom’ was manufactured by government policy rather than just a response to blind supply-demand factors

Now personally this is not something I am completely in agreement with as in Ireland we have 410 units per 1000 which is below the EU average of 465. Which would seem to suggest that we are actually have less housing stock then we would need if we were to get to EU norms. Considering that much of our population is below lets call it settling down age and still in house shares rather then their own home like you would expect in an older population it does show we have room for more housing stock although or bigger family units would make this figure make more sense. Anyway the point is we are no where near busting at the seams with useless housing. Germany for example has 8.2% empty housing.

But this argument is of benefit to the PD’s if Conor’s interpretation comes to the fore in peoples minds. To the right the very policy the Michael Taft disagrees with  “manufactured by government policy rather than just a response to blind supply-demand factors ” Is wrong. If the PD’s want the regain the initiative on being the free markets party they could use this as an example of state intervention damaging the economy through the subsidizing of otherwise non-economically viable activity. They could blame this then for being the reason for the increased prices. There are probably many other critics of the economy that they could produce along a similar vain.

Now the other side of the property boom has been the cheap credit that has been bought up by banks around the world to finance mortgages which has resulted in the whole sub prime mortgage crisis we have now. That is largely an external factor that we could not really have prevented from happening. But they could always argue the government caused it line if they wish.

Now to simple come out with all this would be silly as the obvious response would be “Well if you think this why did you not do something about it when you were there”. The simple answer is the PD’s need to do a new Labour. They need to re-brand. One of Tony Blair’s masterstrokes was call them New Labour the re-branding made people think again about the party. Re-assets them. No policy change can really do it is down purely to cosmetics.Look at David Cameron in the UK spending some much time re-branding the party with the whole eco line. He rode high in the polls for ages without any policy announcements just photo ops and branding. This is what the new leader of the PD’s needs to do. But unlike New Labour who tried to shed the image of the past the PD’s need to rediscover their past. They need to distance themselves from McDowell’s legacy and re embrace Dessie O’Malley they need to become neo-Malleys (what can you not put in front of neo). They need to reawaken peoples opinion of them to go back to the days when they were seen as a young vibrant party not a the shambolic mess of a party they are now. This more then anything is vital,without this all the new policies of the future will be lost in the mire of the present. That coupled with a major recruitment drive at grass routes could just save them. They need new young faces not more Frank McNamera’s parachuted in but people based in the communities. It is probably not going to happen but it is not impossible. But one thing is for sure who ever gets the leadership they will be under pressure.
See what I did there more 80s goodness :)The Cartoon is Green inks