Haughey nostalgia

'There is no avoiding them and anybody who suggests that they can be avoided is misleading the public. It is absurd for some people to say that they are in favour of reducing Government expenditure in general, but then oppose every single particular reduction that we make.'

- Taoiseach Charles J Haughey, 14 October 1987
(six months after the MacSharry Budget)

On this day £485m cuts in Government expenditure were announced. It was touted as the severest measure in thirty years and 8,000 State jobs would be lost as a result. Agriculture spending was down 18%, roads and housing down 11%, education spending down £86m which would mean 2,500 fewer teachers in the next academic year. The Government expected 256,000 unemployed in 1988.

The following April a deal was struck with teachers unions and parents representatives that would guarantee a maximum primary school class size of 39. The deal was welcomed.

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There are a number of remarkable parallels between the preceding few months and the events of 1987.

Financial meltdown of Black Monday, 21 October 1987
The Government fights a Europe referendum
Huge opposition to the Budget cuts.

May 22 1987: 15,000 protest in Dublin against the health cuts. Minister for Health Rory O Hanlon’s response? – This year’s constraints are likely to be a feature of next year. Cries of ‘shame on you’ and that threat the public should never issue: We won’t forget this!

Meanwhile the Government is looking to see which State bodies it can scrap. Haughey circulates a note to his Cabinet:

‘A radical approach should be adopted and no expenditure should be regarded as sacrosanct and immune to elimination or reduction. We do not want a series of justifications of the status quo or special pleadings,’ it says.

This is more of the same. Fianna Fail had come to power on a wave of discontent with the Coalition, which was so disunited that it made only the slightest of efforts to get a Budget together, knowing the harsh measures needed would would collapse it. Just before the first MacSharry Budget at the end of March one backbencher said: 'we’re going to make the other crowd look like the Vincent de Paul.’

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With hindsight, the same old issues come up before the Single European Act. Haughey had little time for them.

Fears about our neutrality are only ‘foolish’, he says. ‘Don’t let that keep you from ratifying it. Sure look at Austria, nice and neutral and hoping to get in.’ An even better rebuttal of the other side was this: ‘Some opponents of the Treaty are ‘really opposed for ideological reasons.’