Irish Letter: Cakeist Ireland goes for broke

Never let it be said that this column is inward-looking or parochial in outlook. Today, as I write, my wife and I are on the high seas, midway between Dublin and the port of Cherbourg. As our ship, the W.B.Yeats, pride of the Irish fleet but proudly registered in Limassol, embarked on its epic 19-hour crossing, the news came in that Ireland was ready to announce its preparedness – willingness would be too strong a word – to raise its rate of corporation tax from 12.5 per cent ­– one of the lowest in the developed world – to 15 per cent, as demanded by the EU. 

Just about no one in Ireland thinks this is a good idea. It is an article of the nation’s new, post-Catholic faith that the 12.5 per cent rate is what has made the state what it is today – one of the most prosperous and fastest-growing countries in Europe.

 According to the most recent opinion poll, published in Thursday’s Irish Times, 59 per cent of voters think the Government should give two fingers to the EU (and the OECD) and keep the low rate where it is.  

The popular belief is that the 12.5 per cent rate is what persuaded mega-corporations such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple to make Ireland their European headquarters. But while there is obvious truth in this, the fact remains that the tech giants have profited almost equally from the quality of their Irish workers. 

The achievement of corporate Dublin in the third decade of the twenty-first century is second-to-none in Europe, the UK included. The capital’s financial quarter, ranged along the Liffey east of O’Connell Bridge, is expanding at a breakneck pace, taking advantage not just of the Brexit overspill but of a government that regards banking and business, combined with Big Pharma and IT, as central to its mission. 

It is reckoned that within the next ten years, the finance sector alone will provide some 50,000 highly-paid jobs. Commuter towns north and south of Dublin are almost comically prosperous. On Thursday, enjoying a latte with my wife in downtown Malahide, I was amused to find ourselves sitting next to groups of less-than-desperate housewives discussing property prices, start-times at the tennis club and which restaurant and cuisine would best suit them for lunch on Friday. 

We enquired in a local estate agent about the possibility of buying a one-bedroom flat, only to be informed that we would have to part with at least €400,000 (£340,000). Large houses in the capital area change hands in the millions. Thursday’s Irish Times property section listed nothing I could see for less than €750,000. 

My point is not that Ireland is rich; it is that it has successfully detached itself from reliance on the UK economy and now operates on an EU-wide and global basis. Ireland has made a success of its EU membership in ways of which UK Remoaners can only dream. At the same time, it has shamelessly cashed in on pro-Irish sentiment in the US and replaced Britain as America’s main economic bridge to Europe. 

One issue that flows from all this is the relationship with Northern Ireland. In Dublin this week, Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice president charged with overseeing relations with Britain, told a high-powered business conference that Brussels had no intention of renegotiating the NI Protocol. 

The overarching trade deal had taken five years to conclude, and agreement, in the end, had hung on the sections dealing with Ireland. Concessions were one thing, and the EU had several in mind aimed at relaxing regulations governing the sale of goods from the UK mainland into Northern Ireland. But there could be no question of a wholesale change of approach. The UK, in other words, could like it or face the consequences. 

In Belfast, Unionists – fearful that their hold on power is about to be usurped by Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the Provisional IRA – are incandescent. Every night on the local television news, members of the Stormont Assembly representing the three pro-Union parties (DUP, UUP and TUV) repeated their demand that Boris Johnson scraps the protocol and reaffirm Ulster’s place as an integral part of the United Kingdom. 

The prime minister’s response, beyond his inevitable rhetoric, has yet to be revealed, but few commentators north or south of the border believe that he will do anything beyond (at most) making a show of Article 16 before settling for an amended version of the existing arrangement. 

Should that be the case, the DUP, led by Jeffrey Donaldson, may have to make good on its pledge to withdraw from the Stormont Executive, thus collapsing power-sharing in the province and obliging Westminster to reimpose direct rule. 

Dublin, in all this, is playing a waiting game. The centrist coalition, made up of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, is keen that the protocol should remain in place, thus guaranteeing an open border on the island of Ireland. It is sympathetic to Unionist complaints that the deal ironed out between the EU and UK last December is overly rigid, but sees no alternative, in principle, to what has been put in place.

I feel I must add that the Republic is not the Promised Land – the repository of all that is good and reasonable in an uncertain world. Read on if you have taken that message from what I wrote during my three-week stay at home. 

The public is up in arms over the state of the national healthcare system and is increasingly concerned about energy prices, the shortage of social housing and the likely cost of combating climate change. There is widespread disaffection in the air. 

Sinn Fein, in its sleek southern guise, emerged from a poll this week as the most popular party in the country, enjoying the support of 32 per cent of voters. It is on the up. Everybody knows it, and they know the reason why.

Once led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness – veteran IRA commanders ­­– the Shinners have lurched to the populist left in recent years without in any way abandoning their central demand for a United Ireland. Even more disturbing, from the point of view of the outgoing Establishment, they are displaying an alarming competence, sticking it to the Government at every turn and winning kudos from an increasingly cakeist electorate. 

Politics is thus in a dangerous state of flux from Derry to Cork. If Sinn Fein ends up heading the administration of both parts of Ireland, anything can happen, and probably will.