Garret FitzGerald's Career & Political Legacy

later12

Like many who post on the forum I was not around when Garrett FitzGerald was Taoiseach and would be interested in hearing an account of FitzGerald's premiership by those who lived through the recession and the turbulent political climate of the 1980s.

Based on what remains a subjective take on history, it having been relatively recent, the predominant view seems to suggest that, like the Cumann na nGaedhael Governments of his father's time, FitzGerald handled the economy poorly, but that he was more successful with external relations, particularly in relation to the Anglo Irish Agreement and greater co-operation with Britain and the (then) EEC. As we all know, this continued up to Lisbon.

FitzGerald's articles in the Irish Times were worthy of mixed praise I feel, some of them perhaps hypocritical, some would say that despite the fact that he held high office twice as Taoiseach, FitzGerald was poorly equipped to make such pontifications. I have to say that, in economic terms, this seems to hold true.

Nevertheless, FitzGerald's legacy will perhaps be best regarded as that of an eloquent and an intelligent statesman, a man who aimed to liberalise Irish society, and who helped build the strong British-Irish relations that culminated in the GFA and, eventually, a state visit by the reigning British monarch.

Wolfe Tone

I think he dealt with the hunger strikes and republicans in general in a terrible way.

Laminations

I'm waiting on the OP to start a thread banging on about the cost of a state funeral in the Irish Economy forum

'Things that cost a state funeral'

mprgst78

I'm all for respecting the man for his achievements but I hope people will be objective about them. For an economist, his policies seemed to have done significant damage to the Irish economy in the 1980s. Interested to hear people's opinions on this.

DeVore

I lived through his terms of office, the 80's were hard because, imho, FF had destroyed the economy then as they have now. I'm no FG supporter but it seems history is repeating itself.

But for me, the North will remain Mr Fitzgerald's main achievement. The praise should fall to people like him and John Hume. People who worked on realities rather than ideologies. Pragmatism rather than popularism. Of course the plaudits they deserved were snapped up by pretenders but such is the way of things.

Not perfect, no one is, but name a taoiseach we have had since who was comparable?

DeV.

Fr Tod Umptious

DeVore wrote: »

I lived through his terms of office, the 80's were hard because, imho, FF had destroyed the economy then as they have now. I'm no FG supporter but it seems history is repeating itself.

But for me, the North will remain Mr Fitzgerald's main achievement. The praise should fall to people like him and John Hume. People who worked on realities rather than ideologies. Pragmatism rather than popularism. Of course the plaudits they deserved were snapped up by pretenders but such is the way of things.

Not perfect, no one is, but name a taoiseach we have had since who was comparable?

DeV.

Agree with all of that

The Governemnets he laed failed to address the economic situation left to them by FF in the late 70s but the basis for the peaceful NI that we now have is in part due to the Anglo Irish Agreement, which he helped negotiate.

During the 80s it was always Haughey or Fitzgerald when it came to politic allegiances.

I think history will be kinder to Fitzgerald that Haughey, and rightly so.

View

I think he is in many respects unfairly criticized on the economy. When he took office, the previous FF majority government of CJH had basically tried to spend our way out of a catastrophic recession. As a result of that spending spree, public spending was out of control in a fashion that makes today's situation seem fairly restrained. The situation was so bad that Fergus Finlay described seeing the Ministers coming out of their first cabinet meeting - at which the state's finances were discussed by the DoF - and they were so ashen faced, he was going to quip "Who died?" only he was afraid someone might have!

After that, the term of his government could in economic terms be best described as trying to pull the economy out of a death-dive. Such turn-arounds can and do take considerable time to achieve and, by the time, the economy finally reached a stage where it was ready to turn the corner, FG & Labour were headed to the opposition benches leaving FF to claim most of the credit for the turn-around.

Yes, in retrospect, his government can be criticized for having not cut fast enough and/or having cut too fast, depending on your political views, but that charge is easy to make from today's perspective when the solutions are "obvious" with the benefit of hindsight.

jmayo

later10 wrote: »

Like many who post on the forum I was not around when Garrett FitzGerald was Taoiseach and would be interested in hearing an account of FitzGerald's premiership by those who lived through the recession and the turbulent political climate of the 1980s.

Based on what remains a subjective take on history, it having been relatively recent, the predominant view seems to suggest that, like the Cumann na nGaedhael Governments of his father's time, FitzGerald handled the economy poorly, but that he was more successful with external relations, particularly in relation to the Anglo Irish Agreement and greater co-operation with Britain and the (then) EEC. As we all know, this continued up to Lisbon.

Well I was in secondary school.
He was not a great Taoiseach in the sense that he was probably too accommodating to too many opinions.
He didn't rule his party or the government with an iron fist unlike his opposite number.
There were stories from ex ministers about how long his cabinet meetings went on.

There is always this opinion bandied about, particularly by those of the ff stable , that he and his governments were useless on the economy.
Lets remember he inherited a country that had been destroyed by a ff single party big majority government led by lynch and haughey.
He was reliant on Labour as coalition partner and Labour refused to contenance cuts in public spending.
There was the famous VAT on Kids shoes budget meltdown.

And yes haughey's government post 87 turned the economy around because they made the cuts, but they had no choice as the IMF were at the door and they were supported by FG through the Tallaght Strategy.

The reason I became a FG supporter voter was because of Fitzgerald as Fitzgerald was everything haughey was not.
He had principles, he wasn't a too faced scheming bast*** who lived the high life (which well before any tribunal revelations looked incongruous with haughey's salary) and bullied anyone that crossed his path.
He was everything haughey was not.

Some may say that Fitzgerald was more suited to being a Labour member than FG, but FG have always been an unusal organisation where there are disparate traditions.

Up to the 80s the catholic church's views on sex and marriage ruled this country.
We were indeed a priest ridden backward country where contraception was unavailable for sale until 1980 and even then you had to have a doctor's perscription.
Fitzgerald liberalised that in 1985.

Whereas Fitzgerald tried to liberalise the country, haughey most often played to the church in order to gardner votes.
What makes that all the more galling was he was carrying out a long term affair with another man's wife.

Fitzgerald I believe helped lay the groundwork for some sort of relationship between Britain and Ireland over Northern Ireland.
What makes it more remarkable was it was done with thatcher in charge.
I don't think there would ever have been the peace moves if thatcher had been in charge when subsequent prime ministers moved the process forward.

later12

View wrote: »

I think he is in many respects unfairly criticized on the economy. When he took office, the previous FF majority government of CJH had basically tried to spend our way out of a catastrophic recession.

That is certainly true, but it does not take anything away from the fact that FitzGerald himself only built on that Haughey's expansionist behaviour upon attaining office.

Yes, in retrospect, his government can be criticized for having not cut fast enough and/or having cut too fast, depending on your political views, but that charge is easy to make from today's perspective when the solutions are "obvious" with the benefit of hindsight.

It ought to have been obvious durimng his second term, from 1982 - 1987, when FitzGerald was Taoiseach that the economic policies of the previous FF government had failed, and that they ought to rectify them forthwith. There is some strange perception which I have even seen hinted at already in this thread, that Garrett cleaned up the economy, when even Leo Varadkar has criticised FitzGerald for his economic failures in trebling the national debt and not bringing about any economic growth.

Garrett FitzGerald is worthy of considerable praise in terms of foreign affairs, but certainly not in economic terms, from an objective standpoint.

His tenure in office, shared with FF a responsibility for the attrition of many rural Irish towns and villages, mass emigration and unemployment - effects that survive to this day. Charlie Haughey and Garrett FitzGerald ruined the Irish economy throughout the 1980s, and any attempts to sugar coat these facts deserve to be met with fact. FitzGerald maintained an overvalued currency, crippling tax rates, and far too generous public spending. It was only with the later FF-FG co-operation, under the Tallaght strategy, that economic recovery began to arise.

later12

jmayo wrote: »

Some may say that Fitzgerald was more suited to being a Labour member than FG, but FG have always been an unusal organisation where there are disparate traditions.

I agree with this. In terms of his economic behaviour, and his social policies, one would instinctively tend to align FitzGerald with more Labour-type policies. Perhaps in a more modern age, he might have joined the Labour Party.

Happyman42

A curates egg of a career, but one cannot criticise his honesty and personal committment. May he rest in peace.

I am finding it kinda funny that he has upstaged the visit of QE2.

View

later10 wrote: »

That is certainly true, but it does not take anything away from the fact that FitzGerald himself only built on that Haughey's expansionist behaviour upon attaining office.

It ought to have been obvious durimng his second term, from 1982 - 1987, when FitzGerald was Taoiseach that the economic policies of the previous FF government had failed, and that they ought to rectify them forthwith. There is some strange perception which I have even seen hinted at already in this thread, that Garrett cleaned up the economy, when even Leo Varadkar has criticised FitzGerald for his economic failures in trebling the national debt and not bringing about any economic growth.

You need to set the decisions made in context. To use today's example, if when you are elected, the state is borrowing at a rate of 20 billion a year and you manage to reduce that to a rate of 3 billion a year, you have unquestionably reduced the rate of borrowing but you are nonetheless still borrowing. That is still an improvement on your previous position as it puts you within striking distance of running a surplus of 3 billion a year and enabling you to reduce the debt.

As such, it is churlish in the extreme to dismiss the difficult task done by the then FG-Lab government of reducing the rate of public borrowing particularly when it was done in the face of considerable public opposition to it, not least of all, by FF who opposed each and every measure to do so.

later10 wrote: »

His tenure in office, shared with FF a responsibility for the attrition of many rural Irish towns and villages, mass emigration and unemployment - effects that survive to this day.

That is what happens when economies go off the road - the trick is to stop them doing so before it happens by following the correct economic policies in the first place.

later10 wrote: »

It was only with the later FF-FG co-operation, under the Tallaght strategy, that economic recovery began to arise.

FF in opposition wasn't offering a Tallaght strategy so it is unreasonable to criticise him for failing to implement one as there was no majority in the Oireachtas for it. FF achieved power in 1987 after promising to stop cut-backs - not to continue, much less increase them.

later12

View wrote: »

You need to set the decisions made in context. To use today's example, if when you are elected, the state is borrowing at a rate of 20 billion a year and you manage to reduce that to a rate of 3 billion a year, you have unquestionably reduced the rate of borrowing but you are nonetheless still borrowing. That is still an improvement on your previous position as it puts you within striking distance of running a surplus of 3 billion a year and enabling you to reduce the debt.

I am confused as to why you would use such an example as that. FitzGerald did not improve the situation - debt increased every year, year-on-year, of his tenure in office. The minimum increase y-o-y was about 10%, the maximum increase y-o-y was over 20%. You are using a very strange logic, which I'm sure you will now explain.

irishh_bob

later10 wrote: »

I agree with this. In terms of his economic behaviour, and his social policies, one would instinctively tend to align FitzGerald with more Labour-type policies. Perhaps in a more modern age, he might have joined the Labour Party.

garrett was closer to the labour party economically aswell , he was the quintesential social democrat , an ecentric academic type who was probably not ruthless enough or practical enough to make him naturally suited to politics

View

later10 wrote: »

I am confused as to why you would use such an example as that. FitzGerald did not improve the situation - debt increased every year, year-on-year, of his tenure in office. The minimum increase y-o-y was about 10%, the maximum increase y-o-y was over 20%. You are using a very strange logic, which I'm sure you will now explain.

To clarify the rate of the increase in the debt was reduced. As I said previously that is not the same thing as actually reducing the debt but is unquestionably a first step towards doing so.

To set it in context, as it appeared then, the position of the three major political parties in the Oireachtas at the time were roughly:

i) FG: Particularly with the younger members of the political party - Let's make more cuts and do them now.
ii) Labour: The 60's socialists achieve power and want to be radical, only to find the budget isn't there for it, so they fight a rear-guard action to protect the areas they consider important (and for which they get little electoral credit).

iii) FF: Cut-backs? Cut-backs? We'll spend more money! We'll borrow it as there is plenty more where it came from. P.S. What is this thing called an "economy" anyway?

FG didn't command a majority so it is as unreasonable to criticise them for failing to implement their policies in full. Labour was going way further than they wanted to do. FF meanwhile appeared set on borrowing and spending even more money if they could get back into government.

FG and Labour were under constant attack for cutting public spending at the time - not for increasing it. How exactly was GF to get increased cuts in spending through the Oireachtas when Labour wouldn't support them and FF wanted to reverse them?

later12

View wrote: »

To clarify the rate of the increase in the debt was reduced. As I said previously that is not the same thing as actually reducing the debt but is unquestionably a first step towards doing so.

What a daft thing to suggest. The first step is to cut the debt, not to increase it year on year. I have statistics on FitzGerald but don't have the statistics on the year-on-year percentile increases of the Haughey Government that preceeded FitzGerald's, have you got them there so that we can see them? This graph doesn't seem to support your point.

PatsytheNazi

DeVore wrote: »

I lived through his terms of office, the 80's were hard because, imho, FF had destroyed the economy then as they have now. I'm no FG supporter but it seems history is repeating itself.



But for me, the North will remain Mr Fitzgerald's main achievement. The praise should fall to people like him and John Hume. People who worked on realities rather than ideologies. Pragmatism rather than popularism. Of course the plaudits they deserved were snapped up by pretenders but such is the way of things.



Not perfect, no one is, but name a taoiseach we have had since who was comparable?



DeV.

I was around when Fitzgerald was Taoiseach and the best thing I could say about him was that he was a bumbling idiot :rolleyes:

While I agree in general with the OP, Fitzgerald's role and the Gombeen state's in general in the Anglo Irish Agreement (AIG) is like everything in 'Anglo OIrish relations' vastly overhyped.

The AIG was brought about as an attempt to throw the SDLP a lifeline to try and stem the rise in SF in the six counties after the hunger strikes - something the British let out of the bag thanks to the secretary of state. The whole thing was developed by Thatcher and co. - Fitzgerlad's and the Gombeen state's role in it was to dot the i's and cross the t's. Indeed Fitzgerald was nicknamed Sir Garret Fitzthatcher and it was said that if Thatcher blew her nose, Sir Garret would apologise and clean it up for her :rolleyes:

PatsytheNazi

Some of of Fitzgerald's great 'achievements' :rolleyes: -

* 1982, Taoiseach of shortest Govt in the history of the state for about 10/11 months falling on the budget due to the tax on children's shoes

* Garret's promises to the Catholic lobby groups which later gave rise to the ' Pro Life Amendement ' to the consitution which later resulted in the X case

* The badly conceived 1st divorce act which ofcourse failed at the referendum.

* Benefitting from 200,000 debts written off by AIB etc Not in Haughey's league, but still not bad all the same for a so called honest ' statesman '.

It just goes to show the absoulute patheticness of this little state when they elevate a bumbling idiot like Fitzgerald ( and for that matter Lynch ) to " statesman ".

mike65

Its a very mixed legacy, he was left with a disasterous set of figures thanks to the wreckless 77-81 FF administration which famously ended rates and reduced car tax to a fiver with predictable results to the current account esp allied to the '79 oil shock down turn (the price of petrol hit a £1 a gallon for the first time in 1980). That he had to go into coalition with Labour in the "ultra-beard" era was clearly an issue as economic policy was stymied by constant compromise and argument and the militancy of the trade union movement. The 80s was an era of epic strikes and working to rule. Looking back Frank Cluskey and his contempories would shock many young fellas who consider themselves Labour (when local radio was floated in 1985 Labour wanted RTE to have a 50% stake in all stations, a small example but very typical). Where Labour clearly aided Fitzgerald was with respect of the attempts to drag Ireland out of the social stone age he had to be able to outflank the likes of Oliver J Flangan (an appalling man) and Alice Glenn. Ultimately he failed but without the early attempts changes might have taken much longer to happen.

later12

I think that's a very fair assessment.

View

later10 wrote: »

What a daft thing to suggest. The first step is to cut the debt, not to increase it year on year. I have statistics on FitzGerald but don't have the statistics on the year-on-year percentile increases of the Haughey Government that preceeded FitzGerald's, have you got them there so that we can see them? This graph doesn't seem to support your point.

To quote an Oireachtas reply as can be seen here:

National Debt

June 30 '77 - IEP 4,229
June 30 '81 - IEP 10,195

Total Increase in %age terms: 241%

The relevant elections were on June 16 '77 and June 11 '81 so the figures roughly coincide with FF's tenure in office.

March 31 '82 - IEP 11,000
March 31 '86 - IEP 21,100

Total Increase in %age terms: 192%

The figures aren't quite as clear cut here though as the relevant elections were on Feb 18 '82 (which brought FF to power), Nov 24 '82 (which brought FG-Lab to power) and Feb 17 '87 (i.e. after the March 31' 86 figure). Hence, they include debt incurred when FF was in power in '82 and exclude it between March 31 '86 and Feb 17 '87 when FG-Labour were in power.

Even so, the gap between an increase of 192% and 241% is significant - and, as we see in our finances today, once you go down the road of increasing your debt, the increased interest payments make it harder to deal with the problem of balancing the books.

All, of which is interesting, but I note you didn't answer the question:

How exactly was GF to get increased cuts in spending through the Oireachtas when Labour wouldn't support them and FF wanted to reverse them?

PatsytheNazi

Wasn't the 'great statesman' behind the first bailout of Irish banks with AIB's Insurance Corporation of Ireland back in the 80's :mad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Irish_Bank#Insurance_Corporation_of_Ireland

later12

View wrote: »

All, of which is interesting, but I note you didn't answer the question:

How exactly was GF to get increased cuts in spending through the Oireachtas when Labour wouldn't support them and FF wanted to reverse them?

Oh, well I wasn't avoiding it, I presumed it was rhetorical.

FitzGerald ought to have acted responsibly by refusing to co-operate in Government with a party so intent on increasing the national debt - and it is not immediately clear that FitzGerald himself was particularly, or stringently, opposed to their intentions, by the way. He ought to have explained the situation, and sought co-operation or gone back to the people, if necessary.

Now back to this issue that Garret slowed the rate of the increase on the national debt. That you use this to point to anything other than a catastrophic handling of the domestic economy is absurd.

To begin with, the number you start off by counting the accumulated national debt in 1977 that FF itself inherited from the FG-Lab Cosgrave government as well as the Cosgrave mismanagement of the economy and, at whose cabinet table FitzGerald sat, so that's just a qualification of that figure. You appear very keen to point out the predecessors of FG, yet less so those of FF.

Secondly, assasination of others, however worthy, does not actually change FitzGerald's insane handling of the economy itself. It doesn't make FitzGerald's mishandling any less true. As bad as FF had been at cutting public spending, FitzGerald went out there and also refused to cut it - nor did he stabilise it - he grew it, at one point by about 23% year on year. And this was through a period of deflation! One would say something if we had an inflationary problem throughout his tenure but that was not the case; he maintained the unemployment problem and despite the low inflation - or rather, disinflation in the end - gave us a far greater public spending problem.

But more importantly, as an economy approaches total debt capacity, the debt coverage ratio becomes smaller and more significant. So while you chirpily proclaim that FitzGerald borrowed more but eventually at a slower rate, all that really means is that he probably couldn't have raised much more anyway, as the economy was approaching or had arrived at all it could withstand. While FitzGerald brought us to that point, you can see on the graph below that it was up to the next Government, with Fine Gael's welcome co-operation (nothing to do with FitzGerald) to take us back from it.

[IMG][/img]

invinciblePRSTV

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Some of of Fitzgerald's great 'achievements' :rolleyes: -

* 1982, Taoiseach of shortest Govt in the history of the state for about 10/11 months falling on the budget due to the tax on children's shoes

* Garret's promises to the Catholic lobby groups which later gave rise to the ' Pro Life Amendement ' to the consitution which later resulted in the X case

* The badly conceived 1st divorce act which ofcourse failed at the referendum.

* Benefitting from 200,000 debts written off by AIB etc Not in Haughey's league, but still not bad all the same for a so called honest ' statesman '.

It just goes to show the absoulute patheticness of this little state when they elevate a bumbling idiot like Fitzgerald ( and for that matter Lynch ) to " statesman ".

An excellent oversight of the GF legacy. Garrett Fitzgerald will be remembered slightly more positively then his rival Haughey, but that's not saying much. For his positive contributions to NI, he faired poorly when it came to social and fiscal issues.

Godge

later10 wrote: »

What a daft thing to suggest. The first step is to cut the debt, not to increase it year on year. I have statistics on FitzGerald but don't have the statistics on the year-on-year percentile increases of the Haughey Government that preceeded FitzGerald's, have you got them there so that we can see them? This graph doesn't seem to support your point.

Yes, but the gross debt doesn't tell the full story. Take the current Government, for example. They may manage in four years to bring us into a balanced budget situation but in the meantime the overall debt will have gone over 100% of GDP.


I lived through those times and with the benefit of hindsight, I think that Garret's Government's have got a hard time. They had to deal with what we now know was a deeply corrupt and opportunistic Fianna Fail. From Ray Burke planting trees in West Dublin to win a bye-election and ripping them up four days later to Sean Doherty tapping the telephone of his Ministerial colleague to CJH and the stink of corrpuption that followed him around. That made a national government impossible so he had to coalesce with a Labour Party still stick in a "seventies will be socialist mode" and fearful of the rise of Democratic Left. To get the deficits down as far as he did in those circumstances was an achievement.

Outside of the economics sphere, he took on the Catholic Church with his constitutional crusade and mostly won. Remember, this was a time before we knew what that institution was like on the inside, before we knew about the repeated activities of priests and brothers that were being ignored and when it still had a powerful position in Irish society.

On the North, he delivered the Anglo-Irish Agreement which was the first step on the long road that took us to peace now. A brave and visionary man who took those steps and stood up to the shouts of betrayal and for the first time made it clear to the IRA that the South was prepared to move on even if the men of violence wanted to continue.

My only regret is that I did not recognise those achievements at the time.

Wolfe Tone

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Some of of Fitzgerald's great 'achievements' :rolleyes: -

* 1982, Taoiseach of shortest Govt in the history of the state for about 10/11 months falling on the budget due to the tax on children's shoes

* Garret's promises to the Catholic lobby groups which later gave rise to the ' Pro Life Amendement ' to the consitution which later resulted in the X case

* The badly conceived 1st divorce act which ofcourse failed at the referendum.

* Benefitting from 200,000 debts written off by AIB etc Not in Haughey's league, but still not bad all the same for a so called honest ' statesman '.

It just goes to show the absoulute patheticness of this little state when they elevate a bumbling idiot like Fitzgerald ( and for that matter Lynch ) to " statesman ".

Good post Patsy, I was gonna wait a while before spoiling the misty eyed memories.

Godge

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Good post Patsy, I was gonna wait a while before spoiling the misty eyed memories.

I had to laugh out loud at this post. The irony of somebody with a username Wolfe Tone talking about spoiling the misty eyed memories.

later12

Godge wrote: »

Garret's Government's have got a hard time. They had to deal with what we now know was a deeply corrupt and opportunistic Fianna Fail. From Ray Burke planting trees in West Dublin to win a bye-election and ripping them up four days later to Sean Doherty tapping the telephone of his Ministerial colleague to CJH and the stink of corrpuption that followed him around.

Yes but that has nothing to do with the economy.

That made a national government impossible so he had to coalesce with a Labour Party

Yet, somehow the Tallaght strategy arose in 1987?

To get the deficits down as far as he did in those circumstances was an achievement.

What do you mean he got the deficit down? When? In 1982 the deficit was -7.9 relative to the economy. In 1986 it was also -7.9. It was only cut in 1987, after FitzGerald left office, by the Fianna Fail government working with Fine Gael and Alan Dukes.

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CDoQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Ffocus%2F2010%2Fbailoutgraphic%2Findex.pdf&rct=j&q=ireland%20deficit%201985&ei=GUfVTb3ROYKChQettKThCw&usg=AFQjCNFEXjYdL9GBe-p0qEbiys4QxXiXOg&cad=rja

FitzGerald was a great Foreign Affairs Minister, but not a creditable steward of the economy by any means.

PatsytheNazi

Godge wrote: »

I had to laugh out loud at this post. The irony of somebody with a username Wolfe Tone talking about spoiling the misty eyed memories.

So, Fitzgerald will be remembered in 200 years time like Wolfe Tone is today ?

beeftotheheels

I've struggled with this thread all day.

Do I think, whether we dispute the validity of his actions or not, that we have any reason to question that he was a man of integrity and honesty? No

Do I think that the man deserved or would have wanted a legacy free from intellectual debate? No.

Do I think his legacy will have changed by next week? No

So perhaps this debate could wait a week. Not least to allow feelings cool and to facilitate having the debate on a purely intellectual level (as befits the man).

PatsytheNazi

later10 wrote: »

FitzGerald was a great Foreign Affairs Minister, but not a creditable steward of the economy by any means.

Yes Mrs Thatcher, but ofcourse Mrs Thatcher, how high would you like me to jump Mrs Thatcher ......... ( rolls over while Thatcher tickles his belly)

K-9

Well judging by hardline Republican views of it now and nearly every Unionists view then that it was a sell out and 100's of 1,000's at mass protests against the Anglo Irish Agreement, I'd say it struck the right balance at the time.

In context he was dealing with Maggie and learned the lessons from Haughey's failures there, sabre rattling Republicanism was futile and self defeating.

The Unionist opposition was futile. Eventually John Hume introduced Adams to the peace process and with good work from Albert Reynolds the Downing Street declaration was signed in 1993. We had a pan Nationalist front against a very divided Unionism.

Garret laid the foundations for this, the Irish Government was now a player in Northern Ireland, the slippery slope had started and Unionists had to accept it.

Wolfe Tone

John Hume? Sure Gerry was talking with the Brits back in the mid 80s, Father Reid the architect.

PatsytheNazi

K-9 wrote: »

Well judging by hardline Republican views of it now and nearly every Unionists view then that it was a sell out and 100's of 1,000's at mass protests against the Anglo Irish Agreement, I'd say it struck the right balance at the time.

In context he was dealing with Maggie and learned the lessons from Haughey's failures there, sabre rattling Republicanism was futile and self defeating.

The Unionist opposition was futile. Eventually John Hume introduced Adams to the peace process and with good work from Albert Reynolds the Downing Street declaration was signed in 1993. We had a pan Nationalist front against a very divided Unionism.

Garret laid the foundations for this, the Irish Government was now a player in Northern Ireland, the slippery slope had started and Unionists had to accept it.

No he didn't. The Anglo Irish Agreement was concieved and developed by the British, he was only brought into it by Thatcher to sell the "OIrish dimension". He only doted the i's and crossed the t's and little else.

( Bit off topic but since you brought it up, as for Hume/Adams, it was SF who for years had requested the Stoopys to meet them for talks - not the other way around. )

later12

beeftotheheels wrote: »

I've struggled with this thread all day.

Do I think, whether we dispute the validity of his actions or not, that we have any reason to question that he was a man of integrity and honesty? No

Do I think that the man deserved or would have wanted a legacy free from intellectual debate? No.

Do I think his legacy will have changed by next week? No

So perhaps this debate could wait a week. Not least to allow feelings cool and to facilitate having the debate on a purely intellectual level (as befits the man).

Yes I see your point.

I would say that these observations - on both sides - have been made throughout FitzGerald's life. Garret FitzGerald himself would have been very familiar with his critics and their criticisms.

Although they are of a professional nature, not of a personal one, it is true that by most accounts, FitzGerald fulfilled a role that was not unlike a Grandfather to the nation.
Personally, I don't pretend to admire FitzGerald's economic policies, but this may be minor to people at this moment, and I may have been a little hasty in opening the thread. Perhaps a more rigorous examination of FitzGerald's tenure is better left alone for now.

Sand

Im divided - on a personal level, he seemed like some sort of kindly grandfather. I cant but smile when I recall him fussing through sheets of statistics live on Primetime during the aftermath of the recent election. I dont dislike him on a personal level, and obviously outside of his role as public figure he was a father, grandfather, husband and that needs to be remembered.

However, on a brutally honest level his term as a public figure in the 1980s is more celebrated for social and foreign policy achievements, whilst continuing to dig a deeper and deeper hole of debt and spending. Ireland in those days needed a Thatcher (who also signed the NI agreement so it wasnt an either/or choice), we got a Kinnock. He may have inherited that mess, but the steel required to solve it wasnt found until he was out of office.

Plus, I feel his more interventions in the debate around Irelands choices in recent times were deeply harmful. Hes got a lot of kudos and respect for his socialist credentials but hes used them to attack people like Karl Whelan and "celebrity economists" who have criticised disastrous government policies. Charlatans like Cowen and Lenihan and the various factions in the DoF used Fitzgerald as a human shield to deflect and negate the well founded and sensible criticism from Whelan and the "celebrity economists", to the diservice of Ireland as a whole, and Fitzgerald seemed a willing participant in this effort.

KeithAFC

RIP.

K-9

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

John Hume? Sure Gerry was talking with the Brits back in the mid 80s, Father Reid the architect.

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

No he didn't. The Anglo Irish Agreement was concieved and developed by the British, he was only brought into it by Thatcher to sell the "OIrish dimension". He only doted the i's and crossed the t's and little else.

( Bit off topic but since you brought it up, as for Hume/Adams, it was SF who for years had requested the Stoopys to meet them for talks - not the other way around. )

Well I did say the hard liner Republicans and Unionists will all have differing views based on whatever propaganda they want to sell. SF had talks with the British from the Hunger Strikes on at official level, one and of.

The Anglo Irish Agreement was the start of a long, slow process that took a long time to change and open minds. Some minds are still closed but it's as tiny minority compared to a majority back then.

Economically I think some give him a bit of a pass because of FF and Haughey. The economy was still in a shocking state despite 5 years of Garret by 87 so arguing over the difference between 192% and 241% is rather pointless, the fact is the debt doubled under his watch.

He preached the right policies but when in coalition, albeit with a Labour party more left wing than SF now, he couldn't get the necessary compromises. Taxes were increased to such an extent people on the average industrial wage paid tax at 65%, on 2/3's that wage, the marginal rate was 55%.

amcalester

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Some of of Fitzgerald's great 'achievements' :rolleyes: -
* Benefitting from 200,000 debts written off by AIB etc Not in Haughey's league, but still not bad all the same for a so called honest ' statesman '.

It just goes to show the absoulute patheticness of this little state when they elevate a bumbling idiot like Fitzgerald ( and for that matter Lynch ) to " statesman ".

Dr FitzGerald sold his family home to pay back AIB. According to the Moriarty Tribunal he did no wrong and paid off his debts as best he could.

In summary it would appear that in compromising his indebtedness with the Bank, Dr. Fitzgerald disposed of his only substantial asset, namely, his family home at Palmerston Road, a property which would now be worth a considerable sum of money. As in Mr. Haughey's case, there was a substantial discounting or forbearance shown in Dr. Fitzgerald's case. However in contrast with Mr. Haughey's case, Dr. Fitzgerald's case involved the effective exhaustion of his assets in order to achieve a settlement whereas Mr. Haughey's assets were retained virtually intact

NSNO

They laughed at him, the corrupt scoundrels. They said he was weak, they said that he lacked the steel to do the necessary.

Why did we ever listen? He was innately kind, honest and decent. He was too good for Irish politics and too good for us.

Rest in peace, Garret the Good.

Cicero

Garret Fitzgerald's advocacy of a pluralistic society was ahead of it's time- RIP.

Amtmann

One of his former colleagues was on the News at One today and spoke of his concern not for the partition of Ireland's territory, but for the partition of its people. I'd never heard it put quite that way before. A noble outlook. RIP, Dr FitzGerald.

KeithAFC

Tremelo wrote: »

One of his former colleagues was on the News at One today and spoke of his concern not for the partition of Ireland's territory, but for the partition of its people. I'd never heard it put quite that way before. A noble outlook. RIP, Dr FitzGerald.

I remember him saying the loyalist people weren't loyal to the crown but to the land of Ulster. I thought it was an odd thing to say to some degree from an Irish PM.

Fraher91

R.I.P Garret, you were a good man who tried to do what he saw in the best interests of the nation. I still consider Lemass to be our greatest Leader, no disrespect intended to Garret.

Fraher91

I know quite a bit about Garret's terms as Taoiseach, would any posters believe he was a better taoiseach than Liam Cosgrave, i wouldn't know much about him to be honest.

K-9

Fraher91 wrote: »

I know quite a bit about Garret's terms as Taoiseach, would any posters believe he was a better taoiseach than Liam Cosgrave, i wouldn't know much about him to be honest.

There's a thread discussing his legacy on the main page if you want to discuss it.

jmayo

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Some of of Fitzgerald's great 'achievements' :rolleyes: -

* 1982, Taoiseach of shortest Govt in the history of the state for about 10/11 months falling on the budget due to the tax on children's shoes

* The badly conceived 1st divorce act which ofcourse failed at the referendum.

So in your eyes he was a failure because he tried to reform and failed.
Some of us would see him as being ahead of his time for actually trying to reform against the majority thinking.

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

* Benefitting from 200,000 debts written off by AIB etc Not in Haughey's league, but still not bad all the same for a so called honest ' statesman '.

Isn't a bit rich of SF supporters complaining about other's financial arrangements when they are part of an organisation that has been joined at the hip to an illegal organisation that has been involved in robbery, protection rackets, money laundering, smuggling and all kinds of illegal financial dealings ?
Almost as laughable as having to get morality and ethical lessons in the Dail from a former gun runner and apologist for Garda killers. :rolleyes:

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

It just goes to show the absoulute patheticness of this little state when they elevate a bumbling idiot like Fitzgerald ( and for that matter Lynch ) to " statesman ".

And you and your colleagues posts goes to show the absolute patheticness of some parties' supporters who can see the splinter in another's eyes all the while missing the 2x4 in their own.

PatsytheNazi

amcalester wrote: »

Dr FitzGerald sold his family home to pay back AIB. According to the Moriarty Tribunal he did no wrong and paid off his debts as best he could.

Yeah, when he got caught out and it was made public !!!!!! So ' honest ' politican pays off debt when he's caught out - what a ' statesman '.

later12

I'm not really getting involved in this debate any further due to a point made by another poster, but just to comment on a pet peeve

jmayo wrote: »

Isn't a bit rich of SF supporters complaining about other's financial arrangements when they are part of....

Almost as laughable as having to get morality and ethical lessons in the Dail from a former gun runner and apologist for Garda killers. :rolleyes:

And you and your colleagues posts goes to show the absolute patheticness of some parties' supporters who can see the splinter in another's eyes all the while missing the 2x4 in their own.

There is a word for this sort of argument which temporarily escapes me. Basically it involves a refusal to refute the opposing argument, but to deflect the issue by pointing out others' shortcomings. But that doesn't make the opposing argument any less true.

If I argue that your political policies are X, it isn't logical for you to refute that by pointing out that my political policies are Y, whether there is a relationship between X and Y or not.

PatsytheNazi

jmayo wrote: »

Isn't a bit rich of SF supporters complaining about other's financial arrangements when they are part of an organisation that has been joined at the hip to an illegal organisation that has been involved in robbery, protection rackets, money laundering, smuggling and all kinds of illegal financial dealings ?
Almost as laughable as having to get morality and ethical lessons in the Dail from a former gun runner and apologist for Garda killers.

later10 wrote: »

There is a word for this sort of argument which temporarily escapes me. Basically it involves a refusal to refute the opposing argument, but to deflect the issue by pointing out others' shortcomings. But that doesn't make the opposing argument any less true.

If I argue that your political policies are X, it isn't logical for you to refute that by pointing out that my political policies are Y, whether there is a relationship between X and Y or not.

Good observation later10. Like what you describe, what jmayois doing is using the Strawman diversion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

He even manages to bring in boards.ie's version of Godwin's law when it comes to Sinn Fein - " What about Jerry McCabe " with the remark about the " apologist for Garda killers "

K-9

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Good observation later10. Like what you describe, what jmayois doing is using the Strawman diversion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

He even manages to bring in boards.ie's version of Godwin's law when it comes to Sinn Fein - " What about Jerry McCabe " with the remark about the " apologist for Garda killers "

In fairness sometimes it can be done innocently but some posters do seem to thrive on it and it isn't helpful to discussion if indulged ad nausea.