Ireland: NAMA ‑ Cowen prepares to open Pandora’s Box

The NAMA legislation will be introduced into the Dáil this week. Numerous experts and organisations have been involved in trying to cobble together what is effectively a toxic dump to store the bad debts and poisonous relics of the “good old days”, days that is, which are well and truly gone. The economy is in crisis and the government is in deep trouble.

So, all of the forces of the bourgeois have been gathered together.

As the Irish Times explains: “According to a spokesman, the final work on the scheme has involved officials from Finance; the Central Bank; the office of the Financial Regulator; the Attorney General’s office; the National Treasury Management Agency; Nama; the department’s legal advisers on this issue, Arthur Cox, as well as banking advisers Rothschilds.”

Even the Green Party’s members have been involved. They met in Athlone at the weekend, all 150 of them, and discussed the various options that they would propose to help shape the proposals. The outcome, as we suggested in advance was a sorry compromise that will have only a very limited impact. Meanwhile the so called "thoroughbreds" on the Fianna Fáil benches are desperately hoping to get away with a gigantic rip off. Doubtless many workers will suspect them of being nothing more than a group of donkeys braying in support of their lords and masters in the Irish banks and of course Wall Street and the City of London.

Contradictions

Over the next period many of the contradictions within Irish society will be laid bare. The depth of the economic crisis and the attitudes of the Irish ruling class will be revealed in a very clear fashion. For the Irish bourgeois, the NAMA legislation is a Pandora’s Box. The last few months have seen a collapse in support for Fianna Fáil. This is the direct result of the crisis and the sustained programme of attacks against the working class.

The Coalition government is in deep trouble, their majority is paper thin. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they could be brought down as a consequence of blundering into a political crisis. The NAMA legislation is a bourgeois response to the crisis of capitalism. As such, it’s no surprise that it offers absolutely nothing to the working class. Nothing that is, apart from more indebtedness, more pressure and a ticking time bomb of instability and exposure to the worst of the capitalist crisis. NAMA could expose the Irish Government and essentially the Irish working class to the tune of €90 billion.

Greens all over the place

This uncertainty and instability has underlined the whole process of NAMA. It is a high risk strategy. Enda Kenny of Fine Gael has observed that the Greens are all over the place. They are at risk of being completely wiped out. They lost all but three of their 18 County Council seats in the last elections. What’s obvious is that they are utterly incapable of presenting a genuine alternative or even having any serious impact on Fianna Fáil. Their future seems completely tied in with that of Cowen and Lenihan.

Labour needs to present a very clear alternative to NAMA. Under the present conditions that requires an unequivocal call for the nationalisation (on a permanent basis) of the banks and the financial institutions. But more than that, the demand for worker’s control of industry and the banks, under the current conditions, would win big support among the working class.

A symptom of the crisis

In the Greek Myths Pandora opened her box and released all of the evils and ills of the world. NAMA is supposed to be an attempt to shove some of them back in. But the political and economic situation in the state means that whatever the bourgeois try to do, they will undermine themselves. As Leon Trotsky once explained; every step they take to try and create a social, economic and political equilibrium will only serve to undermine them further. NAMA is a symptom of the crisis on one level. But at the same time, it threatens to further destabilise the situation. The coalition looks doomed, Labour must fight for socialist policies.