The Irish Question

This is not about the IRA or the long benighted history of Anglo-Irish relations from Cromwell to Brexit. This is really about us. More specifically, how are the following facts possible:

UK - $43000 per capita income;

Canada - $46000 per capita income;

Ireland - $62000 per capita income; and,

US - $65000 per capita income (a roughly $4000 improvement since 2017 alone)?

Notice that Ireland is only about 7% the size of the UK by population as we are about 10% of the US. We have been effectively at peace with the US since the late 1860's and an independent country since then as well. Ireland did not become a Free State until 1923 and did not finally find a comprehensive peace with the UK until 1998. They have had a fraught relationship at best and a murderous, treacherous one at worst with the UK. We have, except for some short periods of mutual high level hostility, had one of the most intimate closest friendships any two nations have had in history.

Further, until recently, Ireland was notoriously poor and known world wide for its chief export - people. We have been mostly known round the world as a rich, comfortable place that attracts people. Ireland has no resources except people, wool, beer and gorgeous landscapes. We sit on top of a treasure house of nearly every major resource a nation could need so that we export these as we have too few people to use it all here and have become wealthy as a result.

Why then does Ireland exceed the UK,  a nation of many more people and resources than it by 50% in per capita income but we trail the US by the same proportion? Our politicians should be asking that question every day and cogitating on just what the answers may be. The solution may start with taxes. Our corporate rate of tax is higher than that of Ireland as is the UK's. When allowing for state and provincial rates (not a factor for the UK and Eire as they are unitary states), the US corporate rate was recently reduced so that it is now better than our effective rate. Ireland's top rate and basic rate of personal income tax are lower than ours and the UK.

Ireland has got control of its spending to support the low taxation. It has made itself a haven and a worker supply for high tech foreign companies. Its total government spending is 27% of the gnp. Ours is 44% and we cannot get control of our deficits. Our debt is over two trillion dollars or 100% of gnp.  Theirs is 68%. We have seen foreign direct investment in our country decline while theirs has seen it soar for the reasons already stated. There are other aspects to this to study. We are a nation with problems that the Irish do not face: natives, fiscal federalism and a heavy dependence on revenue from natural resources.  But one big one, according to  the Heritage Foundation, that the Irish have licked that we are burdened with is high regulation and labour costs. 

However, at the very least, our leadership here (and in the UK for that matter) should be inquiring into why the Irish lead us and the UK while we trail the US in the central measure of economic health and prowess. Of course, we will also want to find out why the US trounce us in this remorseless contest in the global economy we live in today. This is especially urgent as we have a much more important relationship with the US than with either the UK or Ireland. But, we definitely should ask the Irish for some tips about how to win that competition, which should be easier for us than it was for the Irish known mainly as the supplier of maids for the UK only 20 years ago.

The Irish Question and its complete absence from the recent election campaign is a sad reminder that, as with so many important and pressing matters facing Canada, our leaders do not even seem to know what the questions are let alone the answers. One answer here may lie in the famous saying of a  great Irishman:"I have nothing to declare but my genius". Perhaps (as so many petrostates have sadly proven), it's not enough to have lots of natural resources to prosper. You need brains. Time to set up that Royal Commission into why the Yanks and the Irish do better than us asap!