Dublin Airport performing comparatively well

[Right Winger]

Hi RW

Deal with the arguments in his article, rather than attacking the author.

Brendan

Ok. First of all, though, I'm not simply attacking the guy ad hominem. Along with @Shirazman and @NoRegretsCoyote, I actually agree with a lot of what he says on public spending in general. But I think he (and with respect, your good self) gets it wrong on metrolink.



So, to Colm McCarthy's article.

A) It's not just about the airport. The article seems to assume it is simply about shaving a few minutes off the airport - city centre journey. If that were actually the case, then yeah, we could make do without a metro. But it's so much than that and it's the extension to Swords and the integration with a larger rapid transit system that really adds value.



B) Yes, we have a track record of getting lousy value for our public capital spend. The most expensive children's hospital in the world is a salutary example. Yes, we will probably pay through the nose for a metro. Yes, we will be taken for soft touch mugs by avaricious contractors and the couldn't-care-less public servants who are supposed to oversee them. Yes, there is a massive bureaucratic jungle to hack through and heaven help us if the conservationists find something interesting along the route. (And they will - they always do.) But what are we supposed to do? Never build public infrastructure ever again? Surely not. It's farcical to advocate against a big project because we haven't been good at doing big projects in the past. We still need to do them.



We need to (A) build it and (B) do it cost-effectively. The former is a given - McCarthy, and the rest of us, should apply ourselves to the latter.

 

[Purple]

we have a track record of getting lousy value for our public capital spend.

I don't care how much the metro costs, how much motorways cost or how much the children's hospital costs because they will still be there after the money is spent. The alternative is to waste it elsewhere on current expenditure or increases in welfare, public sector pay or state pensions.

 

[Right Winger]

I don't care how much the metro costs, how much motorways cost or how much the children's hospital costs because they will still be there after the money is spent. The alternative is to waste it elsewhere on current expenditure or increases in welfare, public sector pay or state pensions.

Or, maybe, really thinking outside the box here, just maybe.... reduce taxes! Explicitly aim to be a low tax economy. Taxes fall, after-tax incomes rise, wage pressure moderates, costs fall, housing is cheaper, job opportunities increase and cost of doing stuff like motorways, metros and hospitals falls too.

And yes it would work. After all, we're a test bed for how it works in the other direction. When taxes increased, after tax income fell, wage pressure increases, costs rose, housing got prohibitively expensive, jobs were lost and infrastructure costs are through the roof. QED.

 

[NoRegretsCoyote]

Or, maybe, really thinking outside the box here, just maybe.... reduce taxes! Explicitly aim to be a low tax economy. T

Stuff gets built in high-tax jurisdictions and low-tax jurisdictions. The taxpayer can get good or bad value for money in either place. Abstract debates about the ideal size of the state (25% or 35% of GDP) are quite frankly a distraction from the practical questions of getting good value for the public.

People should focus on setting up public institutions and practices that ensure that the state procures things efficiently and builds things in the right places and at the right scale.

In any case Ireland's track record of capital spending overruns is not as bad as you claim above. From about 2005-2020 very few public capital projects went much over budget. Ireland also has high construction costs (of which you can read more elsewhere) and if you want to build anything you have to pay that price.

A more general problem is the stop/start nature of the funding which is due to the political cycle. If the state could credibly commit to spending a solid €1bn a year for the next 20 years on rail infrastructure you would get a whole industry which would plan around it. But if you only procure in small pieces and cannot commit to a series of projects you are inevitably going to pay more.

 

[Purple]

Or, maybe, really thinking outside the box here, just maybe.... reduce taxes! Explicitly aim to be a low tax economy. Taxes fall, after-tax incomes rise, wage pressure moderates, costs fall, housing is cheaper, job opportunities increase and cost of doing stuff like motorways, metros and hospitals falls too.

And yes it would work. After all, we're a test bed for how it works in the other direction. When taxes increased, after tax income fell, wage pressure increases, costs rose, housing got prohibitively expensive, jobs were lost and infrastructure costs are through the roof. QED.

The economy is at full capacity. Releasing any more capital into it in the form of increased spending or reduced taxes will just fuel inflation. I certainly think we should rebalance taxation away from wealth creation (labour) and towards wealth retention (property taxes etc) but the net tax take should remain the same.

Increasing taxes didn't cause house prices to increase, a massive increase in the money supply in the form of quantitative easing (money printing) did that.

Anyway, back on topic; an integrated public transport system that doesn't compete with cars is a must in a modern developed economy. It should be more than feasible to get on a train in Galway or Naas or Dundalk or Athlone and easily make your way to Dublin Airport, let alone get a train in Bray or Rathfarnham or Howth to the airport.