The retention of Stormont in its present form as a regional assembly within a united Ireland may strike some republicans as an odd arrangement for an Irish nationalist to advocate, but the idea has merit. Any talk of reuniting the country has to go into more detail than wishful thinking about British withdrawal as a result of nationalists demanding and the British granting. Fleshing out the details of how Irish unity could work is an essential step in building support for it among the people of the north, particularly those on the more moderate and persuadable end of unionism.

This is where it is worth looking at similar handovers elsewhere in the world. Britain handed Hong Kong back to China at the end of their 99 year lease on the New Territories to the north of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Although Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded to Britain permanently, it was impractical to only hand back part of the New Territories when the lease was up, so both parties agreed to a total handover. China did not immediately dismantle all traces of western style capitalism and impose their communist system. Instead Hong Kong came into “Greater China” as a “Special Administrative Region” (SAR).

Today the former colony retains many of its distinctive characteristics such as the Hong Kong Dollar as its currency, UK-standard road signage and construction standards, driving on the left, Hong Kong citizens still have easy access to many countries, more press freedom, more internet freedom and more democratic control than the mainland, the legal system remains intact, and even statues of British monarchs remain unchanged. Some British symbols, such as the police insignia, were replaced by symbols specific to Hong Kong rather than those associated with the People’s Republic, but in general, day-to-day life and physical appearances in Hong Kong are not much different from before the handover. It was as if Beijing did not want to jolt the territory too suddenly from one system to another, a move that could be unpopular and destabilizing. “One country-two systems” was the concept. The British insisted that as a condition of the Hong Kong handover the territory’s SAR status should remain in place for at least fifty years after the British departure.

The handover of Macau from Portugal to China in 1999 offers many parallels. The transition period from the joint declaration to the formal handover lasted twelve years, the former colony retains SAR status, and most of the distinctive attributes that were retained in Hong Kong are also retained in Macau. The economy of Macau is quite different from Hong Kong in that much of it is based on tourism rather than being a global financial center, but the similarities of its constitutional arrangements are noteworthy.

That said, the Hong Kong and Macau handovers also have many key differences with the Irish situation. For one, geography meant that China was not exactly next door to the Europeans. The British and Portuguese had to make considerable effort to strategically defend their territories and could never drop soldiers in at short notice. Furthermore the Chinese insisted that negotiations on the terms of the handovers would be between themselves and the British and Portuguese, while the populations of the territories were sidelined, whereas the Good Friday Agreement places the final decision on the north’s constitutional status firmly in the hands of its inhabitants. China had argued at the United Nations that its lost territories had been ceded to more powerful colonial powers under “unequal treaties” and hence were sovereign Chinese territory that did not fall under the ordinary type covered by the UN’s decolonization resolution of 1960. This contrasts with the Irish government’s position of recognizing British rule in the north as a right granted by the people living there.

That said, the handling of the transition back to Chinese rule in both territories offers lessons that could be adapted to Ireland.

Stormont’s elaborate checks, balances, and power-sharing executive are designed to protect the rights of what is now a nationalist minority. A future unionist minority could enjoy those same protections in the event of the northern state being retained as a Special Administrative Region in a reunified Ireland. A minimum duration of the arrangement could also be written into treaty, a promise that could address unionist fears of Irish unity and make it less daunting. Getting down to the specifics of how day-to-day life would look would also help to visualize reunification. Would we switch to the Euro or retain Sterling? Would the BBC continue to have a broadcasting arm in the north or would it partner with RTE to provide public service broadcasting under a new northern-specific brand? Would the mail boxes be painted green, would it do any harm to leave them red, or will anyone even be using paper mail by then?

Maintaining some level of northern autonomy would have many advantages in making the deal an easier sell to unionists, but it would also have disadvantages. Many of the economic benefits of Irish unity come from the elimination of duplicate public services, and regional autonomy would retain some of that duplication and lessen the economic benefit. The level of autonomy retained in the north would have to be enough to preserve peace and stability since any gains in reduced duplication could be lost if civil unrest got out of hand. Hong Kong and Macau are good places to look for ideas about how such continuity can make for a peaceful and stable transition.

White collar crime in the banking sector spread across the western world in the run-up to 2008. Financial institutions became snake-oil salesmen, piling unintelligible complexity into their so-called “products” in order to blind investors with science and trick them into parting with their money. Investors were misled as to how much risk they were taking on.

Anyone with a 401k plan or who has played the stock market will be familiar with the concept of risk. The greater the certainty of earning a profit, the lower the return. The less the certainty, the higher the risks but also the higher the potential rewards. Place a high risk bet on a volatile stock in the hope that you’ll make a quick killing and you only have yourself to blame if the stock tanks. However if your broker lies, sells a risky investment as a safe one, and then then you make a loss, you become the victim of fraud.

This is what caused the 2008 global financial meltdown, the fraud taking various forms in different countries. In Ireland the shadiness was centered on the property market in which banks sold variable rate mortgages to anyone with a pulse, regardless of ability to pay, feeding into a culture in which anyone could get rich quickly with no work by stepping onto the property escalator. The government was happy to feed into the fiction, driven as it was by “light touch regulation” and a cozy relationship with property developers.

Deregulation is not necessarily bad policy in itself. In certain industries it can eliminate red tape, enable companies to grow, and spur more competition that benefits the consumer. Tony Blair exploited the principle during his tenure as British Prime Minister, taxing the resulting economic growth and using the revenue to better fund public services. However deregulation in the financial industry has seldom led to good outcomes. In the United States it led to the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing financial collapse of 2008. In Britain in the 1980s it fed into a boom-and-bust cycle and rampant inflation. In Ireland it led to investment banks getting away with all manner of shady practices.

Ireland’s Financial Regulator, a part of the Central Bank of Ireland, was charged with keeping an eye on the banks and preventing excessive lending. However the regulator was so ineffective that they barely knew how big the banks were. This was a key factor in the Cowen government’s fateful decision to guarantee deposits in the entire banking sector.

Bailing out the banks was a necessary evil since the alternative was for ATMs and debit cards to stop working when people tried to buy their groceries. However the second part of the fateful decision, to nationalize the Irish banks, divided opinion among economists. The feeling was, “if we’re going to pay your bills, then we’re going to own you.” This would mean that the taxpayer would benefit from any profits that the banks made subsequently, similar to how the US government made a profit on the bailout of the US auto industry.

However due to the ineffectiveness of the Financial Regulator, the government had no idea how much debt the banks were carrying. The government, literally forced to make a decision in the heat of the moment before the markets opened the next day, was flying blind.

Only when the scale of Anglo’s liabilities became clear did the horror of the burden that had been placed on Irish taxpayers become clear.

In hindsight it is difficult to see any option other than bailing out these financial institutions. However the decision to nationalize is the fateful part, and the Fianna Fail-led governments of Ahern and Cowen can rightly be blamed for it for two reasons. One is that they should never have taken on those liabilities on behalf of the taxpayers without knowing how big they were. The second reason is that the government was responsible for ensuring that the Financial Regulator knew what was on the banks’ balance sheets. Had Bertie Ahern not been worshipping at the altar of light touch regulation there is a better chance that the Regulator would have done its job, and Mr Lenihan would have had the information he needed to make the best decision on the night when it all went south.

Market fundamentalism, the idea that the actions of the market always coincide with the public interest, is an idea whose time has passed. Yet it still keeps a stubborn hold despite all the evidence that has piled up against it over centuries. It is unflushable.

Matthew Elderfield, the financial regulator who served three years until June of this year, warned in a parting statement that not enough has been done to prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the past. Enforcement against corporations has improved, but there is still a reluctance to prosecute individuals and seek prison time for white collar criminals. Fining a large wealthy corporation is one thing, but the sound of a cell door slamming closed behind a corrupt executive stands a much better chance of concentrating the mind.

It could be that Ireland’s small size is a weakness. If bankers and their regulators all know each other on a personal level then this leads to conflicts of interest, but there should be distance between them. A gamekeeper cannot be drinking partners with the poacher.

So far there is little evidence that the government has learned any lessons from the whole sorry mess or has gotten any more aggressive about prosecuting errant individuals. It is almost as if they are afraid of upsetting someone. Perhaps a new government, less enamored with the “magic of the market,” is needed.

While this has helped to reduce CO2 emissions, a side-effect has been an increase in other types of pollution. Diesel engines emit more particulates (soot) and Nitrogen Oxides, both of which are harmful to human health. Diesel is good for the planet but bad for people.  One study at the University of Chicago found 94 percent of European cities to have more than 10 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter in the air, compared to 35 percent of cities in the United States where adoption of diesel cars has been next to zero and was effectively killed by the Volkswagen emissions scandal in 2015.

Policy makers in America have made different choices from Europe, pushing for the development of electric cars rather than wholesale switching to diesel.  An example of this is California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate that requires automakers to ensure that a certain percentage of their sales are accounted for by cars that do not have tail pipes. The percentage increases every year rising to 22 percent in 2025. Regulations like this were inspired by the viability of the GM Impact, a ground-breaking battery-powered prototype vehicle that could reach speeds of up to 80 MPH and accelerate from 0 to 60 in 8 seconds, sporty performance that was previously unheard of in electric cars.

California has continued to incentivize the adoption of electric vehicles. Also in favor are hybrid cars that combine electric motors and a part-time gasoline engine. Adoption rates skyrocketed and the development of electric cars became a lucrative part of the auto industry. 

Meanwhile in Ireland, diesel remains king and electric cars are still rare. In 2008 the government pledged to reduce carbon emissions in 2020 by 20 percent from 2005 levels, and as part of that set an ambitious target of having 10 percent of cars on the road being electric, a total of a quarter of a million vehicles. Sales have not matched expectations, so in 2014 this target was cut to 50,000, and this year it has been cut again to 20,000. 3,000 electric vehicles are on the republic’s roads today, and even the modest target will not be met at this rate.

Contrast this with California where electric cars are commonplace.

This is frustrating given that there are considerable incentives in place to adopt electric vehicles. €5,000 grants are available to help purchases and the ESB offers free charging points, potentially offering €3,000 in savings per car per year.

So why has California been so successful at encouraging electric vehicle adoption while Ireland is falling so far behind? For one thing Ireland’s network of charging stations is relatively sparse compared to other countries that have been more aggressive about incentivizing adoption. Charging an electric car is a longer process than the five-minute job of filling a tank. Electric vehicles have to remain plugged in while the owner sleeps, works, or shops. “Range anxiety,” the fear that you will not be able to reach your destination or get home, is a major barrier to more people making the switch to electric.

California also has an advantage in disguise; its terrible traffic. Diamond lanes on the freeway, initially provided to encourage people to carpool, have been repurposed to allow hybrid and electric vehicles use them. This allows solo drivers in electric cars to zip past stationary traffic in the other lanes. The program has become the victim of its own success with some diamond lanes now attracting so many electric vehicles that they are beginning to lose their speed advantage. Nonetheless, it shows the power of providing an incentive for drivers who want to shave time off their commutes. Time is precious and irreplaceable, and if a shorter commute can be bought for the price of an electric vehicle then many people will make that choice.

The Irish government could follow some of California’s lead. Diamond lanes may not be feasible on Ireland’s narrower roads where motorways typically have two lanes in each direction, and the Green Party has refused to advocate allowing electric cars into bus lanes since that would interfere with the push to get more people using public transport. However adoption rates would increase if charging stations were a common sight at more workplaces, parking lots, and businesses. Retailers and local councils could get rebates for installing such stations in their parking lots, particularly the prized locations closer to the entrance. It could be made easier for householders to install charging equipment at home. Companies that provide employee parking could get tax breaks for installing chargers.

It is not too late for Ireland to meet its greenhouse gas obligations, but if that is not enough to persuade anyone to act then there is a more powerful argument. Several expert agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, and the Centers for Disease Control have identified diesel exhaust fumes as being at least likely to cause cancer in humans. Regardless of one’s feelings about the planet, cutting this poison out of the air we breathe is reason enough to switch to a cleaner and quieter means of transport now that it is becoming more viable.

One of many lessons to be learned from this preventable catastrophe is that voters need to be properly educated about the implications of their decisions, but above all they need to be informed about how Europe works. Had the British voters been better informed about how Europe is structured, there is a good chance that they would have made a different decision.

American citizens are relatively knowledgable about how their system of government operates both at state and federal level. It helps that America is a single country with a cohesive central government with levers on the same control panel. There is one currency managed by one central bank and one treasury with its own budget, all of which is accountable to the people through the Senate. The three main branches of government have clearly defined roles and powers that are relatively easy to understand. Taxpayers in most states file state and federal tax returns separately, making it clear where their money is going.

Europe, on the other hand, is a much more messy place. The inter-governmental institutions of the old continent are like an onion, with various layers and different members in each one. At the core is the Eurozone, home to users of the Euro currency. Various other international treaties govern the relationships of the European Union, the European Commission, the European Council, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and a plethora of other international bodies with multiple overlapping memberships. Keeping track of all of the moving parts is a skilled job.

One such body, the European Commission, has now put a proposal on the table to improve the cohesion of the Eurozone. Championed by Emanuel Macron, France’s charismatic new president, and given a guarded welcome by Angela Merkel, the proposal is to create a treasury for the Eurozone, give it its own budget, and put a finance minister in charge of it. Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy minister, has supported the proposal stating that a “window of opportunity” will exist in which the proposal can be enacted after the German elections in September. He argues that the current setup is dysfunctional, and the appropriate course of action is to either complete the job of integration, or revert to individual national currencies.

The proposal offers advantages in that it simplifies the structure of the bureaucracy and allows for more coherent policy-making, a longtime weakness of the EU, and would enforce minimum standards of good governance everywhere. The banking sector could be strengthened with risks shared across it, potentially preventing a repeat of the kind of taxpayer bailouts for ailing banks that did so much damage in Ireland during the financial crisis.

The value of a human face on the institution should not be understated. The European Council has benefited from having a prominent president, a post currently held by Donald Tusk, who serves as the face of the organization and helps to humanize it. Indeed Mr Tusk has become prominent in his dealings with the British as they make a pig’s ear of their ignominious exit. A future Eurozone treasury would enjoy the same benefit in that a single person can act as the spokesman and can set its direction while still remaining accountable. This is much more effective than having policy sold to the public by an anonymous committee of finance ministers.

The proposal offers an impressive list of advantages, however it may require more national policy decisions to be made at a European level to motivate underperforming countries to enact necessary structural reforms. This would make the Eurozone look a lot less like a chaotic club that cannot stick to its own rules, but could be a tricky sell to countries that are reticent about relinquishing more sovereignty.

That said, so far it is only an initial proposal and there will be much negotiating between now and its adoption. The significance of this for Ireland is that voters may be asked to vote on the proposal in a referendum. It would be tragic if the people were to be misled into thinking that the proposal is about something utterly unrelated, such as immigration, or any other sensitive topic that brings out the worst in people.

Europe’s trans-national institutions may not be perfect, but they are by far the most sophisticated of their kind anywhere. They are a triumph of international diplomacy and cooperation, and have promoted stability, peace, and prosperity for over half a century on a continent that had previously been convulsed by posturing, rivalry and violent conflict. They are a model that other regions in the world have sought to emulate, none with anywhere near the same level of success. They deserve a chance to continue succeeding.

Some organizations and customs have found it difficult to adapt to changes in Irish society, but the GAA has been more adaptable and robust than most. It remains a key driver of community cohesion, acting as the biggest generator of volunteerism on the island according to the Economic and Social Research Institute.

The opulence and sheer scale of Croke Park is as much a source of pride as the sporting spectacle of the game of hurling. Croke Park, however, is not much different in quality than many stadiums in Europe, and many American college campuses boast large arenas with similar levels of comfort, but Croke Park is unique because it was built by an organization that only has a small paid staff and is primarily driven by volunteer effort.

The GAA now remains the last sporting organization of its type with un-paid players. The rules of the association explicitly forbid pay for play, reflecting the overwhelming view of members that professionalism would damage the association and undermine its community ethos. There is some merit to this argument. A transfer market would fly in the face of everything the association stands for and undermine the very feature that adds so much value to the games; when a team called Armagh takes to the field, we know that everyone on that field is from Armagh. When Kilkenny win an All-Ireland Hurling Championship, we know that it is because hurling is played better in Kilkenny than in any other county.

On the other hand, when a team called Manchester United wins a major competition, does anyone seriously think that it is because soccer is played better in Manchester than in any other city? Or does that club simply have a big enough international following that it can raise enough money to attract the best players?

When an inter-county GAA manager wants to improve the standard of his team, buying talent from outside is not an option and he has to squeeze the best possible performance out of the available material in his county. For a county to improve its game the county board has to ensure that structures are in place do develop players from a young age, give the correct coaching, have competitions that they can advance through as they get older, and a competitive inter-club competition has to forge strong players. The county team’s manager has little control over much of this, but it is ultimately what drives competitiveness in the GAA, and a by-product of this competitive impetus is the massive community effort to get children involved in healthy and competitive pastimes. A transfer market would take away much of the incentive for that work.

History has shown that as soon as professionalism becomes economically viable in a sport it also becomes irresistable. The powers-that-be in soccer once tried to resist the rising tide of payments to players but eventually had to bow to the inevitable. In Rugby the authorities put up such a strong fight against payments that the sport was split into the professional Rugby League and the amateur Rugby Football Union, which itself eventually acquiesced. Pay-for-play has not swept the GAA as it did in other sports not because of words in the rule book, but because professionalism is not viable. Gaelic games are not a high profile global brand. While they are played in many countries, it is by relatively small communities far from the glare of mainstream media. The highest profile games are confined to one small country in which the viability of professional sports is debatable at best.

That said, under-the-table payments are said to have crept into the GAA in certain areas where they can, such as to inter-county managers and to some players recruited by American clubs during the summer. Economic viability and market forces have a way of bringing in payments regardless of the rules.

If Gaelic games ever achieve a high profile outside of Ireland, there is every possibility that the GAA will have to grapple with the reality of pay-for-play whether the association likes it or not. This would make many feel uncomfortable, but it would be a mistake to resist so hard that we see a repeat of the Union / League split that hampered Rugby’s growth.

Could Gaelic games be played in Ireland professionally without losing the community spirit? It depends on how it is structured. If the GAA were structured as a single entity, where the county boards were like 32 departments in a single company rather than independent organizations, the rule that you must play for your county of birth could be retained, a transfer market would not materialize, youth development would still be the only way to improve competitiveness, and teams would continue to represent their communities.

Money could flow into the association like never before if it were to reach a larger global audience, but the reinvestment could continue at grass-roots level to make local teams, and local communities, stronger than ever.

Yet the countryside has a problem. Long established communities are in decline with post offices and Garda stations closing. GAA clubs, long a mainstay of country life, are amalgamating and struggling to field teams as traditional catchment areas continue to bleed young players.

Advocates may be tempted to insist on allocating more resources to rural Ireland, such as keeping country post offices and Garda stations open. However this may be neither effective nor affordable. A counter-intuitive but more effective approach to helping the country is to focus on the towns and cities that now supply more business and employment for country-dwellers. Towns and cities are the economic engines for the country.

Since the industrial revolution, people have steadily moved from the country into towns. This was most pronounced in England where the great upheaval began, the rest of the developed world followed, and it is happening now on a massive scale in China and India. Ireland also participated in industrialization, but much of this was confined to the eastern part of the country where cities like Belfast and Dublin grew up as manufacturing centers, with smaller towns in the hinterlands also picking up much of the work.

The world’s population went majority urban in the 1990s. 54 percent now live in urban areas and the figure is expected to rise as the developing world continues to grow. However Ireland has failed to fully embrace the opportunities presented by this trend. Over 50 percent of the republic’s economic activity is concentrated in the greater Dublin area. Better transport links in and out of the city were supposed to help redress the balance, but instead they kicked off a disastrous cycle of induced traffic. This is where people take advantage of new roads and cheaper house prices farther away from work by opting for a longer commute. If one person alone did this then it would not be a problem, but when enough people do the same thing the result is clogged roads and multi-hour commutes.

“Decentralization” under Bertie Ahern’s government was supposed to move civil servants out of the capital, but their destinations were various small villages populated by Fianna Fail supporters who would stand to benefit financially, and the plan was never completed. This conflicted with the National Spatial Strategy that was launched a year before, a plan to coordinate development in cities and larger county towns.

Now the current government has produced another grand plan called “Ireland 2040” which tries again to redress the country’s imbalance. The plan is impressive, prioritizing development of cities outside of Dublin, notably Cork, Limerick and Galway. However these projects are only as good as the willingness of people to buy into them. If people mistakenly think that the town can only prosper at the expense of the country or vice versa, then popular opposition could thwart the plans.

Strong rural communities cannot exist without strong towns, and strong towns cannot exist without strong cities.

So what is a strong city? The answer is longer than an article like this, but a good place to start is with an urbanist philosophy like that which is gaining ground in the United States. This is the idea that the urban core has the potential to pack large numbers of willing people into vibrant, compact, walkable neighborhoods that offer homes, jobs, entertainment, and vital services close enough together than it is feasible to walk, cycle, or take public transport between most of it. It rejects the car-centric single-use zoning and low-density sprawl that disfigured so many American cities in the post-war years, policies that pushed everyday functions so far apart that walking became impossible, public transport became inefficient, and driving became mandatory. Multi-lane highways and office “parks” are out; narrow streets with offices and apartments above cafes and stores are in.

Single-family houses in the suburbs are still there for those who need to raise children, but town and city centers are becoming attractive locations for students, young single professionals, and seniors who may no longer be able to drive.

The best way for the government to boost the prosperity of cities, Dublin or elsewhere, is to empower them. Strong cities need strong city government with greater control over planning, policing, transport, taxation, and even education. To offset these extra powers a directly elected mayor provides an extra layer of democratic control and accountability.

Directly elected mayors are common in the United States and were introduced in certain cities the UK since 2000. The higher profile of this type of mayor puts a human face on what would otherwise be a dry topic and promotes civic engagement and a civic spirit.

In the case of Ireland there is no shortage of political characters who would be suited to such a role, and a powerful layer of regional government would be a more suitable location for them than their current abode in the peanut gallery of the independent–and hence permanent–opposition benches of Dáil Eireann. The days of bringing parish pump demands to a national parliament could finally be over, and a bit of real responsibility would soon weed out the chancers.

The future of the globe is urban, and Ireland is not exempt from this inevitability. Only by embracing the potential of the city can the nation ensure prosperity for future generations, avoid the mistakes made in America and elsewhere, and ultimately safeguard rural communities in the process.

The change of management at the top, the menagerie of investigations going on at the time, and the creation of an independent Policing Authority were all supposed to herald a “new era of policing.”  Yet here we are again, two years later, with another Justice Minister and Garda Commissioner under pressure, with independent and opposition TDs rubbing their hands gleefully, armed with a fresh supply of ammunition with which to attack the government.

This time the scandal is the over-reporting of breath tests. Each drink-driving breath test requires the use of a disposable mouthpiece that clips onto the breathalyzer device. The Garda Pulse tracking system was found to have recorded twice as many breath tests as there are mouthpieces in the possession of the police. The discrepancy was not confined to any one part of the country, the over-reporting ranged from 60 percent to 120 percent in some areas. This was clearly a systemic problem with fraud being committed throughout the force.

Successive governments have tried to implement reforms to improve police accountability and competence. At such a high level, it is not government’s place to micromanage how the police improve their working practices, but the government can improve the structures of management.

The efforts made in 2014 to introduce accountability into policing did not make much of an impact, making it seem like the culture in the Garda Síochána has defied all attempts at reform. This is frustrating to anyone who wants to see Ireland become a country of better governance. Democracy and the rule of law is what keeps people free and keeps a country prosperous. Corruption is the enemy of progress, and the rule of law is vital in keeping it in check. The police have a duty to uphold the law, and when this is undermined by the self interest of individual officers, all of society suffers.

Resistance to change is not unique to the police. Even the private sector is replete with people digging in their heels against changes that are seen as threatening. In the public sector this can be an even bigger problem since it can be more difficult to weed out incompetent employees. Lack of trust, lack of skills, self interest, and poor communication all contribute to a sense of people feeling the need to present a united front against any new fangled ideas, particularly those imposed by new leadership. These are serious challenges faced by anyone trying to bring about improvements in performance.

The big question now is whether or not Ms O’Sullivan can hold on to her job, and party lines determine where people stand. Opposition TDs are loudly demanding the resignation of the commissioner, independent TDs are doing the usual posturing, while the government has decided to defend her. The battle lines in the Dáil have been drawn.

There are those who say that O’Sullivan has had two years to make a difference, has failed to do so, and must be let go. There are those who say that she has not had enough time to make the necessary reforms and must be given a chance to be part of the solution rather than be axed as part of the problem.

There is some merit to both arguments. Large organizations do not turn around quickly, and reforms must be given time to take effect. On the other hand, when reforms are shown to have been ineffective after a reasonable amount of time has passed, the “buck stops here” principle has to apply and the sound of rolling heads must be heard. Nóirín O’Sullivan is about to find out if that reasonable amount of time has passed.

That said, on balance there is a strong argument for giving her more time. The last Garda scandal was brought to a head when the previous commissioner was let go and the Justice Minister followed. If the same were to happen again so soon, there is no guarantee that the outcome will be any different, and we could well be back here again in two years time discussing yet another Garda corruption or incompetence scandal and having the same discussion about whether or not the commissioner and Justice Minister should go.

As with all reform, the work is bureaucratic, time-consuming, and would not make very good television. Yet the government must keep plugging away and persevere with the slow, inexorable process of making Ireland a better country in which to live and to do business, no matter how many investigations it takes.

The election as a horse race is a popular media trope. Some journalists are so obsessed with polling drama that they often forget to report on substantial issues, like the actual implications of the policy proposals coming from various sides. What voters are thinking is what passes for news, rather than information that would actually help them make an informed decision.

Two-party systems lend themselves to this kind of sensationalism, but Ireland has a parliamentary system based on proportional representation, meaning that votes for third, fourth or fifth parties all count since there is a chance that said parties could become part of a coalition.

Ireland has had nothing but coalition governments since 1989, and since the state’s inception every one has been led by Fianna Fail or Fine Gael. This has created the illusion of a political pendulum swinging from one side to another, but in truth these are two broadly center-right parties that have taken turns at the helm, while parties of the left have scarcely gotten a look-in beyond acting as smaller partners in government. In most countries the power swings between left and right, but in Ireland the pendulum has never really swung very far to the left.

A conservative orthodoxy of low corporate taxes and business-friendly light-touch regulation has taken hold, while voters have been conditioned into thinking that there is no alternative to this on pain of losing so much foreign investment. Accepting this world view would be a mistake.

So if the proportional representation system offers greater choice, what else is on offer?

Independent candidates, in theory, present a chance to challenge the ruling order, but in practice they have seldom produced anything of value. The sight of a scruffy independent berating the ministers in suits may feel satisfying, but independents are unlikely to have a seat in government, to say nothing of the cabinet. Opposition is easier than governing, and acting as an individual is a lot easier than toeing the party line. Like it or not, it is the parties who form governments and ultimately get things done.

Sinn Fein (third in the polls) puts the peace process and Irish unity front and center, with an emphasis on social justice, progressive taxation (cuts to lower earners and hikes for higher earners), and increased spending on public services.

Labour (a distant fourth in the polls) prioritizes social justice, progressive taxation, increased spending on public services, support for the peace process, and an all-Island economy.

There is an opportunity for left-leaning parties to present an alternative to the conservative duopoly. Labour has pedigree in government, from as far back as the Dick Spring era when they propped up the Fianna Fail-led government of Albert Reynolds. In pure left-versus-right policy terms, Labour’s heart beats closer to Sinn Fein. They could be well advised to bring their rhetorical guns to bear on the two conservative parties and tar them with the same brush. One simple trick could be to adopt a Unionist tactic from the 1990s when Sinn Fein were branded as one and the same as the Provisional IRA. Unionists never said the words “Sinn Fein” without “IRA” attached, nor vice versa. The “IRA-Sinn Fein” rhetoric was effective. Labour and Sinn Fein could brief their members to never refer to Fianna Fail without also attaching Fine Gael and vice versa. “Fianna Fail-Fine Gael” should become the new collective term for the two parties who have held their grip on power since the state’s birth.

On top of that, the parties of the left should present an alternative to the country’s current business model. Low corporate taxes were a good way of building a technology industry, but this incentive has outlived its usefulness and is no longer sustainable. Giving a permanent tax holiday to wealthy corporations but taxing the income of the people working for them is not bringing in enough revenue to fund the state. If the 12.5 percent corporate tax rate were raised as high as 14 percent, the country would not budge in the table of EU corporate taxes and would remain competitive with Germany. Moreover, there is still plenty of scope for ending sweetheart deals with individual companies and closing tax loopholes to get companies to pay an effective rate as high as 12.5 percent.

If the British go through with pressing the self-destruct Brexit button then Ireland will become the only English-speaking country in the trading bloc. The state would remain a perfectly attractive location for investors, and access to it does not have to be given away at bargain basement tax rates like a cheap knock-off item in a Wal-Mart store.

This is a perfectly plausible alternative to the Fianna Fail-Fine Gael narrative. The “investors will flee the country” message can be dismissed as scaremongering.

If Labour and Sinn Fein were to get on a consistent message, they could form a credible pairing in government. Some voters on the left may have a hard time giving their first preferences to Sinn Fein, but the party has been involved in conventional politics for long enough to deserve serious consideration at least as a coalition partner. Southern politicians who support the northern peace process cannot rightly argue that historic ties to the IRA preclude them from government in the south while simultaneously supporting the power-sharing institutions in the North in which Sinn Fein are a senior partner.

Voters across the western world are crying out for an alternative. The Irish left deserves a chance to provide it.

Meanwhile in Tipperary, Michael Lowry, a former Fine Gael TD, was found by the Moriarty tribunal to be a tax evader who spent his time as Communications Minister assisting his friend Denis O’Brien to acquire a lucrative mobile phone license. The McCracken Tribunal found that Lowry had evaded tax and had a IR£395,000 extension added to his home as a gift from Ben Dunne, a supermarket businessman. Fine Gael ousted Lowry from the party after numerous criminal investigations, and he responded by running for the same seat as an independent. He promptly topped the poll and remains as popular in his constituency as ever.

Government officials are fond of touting Ireland as a good place to invest on account of the “educated workforce,” yet the voting habits of said workforce would seem to contradict this particular boast. A criminal record, a history of bribe-taking, and a contempt for the rule of law are not just good for the bank accounts of Irish politicians, it is also good for their poll numbers. So are Irish voters a bit slow? Or is there some twisted logic to this celebration of corruption?

In Italy they have two types of people. There are those who play by the rules, wait patiently in line for their turn, but run the risk of never getting served. They are seen as naive and foolish. Then there are those who don’t play by the rules, cut in line, get served first, and hence are seen as smarter. Silvio Berlusconi’s litany of shady dealings and abuse of power did not stop him from serving as Prime Minister for nine years. Such people operate in a society in which corruption is so rife that following the rules is seen as pointless, but flouting them is seen as smart. Hence, higher support for corrupt politicians who know how to game the system.

On the other hand, in countries like Sweden corrupt politicians are given short shrift. Transparency International, an NGO, consistently finds the Nordic countries to be the least corrupt and hence the best places in which to do business. These countries share characteristics that include high levels of press freedom, literacy close to 100 percent, high GDP per capita, low inequality, and a political commitment to combating corruption.

So how can Ireland start looking less Italian and more Nordic in this respect?

One solution is to ban corrupt politicians for running for elected office for ten years. The government tried to enact a rule that would place such a ban on anyone convicted of corruption, only to be told in 2016 by the Office of Attorney General that such a rule would not pass legal muster. Rules about membership of the Dáil are baked into Article 16 of the constitution, and the government’s proposal would violate this.

Subsequently Frances Fitzgerald, the Minister for Justice, issued a memo to the cabinet stating that “an important consideration here is that, where a person is convicted of corruption and subsequently stands for election to the Dáil, voters will . . . make their own judgment.”  Yes, quite. If past experience is any guide, their judgment will not be logical or even in their own interest.

If voters are to be protected from themselves by way of a ban on bribe-takers holding elected office, a constitutional amendment would be required and that would necessitate a referendum. Any government serious about tackling the problem would pursue the matter and hold such a vote.

That said, Ireland is no banana republic. Transparency International ranks the country fourteenth in the table of cleanliness, only four places behind the UK, not so far behind the Nordics who top the table, and certainly well ahead of Italy, to say nothing of the dictatorships of the global south. But that does not mean the governments should be complacent.

To give credit where due, the government is processing legislation that modernizes a series of anti bribery laws that date back to the nineteenth century and brings it up to date and into line with international agreements. France, Spain, the UK and Germany are all beefing up their laws to make organizations liable if they fail to take steps to prevent people acting on their behalf from making corrupt payments.

The government should also communicate the measures it is taking. The public perception has to be that the institutions work, decisions are made on merit, and bribe-givers and takers should be discouraged by harsh penalties in the high likelihood of getting caught. Only then will clowns like Mick Wallace be banished to the political wilderness where they belong.

As for the North, the upcoming Assembly election will be a referendum on how corrupt the people view the system. Sinn Fein pulled the plug on the executive in the hope that the voters will punish Arlene Foster and the DUP for their dubious dealings in the RHI scandal. If trust in the system is high, the DUP will pay a heavy electoral price. If trust is low and unionist voters are still more interested in thumbing their noses at Sinn Fein than doing anything productive, the DUP could well come back with more seats than before. As the case of Michael Lowry shows, stranger things have happened.

The government has not inspired confidence. 88 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by iReach, a market research company, said that the charity sector was doing a better job of dealing with the issue than the government. Apollo House, an abandoned former government office building in Dublin, has become occupied by charity workers providing emergency shelter to 40 people over the holiday season. Simon Coveney, the Housing Minister, has responded by saying that there is already enough capacity in purpose-built accommodation, with 54 emergency beds remaining unoccupied in existing shelters on one night in December. However this is unlikely to convince a skeptical public that the authorities are up to the task. The official position is that the Apollo House occupation is illegal and there are health and safety concerns since it is not designed for residential use, but this has not stopped celebrities from lending their support to the campaign for which public support remains high.

Meanwhile, there are plans to demolish and redevelop Apollo House, which will doubtless set the stage for further conflict in the future. Evicting people from the building and moving them to purpose-built homeless shelters could be seen as insensitive if not handled correctly, therefore the authorities will need to tread carefully.

All of this is academic, however. The long term solution is not to help people without homes, but to examine what created the conditions that made so many people homeless in the first place and how to undo that.

According to Focus Ireland, a charity, the majority of people who are homeless now last had a home in the private rental sector. This is where there were rising rents, landlords selling or being repossessed, and a shortage of rental property. The homelessness epidemic is the inevitable outcome of a combination of complex factors, not the least of which is higher taxes and fees being levied on working people, water charges being the most prominent. Public resentment is fueled by the contrast between taxes paid by working people and the red carpet treatment laid on for multinational corporations like Apple who can have their hearts’ desires where corporate tax is concerned.

Another contributing factor is the mortgage tax deduction. Many rich world countries subsidize mortgages to incentivize home ownership. However this creates major distortions in the market. Some nations spend less on defense than on subsidizing home buying, with most of the benefit going to higher earners who need it the least. In the case of Ireland, mortgage interest relief is to be phased out after December 2017, so there is some hope that renters might get a better deal.

A lack of housing supply is another contributor to the problem. The government has issued soundbites about “building more homes,” but they will need to clear through a lot of regulatory undergrowth to make that happen. Foreign investors are happy to invest in Irish property, but they are aware that it is notoriously difficult to build, resulting in constricted supply which allows them to charge higher rents. Why is supply constricted? Partly because of land hoarding and partly because of planning restrictions, not the least of which is the over-inflated power of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) lobby.

Ireland’s NIMBY lobby has long wielded too much power, able to block the construction everything including gas pipelines, electrical pylons, mobile phone masts, and particularly more housing. Residents of the Liberties area of Dublin took to the streets in October to protest plans to convert a community center into a homeless hostel. The Dublin Simon Community hoped to set up a homeless shelter on Fitzwilliam Street Lower only to be met with 25 objections from local businesses who feared that it would lower the tone of the area. Even Shane Ross, the Transport Minister, has objected to the construction of 108 new homes in Mount Merrion in his own constituency, and was joined by Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan and the Green Party’s Catherine Martin who are just as eager to appease vocal residents who want to pull up the ladder behind them and prevent any more people from moving into “their” neighborhood.

There will always be NIMBY merchants no matter what is being built. However if the government is serious about increasing housing supply, be it in the private or public sector, then clipping the wings of the pichforks-and-torches crowd will make it a lot easier to deliver on that promise.

As for land hoarding, this is also a solvable problem. People who own undeveloped land within cities have every incentive to hang onto their property in the hope that it can be sold to developers later at a premium. While no disincentive exists to sell the land, it can often remain empty for years despite a booming economy. A Dublin City Council audit identified 60 hectares that fit that description, vast areas that can attract all manner of anti-social behavior as well as choking the housing supply.

The solution to land hoarding is a levy on undeveloped ground. This has been used successfully in cities worldwide, and will soon come into effect in Ireland following the 2015 passage of the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act which will require planning authorities to maintain a publicly available list of vacant sites beginning on January 1, 2017 and establish their market value. A 3 percent levy on said value will take effect from January 2019.

While the empty land levy and the end of the mortgage subsidy show signs of hope, more needs to be done to speed up new construction and bypass petty objections. If even cabinet ministers are unwilling to show leadership on that matter, progress could remain sluggish.