What is happening to Fermanagh’s economy?

The Lough Erne Resort Site

The recent announcement that the Castlehume-based, Lough Erne 5-star Luxury Hotel and Golf-course was being forced into administration due to the unsustainable debts which the owners had built up represents the latest in a string of blows to the local economy. This comes on the back of the transfer of both Quinn Insurance and the Quinn Group Ltd out of the hands of the Quinn family – both of which are likely to herald large-scale redundancies as new owners seek to ‘restructure’ their holdings to optimise profit-levels.



Last year a survey identified that one quarter of all local businesses anticipated that they would lose staff in the next two years and a further one in every eight local businesses did not know whether they would survive the same period. Unemployment in Enniskillen has doubled over the past three years and in some peripheral villages (with higher dependency on the construction sector), the unemployment rate has trebled. The very viability of the current societal structure of this county is threatened as never before.

What is behind the collapse?

The collapse in Fermanagh reflects that of the economy of the Republic of Ireland. Very many local people found work on building sites in Cavan, Leitrim, Monaghan and Donegal – some even commuted to work in Dublin and even further afield. When the bubble in the property sector in the south collapsed, some sought to continue working in the building trade in Belfast and elsewhere in the east of Northern Ireland before the property sector collapsed up north as well.

To some extent, the boom was exacerbated by the low interest rates offered by the euro at a time when the economies of central Europe were stuttering and the ECB’s priorities were to get these big economies growing. But there was clearly competition between banks to expand their loan book by offering ever more generous terms of credit – terms which were clearly unsustainable in the medium-term – and this built up a huge liability. Of course, governments in both London and Dublin decided that the banks had to be saved and that the working class would have to pay the price of this enormous bailout by higher taxation and massive cuts to public expenditure.

In Fermanagh, this agenda – agreed upon by all Assembly parties – has meant an onslaught on future public expenditure budgets. Although the impact of these cuts has been covered up ahead of the Assembly elections of May this year, it is clear that they will further devastate local public services and further pressurise the local economy.

Market Failure

What is happening to our economy is what the neo-liberal economists would term market failure but the reality is that the logic of what is happening is inherent in capitalism itself.

Capitalism has the capacity to generate considerable growth and spur technological development. The reason it is capable of these outcomes (we are not discussing its negative features), is that it is based on the self-regulating market mechanism. The theory of this is that the market allocates investment to those sectors and segments of the economy where profit is maximised. The idea is that this results in a growth in supply in those sectors which optimising net growth in the economy. One consequence is that this reduces the overall level of profitability in that sector or segment of the economy and that eventually reduces investment as it flows to some other ‘high profit’ sector. The idea is that the economy self-regulates always channelling growth to those sectors which offer the most at any point in time. Now while socialists have made a devastating criticism of this mechanism – it still characterises capitalism and its operation is central to how the global economy works today.

In the case of Ireland, the financial markets are unhappy with the profits to be made here – they are higher elsewhere – so it pulls out demand from our economy and we suffer stagnation or in the specific case  of Fermanagh a massive collapse. The idea is that as workers are thrown into unemployment they will either move to places where growth is occurring e.g. Australia or Germany which will reduce the costs for their industry (and further increase profits in the short-term) or else they will stay on here and accept lower and lower pay for work (if they can find it).

The impact on public services has a similar effect. As the economy contracts, there is a fiscal deficit and this becomes an argument for privatising the remaining public assets and massively cutting back on the standards and costs of public sector provision. From the perspective of the financial markets, if they can effectively implement this, it will have the added bonus of further reducing public sector wages which will enable them to more effectively reduce those across the economy.

The unavoidable conclusion in terms of Fermanagh’s future is that our wages, which are already low by comparison to even those of Northern Ireland (75% according to the latest Labour Force Survey) must fall further. The surplus of our labour force (which is basically anyone currently unemployed and everyone leaving school over the next ten years) must leave the county – further depressing local economic demand and resulting in an even further contraction. Meanwhile, our local public services will be decimated with the agreement of all Assembly parties.

The Socialist Alternative

This economic context makes the case for a socialist alternative. We need to develop our economy on the basis of an alternative, publicly-owned (and not profit-driven) model. Only if we prevent the market mechanism’s imperative can Fermanagh sustain our people.

As a move towards this, we need to reverse all cuts to public services and instead invest in a large scale scheme of public works that will actually provide employment for people (and provide a stimulus to the local economy). To achieve this we need to build a social movement transcending the divisions of our society rooted in working class communities that will demand an end to the market dictatorship.

Building Cross-Community Campaigns after the election

I would like to use this opportunity to thank all those who supported my recent and unsuccessful election campaign to Fermanagh District Council for the Enniskillen Ward. It was a great effort which brought together activists from across the county with support from Socialists from across Northern Ireland and as far away as Limerick and Dublin.

The mainstream parties were successful in preventing this election being fought on the issues and obscured the extent and seriousness of the coming cuts public services; an onslaught that will be deeper than anything experienced since 1924. Instead, they chose to fight this election on the same-old grounds of sectarian identity politics leading to an increased polarisation in the vote which resulted in more support for the DUP and Sinn Fein across the county with a loss of support for the UUP and SDLP.

Indeed, this campaign was fought against the backdrop of the 'tribal' headcount that characterised the previous Westminster run-off between Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin) and Rodney Connor (United Unionist). The tensions boiled over at the Assembly count in Omagh in the behaviour of unionists and republicans culminating in Tom Elliott, the leader of the UUP, calling heckling members of Sinn Féin 'scum' from the podium and referring to the tricolour as a 'foreign flag'.

Fighting for Every Vote

In that cauldron of sectarian hatred, it was never going to be easy to offer a radical, anti-sectarian alternative. We were fighting the campaign without a social base and without any immediate connection with local communities.

Despite and possibly because of this we fought the hardest campaign of any party in Enniskillen - a fact remarked upon by many of our opponents (both the DUP and Sinn Féin 'upped' their game in response to our campaign).

We knocked thousands of doors across Enniskillen and unlike any election campaign for the past 40 years we canvassed every estate in the town and all the outlying village centres. We canvassed in every area regardless of whether a union flag or a tricolour was hanging from the lamp-post and for the most part we were met with an open, honest engagement and received a positive response.

Unlike every other party who campaigned on the basis of 'maximising OUR representation', at every door we brought an inherently political message. We engaged people on what was happening. We discussed how we could challenge the right-wing agenda that will see local public services devastated in our County at a time when the private sector economy here is on life-support.

At times, it was not easy as we were bringing a very different message to that propounded by all the other parties. We stood openly and unashamedly as socialists and spoke to people about the possibility of democratising the ownership and control of the economy as a way to pay for public services.

On many doors we struggled to gain a hearing from households who were simply sick of the lies of politicians who 'tell you anything' to get a vote every four years. On one memorable door one of our canvassers was told that if he was a 'Banker or a Politician' he should go away - this was not the only occasion but reflected many people's understanding of the empty promises of a political class who were implementing cuts to pay for the banking crisis.

We also struggled through our perceived novelty and our lack of a base in the town. We don't run constituency services and were relying on people grasping the seriousness of the crisis facing us and agreeing with our position of 'fighting back' on a cross-community basis at a time when our political opponents tell us that there is 'no alternative' to the Tory-Stormont cuts.

Results and Prospects

Turnout in Enniskillen was poor as usual with turnout in the more deprived areas falling to below 50%. As such, the 248 who gave us a number one preference vote was a respectable beginning to our work in the county. After the votes of other candidates such as the Green Party Alliance and another independent were redistributed we stood at 280 votes but this was not enough to catch up with the lowest polling Sinn Féin candidate (on 375) and we lost out.

In addition to this vote, we have built the rudiments of a party branch in Enniskillen and this will be critical in developing grassroots and cross-community politics in the County. We have made many contacts with nurses and workers in many estates around the town.

We look forward to further engaging with these contacts we made over the course of the campaign. The Socialist Party will increase our activity in Fermanagh as we grow stronger. The campaign  for the next council election starts here.

We remain steadfast and committed to the building of cross-community opposition to defend public services and demand a scheme of public works which will create local employment and develop the productive capacity of our society (in public ownership).

Given the sectarian divisions, there is massive alienation of a large section of people from the political process and politicians, in particular. We recognise that we have work to do to make the case for people to get registered and vote for a fighting alternative. We also need to build the Stop the Cuts Alliance locally involving the layer of advanced workers we have encountered in our campaign. That is the task facing the Socialist Party in Fermanagh in the months and years to come.

Cuts to Acute Hospital will threaten Public Services in Enniskillen

The decision to cut the number of beds at the new acute hospital in Enniskillen to 269 rather than the original planned 315 which has been recently reported is a severe threat to the quality and nature of health provision in Enniskillen.

The loss of 43 beds will result in a further 50 nursing posts disappearing, impacting an economy already reeling from a collapse in private sector demand. The Western Health Trust is celebrating this “significant saving in nursing costs” and states that further savings will be made ‘by applying enhanced working efficiencies and the development of new roles’ – in plain language, that means nurses will be further pressurised and forced to cover for inadequate staffing levels.

The new hospital is being built through the expensive and wasteful private finance initiative or PFI; at dozens of other hospitals the use of PFI schemes has resulted directly in the loss of beds and nursing posts as the banks seek to maximise their profits. 

There is widespread concern that the new hospital will be more than suitable for outright privatisation in the future - its location along the border would make a large private hospital in Enniskillen highly lucrative for investors.

I believe that the hospital should be built with public money and be kept under full public control both now and in the future. 

The Assembly parties are implementing these Tory cuts instead of standing up for our communities and our public services. We need to build a campaign across all communities and stand with local nurses, doctors and other health service staff in defending public health provision.

Just as with the cuts to education, the home help service and special needs provision in this town, we need to build campaigns to force those in power to reverse course. That is the Socialist Party’s agenda in this election and will be my agenda as a member of Fermanagh District Council.

Socialist Party Launch in Enniskillen

I launched my campaign at an event attended by supporters in the Westville Hotel on Thursday 14^thApril. The event was chaired by Ciaran Mulholland, treasurer of the Socialist Party NI, and speaking was newly elected Dublin North Socialist Party TD, Clare Daly.

Clare spoke about the economic crisis in the Republic of Ireland and how ordinary people had suffered as a result of the decision to bailout bankers, speculators and bondholders. She pointed to the need for working people to campaign against these cuts and the need for social solidarity.

The following is a snippet from my speech at the event:

"There is already a threat hanging over services at the new hospital which hasn’t even been built yet; we lost obstetrics and gynaecology services for more than a month last year because they couldn’t find doctors to provide cover; half of our schools are under threat of closure and that was before the 15% cut to running costs and the 30% cut to capital budgets; classroom assistants are facing the axe leaving special needs children abandoned;  32,500 hours of home help has been slashed in Fermanagh this year alone; unemployment in Enniskillen has doubled in the last three years; our young people are having to emigrate, universities are becoming the preserve of the rich and we are threatened with even more public sector job losses. And all the mainstream political parties can do is focus on the need to reduce corporation at a cost of further job losses and public sector cuts!

"Our politicians are agreed on implementing the most severe cuts to public services since 1924; worse than anything Thatcher did. The parties are playing the same old divisive games ahead of these elections but once they are elected they will be joined at the hip implementing these cuts. Instead of implementing cuts, we need to build campaigns alongside the trade unions and communities to fight the cuts!

"They tell us that there is no alternative but it is estimated that the super rich get off with £120 billion in tax avoidance every year and they put £1 trillion into the banks in 2008 to bail them out. Yet there is not the money to employ much needed, newly qualified nurses in Northern Ireland and they have to emigrate to find work!

"The mainstream parties tell us that they have no choice that they must implement these cuts. But if our parties can only implement Westminster cuts, what is the point of the Stormont circus?

"If I am elected I will stand with every community to oppose these cuts and to demand a public works programme to create the jobs we need. We must build cross-community campaigns to stand for all public services so that they cannot implement austerity while playing one against the other as they have so many times before.



Canvassing Derrychara



"We are the only party who will be canvassing for votes in every estate in this town. Our campaign is already getting a good response. I believe we can achieve a great result in this election and I would ask you all to get involved in building opposition to these Tory-Stormont cuts!

Donal O’Cofaigh to run for Socialist Party in Enniskillen

In September 2009, I resigned my council seat and left Sinn Féin to join the Socialist Party in protest at what I described as their ‘overseeing the long-term administration of senior civil servants and their right-wing agenda’.

At the time I said that:

“Change can only come about if working, unemployed and young people themselves organise to challenge the status quo. We have seen the power of effective local campaigns in fighting against health cutbacks and against the imposition of water charges. The sad truth is if we are waiting for change to come at the hands of any of the mainstream parties, then we will wait a long time indeed. Working people must organise themselves against cuts and to defend jobs.”

I remain convinced of that as much today as I did then. We must build cross-community campaigns to defeat the cuts and have no illusions about any of the parties. This council election is important in building an effective opposition to the cuts tsunami. History teaches us that the extent and depth of the cuts imposed will be determined by the strength of our campaigns against them.

Defending Public Services

All of the mainstream parties are keen that people do not find out the just how bad the cuts will be before the election so that they can implement them all the more effectively in the four years before the next elections - but people can see through that.

If I am elected I will be 100% committed to supporting grassroots campaigns and working with the local Trades Council, community and voluntary groups to fight the cuts affecting our communities, public sector workers; to reverse the cuts to benefits, the imposition of stealth taxes such as water rates; and demanding a much-needed public works programme for the county that would create jobs for the unemployed and yield improvements to our social, economic and environmental infrastructure.