Our so-called regulators are nothing but a bad joke
ON this weekend of national celebrations, do you want to hear the latest Irish joke? The Government has decided that lawabiding locksmiths are a threat to the country. The Private security Authority – one of the over 200 state quangos – is currently running an expensive advertising campaign aimed at locksmiths. It ‘advises’ them that if they don’t sign up and pay an annual levy, they will be prosecuted and fined, and if you don’t pay a fine in Ireland you can go to prison.
Every quango means an extra tax, levy or toll. Is it any wonder that Ireland is once again the third most expensive country in Europe?
Every business that has to pay Government levies and taxes passes on those costs to the customer. A retailer told me recently he had to pay annual levies to 19 different state agencies before he could open.
Recently, Irish banks said that one of the reasons we have the highest interest and bank charges in Europe is the high levies they are forced to pay to the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator for a service that in the past bordered on the laughable. For many people the realisation that the country was bust came in October 2008 when the then Financial Regulator Patrick Neary made his infamous bumbling appearance on Prime Time as the banks he and his board were tasked with overseeing collapsed around them, leaving the taxpayer with a bill of €64bn.
The Financial Regulator was the state quango that in the lead-up to the crash insisted that every radio advert for a financial product include a long diatribe at the end – longer than the message itself – assuring us that the institutions were being regulated on our behalf by their hands. little did we know that radio ads and giving away branded golf balls seemed to be their main concern. Even today, banks shy away from advertising on local and national radio because of this ridiculous stipulation.
As for the Central Bank, which is moving to the palatial Trump Towers on Dublin’s quays in the next few weeks, let’s hope it can get the phones working as it recently admitted that a ‘hotline’ it set up for financial whistleblowers wasn’t working and the emails sent to it bounced back. Is it any wonder that prices in Ireland are 22.5% above the EU average?
There are so many taxpayerfunded tourism bodies now it’s hard to keep track. We are regularly told about how shining green lights on Niagara Falls for a few minutes is worth a fortune in free advertising for Ireland – but the elephant in the room is not addressed: tourists are being gouged on hotel, restaurant and pub prices in Ireland. Instead one tourism boss extolled the virtues of the two ferry companies operating between Ireland and the UK – stena lines and Irish Ferries. I challenge you to compare their prices and ask yourself: where is the competition on this busiest of sea routes ?
Where is the competition regulator? Where is the energy regulator we all pay for? Where is the communications regulator? We have the highest mobile phone rates in Europe, not to mention electricity and gas charges. We pay through the nose for all the ‘regulation’, but it’s an Irish joke.