Incremental thinking is a problem at a time like this. A bit more of this, a bit more of that. I think a radical change of thinking is sometimes needed. That’s why I disagree with Daragh O’Brien’s assessment of Your Country Your Call. There are many problems with YCYC and you would have to wonder what evaluation of the plan was done before the government decided to throw 300,000 euros into the pot. It is just not easy to get that sort of support from government, even during a boom. But as a small, open economy, we cannot county-enterprise-board our way out of our situation. We need to come up with radical plans, and pretty big plans to boot.

(This incidentally, also applies to the Irish Government. It cannot hope to win back support through a series of small local campaigns, supported by politically driven local projects, or by intensive local campaigning and handing out Cabinet posts or Seanad seats. This worked before, but it will not work now. The govnernment has to put forward coherent, radical, large scale, national level change to make a difference to people’s situations and people’s perceptions. (And it has to start with the cabinet reshuffle.)