Covid-19 and the future of the European economy
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| Irish Finance Minister walks outside Government Buildings in Dublin |
In an interview with Vatican Radio, the CEO of Social
Justice Ireland talks about the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic
and the path forward.
By Lydia O’Kane
In Europe, after months of restrictions due to the Covid-19
pandemic, countries are slowly getting back on their feet.
But they are also facing a very different economic outlook,
with nations bracing themselves for the biggest downturn in decades.
The European Commission has said the EU faces a recession of
historic proportions.
Many experts have also described the downturn as the worst
crisis since the great depression.
One major fall-out from this pandemic has been the dramatic
rise in global unemployment.
This week the transportation industry announced thousands of
job cuts. European budget carrier EasyJet will cut up to a third of its
workforce due the pandemic.
The auto industry too has been hit hard.
One European country which has seen a dramatic increase in
unemployment as a result of the coronavirus is Ireland.
It’s estimated that 140,000 people there are now out of work
due to the lockdown put in place to halt the spread of the disease.
Dr. Sean Healy S.M.A. is Chief Executive of independent
think tank Social Justice Ireland.
Speaking to Vatican Radio, he said the impact has been
devastating.
Unemployment and Covid-19
“It’s already having a devastating effect because at the
moment we already have a situation, a great many people lost their jobs, so the
government is supporting those with a special payment.”
“There will be long term unemployment”, he underlined.
Another group which are expected to swell the country’s
unemployment figures in the next few months are those graduating from
university.
Previously, in situations like these Irish people emigrated
to increase their chances of finding work, but due to the global nature of this
pandemic, noted the CEO, “they don’t have anywhere to emigrate to at this
moment.”
Poverty
“Another point Dr. Healy addressed was issue of poverty. “We
have a situation where in Ireland at the moment; there is just under 15
per cent of the whole population living in poverty and that’s like 680,000
people out of a population just over 5 million. So a quarter of all those are
children.”
He also noted that up until the coronavirus outbreak,
Ireland had a high level of employment. However, many jobs were precarious and
low paid, “so while it’s registered as employment it isn’t really paying it
isn’t paying a sufficient income with dignity”.
In Europe and the United States, many people have had to go
to food banks in order to feed themselves due to the crushing blow this
pandemic has inflicted on them economically. Ireland too has seen a rise in the
numbers of people needing help. Dr. Healy said the reality is that, “there’s an
awful lot of people struggling to make ends meet”.
But he also stressed that the Covid-19 situation - albeit
under dreadful circumstances - “provides an opportunity to deal with very
serious problems if we’re prepared to deal with them as a society.”
Banks and the European response
Asked about how banks can play their part amid pandemic, Dr.
Healy commented that at the time of the banking crash and the global financial
crisis, “there was a profound mistake at the European level; very much at an
Irish level too, in which austerity was seen as the way to go and the banks had
to be rescued.”
Dr. Healy said that what Social Justice Ireland would be
proposing is “that the cost of COVID should be ring fenced [to protect the
assets]… and should be financed by a low interest loan provided by the European
Commission, the European Central Bank and paid back at a low interest rate and
paid back over a long time.”
The welfare system
The CEO emphasized that there is the opportunity to face up
to a fact that we haven’t faced up to sufficiently before, arguing that the
Covid -19 pandemic offers an occasion to adjust the welfare system. He said
that Social Justice Ireland and many others across the world have been arguing
for the need to “move towards a universal basic income system”.
Dr. Healy also welcomed Pope’s Francis comments on the issue
on Easter Sunday this year. In a letter to World Popular Movements,
amid the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis called for the consideration of a
Universal Basic Wage “that would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at
once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.”
Dr. Healy said this type of approach is the “closest to
Christian values and Catholic Social thought because it would secure a future
every man, woman and child on the planet.”
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