"as you all know under our PR system politicians rely on patronage..." never occured to me before but this makes a lot of sense, when we complain about parish pump politics and clientism in Ireland perhaps our PR system is at the very heart of that?

On a fateful night in September 2008, the former government urgently needed some good advice. “Astonishingly,” wrote Richard Tol in The Irish Times, they “knocked on David McWilliams’s door.”Many people think they should have knocked on Morgan Kelly’s. Since his now-famous article on the property bubble in 2006, Kelly, Professor of Economics at UCD, has been predicting disaster for the Irish economy in a series of (strangely entertaining) articles in The Irish Times. So far, he has been proved all too right, and he hasn’t finished with us yet. In May the man described by the Irish Independent as ‘Dr Doom’ launched another coruscating attack. 

Describing Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan’s miscalculation of the scale of bank losses as “the costliest mistake ever made by an Irish person”, Professor Kelly declared that Ireland has become “an object of international ridicule” and predicted that, within a year or two, the country will be facing bankruptcy. But there is, he argues, still a way out.Introduced by journalist, writer and current affairs presenter Olivia O’Leary, Professor Kelly tells us where we are, reminds us how we got here, and suggests some ways in which we might begin to dig ourselves out. It’s a rare opportunity to hear, and question, one of our most forthright commentators. We confidently predict a lively evening.The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture was established in 2007 to honour the Kilkenny writer, historian and broadcaster whose remarkable consistency of vision and clarity of mind made him unique among essayists and whose work evinced an unsurpassed moral, political and literary integrity.

The above audio file is an audience recording using a Zoom H2 hand held recorder, located approx 20 ft. from the stage area. Introduction piece by Olivia O'Leary. Running time 67m. Comments moderated. Requests for use elsewhere please to info@kilkennyarts.ie.
Recorded and edited by event media for the Kilkenny Arts Festival blog.
Update: Read the blog entry here: http://www.kilkennyarts.ie/blog/article/professor-morgan-kelly-the-hubert-butler-annual-lecture/

Hubert Butler Lecture: Professor Morgan Kelly

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Hubert Butler Lecture: Professor Morgan Kelly

Kilkenny Arts Festival

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William Odee