Kettle's Boyled: Perfect storms and public policy

‘The perfect is the enemy of the good’ is an expression often attributed to Voltaire, but it probably has roots that go back well before his time. The phrase is described as an aphorism, a concise observation that cites a general truth. I’ve seen it used a lot lately; such sayings tend to drift in and out of fashion, but our politicians and public servants should pay particular heed to this one.

Government policies usually translate into plans that get diluted as they move down the chain of command, right down to the point of action. Add in a general aversion among public servants to making decisions on the basis that somebody who does nothing can never be blamed for making a mistake, and you begin to understand policy implementation. When you get paid whether you do things or not, it’s no surprise when nothing gets done at the end of the day.

The last government was top-heavy with Green Party policy, a set of noble aspirations that didn’t always match common sense. Stopping turf-cutting had its merits from an environmental and public health perspective, but believing that you could replace turf with heat pumps was delusional. Many rural homes are heated by solid fuel ranges or stoves, and with good reason. For a start, there is the cost; if you own a bog, you can keep warm for almost nothing, if you discount your labour. Add a chainsaw to the mix, and you can supplement it with firewood from fallen or pruned trees, with no fuel bills.

More importantly, you’d have looked a bit foolish in recent weeks as you tried to warm your hands on a dead heat pump, while you considered ‘watching television by candlelight’ as one child was heard to say when they heard the lights would be off. Power cuts are part of the scenery if you live in rural Ireland, and you have to live with that reality.

Many years ago I recall proposing to the Green Party that they should wean people off turf by introducing a farm forestry fuel scheme, with farmers encouraged to grow a hectare of coppice timber while retaining farm payments for that piece of ground as long as they stopped cutting turf. In less than a decade, they would be self-sufficient in firewood, a sustainable fuel that sequesters as much carbon as it releases. I was told it wasn’t possible, since timber was a carbon-based fuel. The policy was to burn nothing, and the Greens wanted to jump straight to perfection without any intermediate steps.

Refitting Irish homes to make them more energy efficient is a good thing, but if we learned anything from the last few weeks, it is that governments can forget any kind of a ban on solid fuel in rural homes. Power cuts like these recent ones tend to be remembered, for a long time.