Per the Guardian’s Editorial:

In Dublin, a humiliated and desperate government launched what it called the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014. The title was optimistic, the contents apocalyptic. Ireland faces tax rises of ¤5bn and spending cuts of ¤10bn, on top of the already announced cuts of ¤15bn. VAT will hit 24% by 2014. Wages will fall. So will the standards of the country’s already struggling public services and the prospects of any solid return to growth on the scale needed to start paying off the debt.

Scottish banks were bigger and their fall was harder than Irish institutions so it is fair to ask why we aren’t taking some of this same medicine? We are complaining about a 20% VAT rate, measly compared to other European nations out there, many of which in much stronger financial health than Ireland or Scotland. John Swinney announced very small cuts in his draft budget (~2%) and a wage freeze which, set against Ireland’s ‘Recovery Plan’ looks positively spendthrift.

However, should Scotland be looking to Ireland’s National Recovery Plan as a blueprint for taking better control of our situation? Can we really wait a year until an inconvenient little thing like an election is out of the way? We already have one bank heavily indebted to the UK Government and it would have been two had Lloyds not taken on the strain of HBOS, a decision that looks increasingly likely to be reversed in some way by the Independent Commission on Banking.

Scotland taking on two deeply troubled independent banks would be a tremendous challenge and, even for those wistfully and wishfully thinking they would like to see HBOS back on its feet, could prove to be too much to take on.

It would of course be George Osborne’s problem and not the Scottish Government’s but the impact on this ‘region’ of the UK, not to mention the independence argument, would be destabilising. When it comes to stricken banks, ‘bring it on’ is not the typical cry.

So where do we go from here? Well, in many ways Scotland has already fallen between two stools, even before the half-baked Calman measures are implemented. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be heading down that path already trodden by Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, lifting up the drawbridge and filling the moat as much as possible to keep bankruptcy at bay, no reason except it’s not Scotland that has to balance the books. If the coalition keeps sending us money then we’ll keep spending it. Doesn’t feel like a long-lasting solution though, does it?

And it’s almost too late for fiscal autonomy; the spring cleaning of national budgets is taking place all across the continent but Scotland’s static, inflexible position means that there is no debt for it to clear and a reduced incentive to adopt the same extreme measures that Ireland is the latest country to have to implement.

Scotland can’t raise revenue and it can’t reduce its spending, it’s saddled with a bank that needs Government support with another one potentially close behind and it has a high level of public sector staff. Looking around Europe, we would surely be in the high-risk category of being the next domino if we were on our own. Westminster has embarked on approaches to save its side of the UK with wholesale changes to the NHS, schools and train fares but where is the Scottish equivalent.

That we need a recovery of some sort is not even up for debate, hopefully nowhere near as drastic as Ireland’s, but where is the Plan? Scotland is not “humiliated and desperate” like Ireland is described in the Guardian’s article, but are we vulnerable and complacent?