With every change within the margin of error, today’s Red –C poll appears to be “business as usual”. But the problem is that business is not at all usual.
Today’s slight flicker in poll ratings has happened in the context of continuing uncertainty about Brexit, and of the Apple €13bn controversy, and of the NAMA Project Eagle debacle, the dark cloud of Trump, the bus strike, the Leprechaun Growth carbuncle, and the silly season.
What the poll tell us is that nobody sees a coherent option for the next government. Worse still, it seems that the polls are predicting an incoherent option – or options – for the next government. The “new politics” are in fact the politics of paralysis.
Policy has given way to blather. When a politician proposes taking VAT off condoms, we should cry! How many people really decide on condom use by reference to whether the price is reduced or increased by 13%?
When two Senators who voted to abolish their own House take to the barricades to protest that they, as Senators, are the victims of GAA ticket-allocation discrimination, they wondered why they did not receive the support of angry citizens! We even had a public representative call for the Artane Band to change its name and uniform. Worse still, broadcast and print media carry this piffle.
Candyfloss politics abound too. While third level education creaks downwards in terms of international standing, the Education minister peddles unfunded aspirations for reform but grasps no nettles. Postponed “Fat Taxes” come tripping off the tongue of the Health minister. Fat lot of difference they’ll make. And then we hear proposals for banning fast food joints near schools. As if the overweight students are so unfit that they will not waddle 500 metres for their burgers and chips!
Assuming that FF maintains its position of “no coalition with FG” up to and including the next election, we seem set to be governed by a centre party (FF or FG ) having the support of a quarter of the voters, in coalition with an entourage of left-wing splinter groups chosen from among “the Left, the Hard Left and the Left-Overs”. And such a government will face its mirror image on the opposition benches. God help us!
The politics of paralysis is going to hurt us more and more. Our government looks weak and ineffective – a skeleton crew of night watch-men warming their hands at the brazier until the day-crew turns up in the morning. But the day-crew ain’t coming, folks! The political night watch-men are hoping to work alternating shifts from now on.
Reform has stalled. Legislation has slowed to a trickle. The “fiscal space” is a shrivelled, deflating balloon.
Have we any sense of agenda? Exactly what are we planning to deal with the consequences of Brexit? How are we going to deal with energy security? How are we going to meet our climate change targets? What are they? The phony war on water drags on. What are we going to do about the pending 2019 Local Property Tax revaluation? How are we going to fund third level education?
Dublin City Council spent €1 million a year on a free-phone for the homeless. And across the country, NGOs and agencies for the homeless collectively receive from the State more than €300 per week for every homeless person in the country. That is over and above the direct State spending on emergency housing.
Surely we deserve better than all of this. Or do we?
With the looming Budget debate, we can now expect the usual media interviews for interest groups clutching their dog-eared, dusted down annual submissions. Which makes a pleasant change from the other jaded interview staple – the riveting news that this help-line or that has seen an increase of 11% in callers, year-on-year.
I remain optimistic that this season of political idiocy will pass. I hope that more coherent political choices will emerge.
Have I grounds for such optimism? I think so.
I strongly believe that the futility and sterility of the new politics will, like the Emperor’s nakedness, eventually become apparent to a new generation of Irish people who in this decade of centenaries will develop a capacity for forward-looking ambition for this State inspired by an appreciation of how far we have come since gaining our independence.
I believe as well that that the present media Greek chorus of self-deprecation and anger-broking will give way to rational political discourse based on real consideration of real options for change and development in our society.
Brexit has brought into sharp focus the hugely important issue of how we see our membership of the EU and of what we envisage for the EU itself. That aspect of our affairs is not really debated or examined in our political system at all. The Oireachtas has never squared up to the future of Europe or the future of Ireland within the EU.
If we have a soft land border with the North, we will perforce have to align our other external border controls with those of the North and Britain. Who is working on those issues? Where is the in-depth analysis of our options?
The politics of paralysis are but the outward signs of an unspoken crisis in our democracy. When you reflect on the fact that the FG party was receiving €4.8 million in tax-payer support each year up to their disastrous election this March, it becomes clear that the politics of Ireland have been transformed into a game of keeping possession rather than the pursuit of goals. The “new politics” are but the “new clothes” of a corpulent and very delusional Emperor.
Let’s hope -and work -for better.