“In the beginning there was nothing, and the Lord said “Let there be light” and there was light. There was still nothing. But you could see it a lot better”.
These words come to mind when one considers the “new look” cabinet and all the razzmatazz surrounding the appointment of the “new” Taoiseach, the “new” Ministers and the “new” Ministers of State – all part of the “new politics”. We can all survey the political vacuum “a lot better” now that Enda is gone.
A week later and all that has been achieved is that the public no longer knows who is minister for what any more.
We had a threatened general election in the course of that week – on an issue that would not and could not be resolved by a general election. But, on the bright side, lack of trust has been fully restored
And in a real case of “déjà vu all over again”, Eoghan Murphy has spectacularly equalled the stunning achievement of his idol, Leo Varadkar, who when newly appointed as Minister for Health had the courage to tell us that the FG election-winning manifesto commitment – the Dutch-style universal health policy of his predecessor, James Reilly – was all baloney. So refreshingly honest!
On this occasion, Eoghan has equally courageously ditched Simon Coveney’s scheme to subsidise first-time home buyers and, in addition, Simon’s “ambitious” target of ending the parking of the homeless in hotels within a year.
So, in addition to minister-churning, we now have a culture of policy-churning. A new broom once swept clean; now it only moves the debris around the kitchen floor. All of this is supposed to be a fresh start for FG.
Next for the chop is Enda’s Political Revolution. It’s dead meat. Did we only imagine that Enda promised us a political revolution in the first place.
Having failed in his bid to destroy the Constitution by abolishing the Seanad, Enda called that defeat a “wallop” and promised to reform the Seanad.
To lead the reform process, Enda asked Maurice Manning to draft and publish a Seanad Reform plan together with a Seanad Reform Bill. Maurice, ably assisted by Joe O’Toole, did the needful. Enda and Leo later negotiated a Programme for Government and solemnly promised us that implementing the Manning Report was part of the new government’s policy.
Acting on that assurance, I and others tabled Manning’s published draft legislation as a Bill in the Seanad. It passed its second stage – the stage where the principles of the Bill are agreed –with no indication that the Government was coming round to opposing the very principle of the Bill.
Enda himself came into the Seanad and announced that he was setting up an All-Party Implementation Group to oversee the reform process. When that group was formed, we were told, reform would proceed. That was a year ago. Nothing has happened since. Absolutely nothing!
Now you might surmise that the ensuing leadership struggle in Fine Gael might just have delayed the process.
Cynics among you might suspect that Enda decided not to destabilise his own increasingly precarious position by annoying trigger-happy FG Senators with talk of with reform of the rotten borough system of election of most Senators by local politicians on which they depend.
And you would be right. Afraid of angering the ancien régime of county councillor-elected FG Senators, Enda, the great architect of the Political Revolution, immediately and decisively …….did nothing.
Did he generously leave reform of the Seanad to his successor? He did indeed.
And can we now expect Leo the Lion-Hearted Reformer to courageously pick up the reform baton from his courageous predecessor? You can “expect” all you like; but it’s not going to happen. Why?
Alas, Leo on this issue is the Lion in the Wizard of Oz who lost his courage. He secured the support of the Seanad members of the FG parliamentary party by hinting in his leadership manifesto that he was abandoning the Manning Report.
Privately, FG Senators sought and received private assurances of no real Seanad reform from canvassers for Leo, and from Simon whose department had been assigned responsibility on Seanad reform by Enda.Did Leo convince them that Seanad reform was safely off the table? You bet he did! They flocked to his banner.
He now says privately that the Manning Report is not worthy of implementation. Despite having personally agreed to its inclusion in the programme for this Government and given his commitment on that issue as one of FG’s negotiators, he has reconsidered this commitment – to the point of privately deriding the very idea of implementing the Manning Report.
Should we give him marks for honesty, as was done by many when he ditched Reilly’s (and FG’s) flagship health policy? Or will some child point out that Emperor Leo is standing stark naked as a man who stands for nothing when anything impedes his ambition for office? His commitment to reforming the Seanad, it turns out, was a hoax.
Leo has quietly slipped his stiletto knife into the back of Seanad reform. Compared with re-opening Stepaside Garda station, we now know where Leo’ priorities lie.
If Leo has his way, the Seanad will continue to be elected in the main by county councillors. And the Senators who voted for him, by way of pay-back, will each receive the chance of being re-elected to the Seanad – now that their chances of being re-elected to the Dáil are fading.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone with access to a bulldozer puts paid one night to Shane Ross’s derelict Garda station. But it will need more than a bulldozer to clear away the cynical remains of the new politics and the pretence barricades behind which the Political Revolution was trumpeted before it whimpered out.
So there still is nothing. But I hope you can see it better.
(Photo credit: Facebook)