DAIL SKETCH: “I’M OFF!” Two words from the Minister for Transport summed up his Government’s attitude yesterday to discussing the economic crisis in the national parliament.
They didn’t want to do it. And what’s more, they were highly affronted at the very idea that they might be expected to supply some clarity on the issue. How dare an opposition come into the House and seek to question a government’s performance during a time of national crisis?
Call it arrogance. Call it ignorance. Call it avoidance. Whatever it was, from Brian Cowen down, they were a disgrace.
Jesus, that is shocking.
I left Ireland about two years ago, and have been keeping in reasonable contact with the political situation. I guessed that the country would return the government for all its inadequacies. It did, and I thought that was a depressing day. I watched as Bertie eventually jumped ship a very short time before the very predictable burst of the bubble and that, of the many people in “De Party” with talent, none could rise to power, as the Buffalo took over a country that was in a tricky position on the verge of a world recession – this blindingly obvious to an interested spectator. That was a depressing day.
But this, this was a new low. The contempt with which the government views the rest of the country as a whole has only ever been thinly veiled in the latter half of the Bertie years, but this outdoes the worst of Haughey. I am reminded of the old Spitting Image sketch immediately after the 1992 General Election in Britain when, despite presiding over an awful slump, the British electorate returned the Tory party to power. That weekend we watched the Cabinet puppets asking themselves what they could get away with doing and still be elected. Major said something like “They’d still vote for us, even if we threw this lettuce at them” and the show closed with them all throwing lettuce at the camera and laughing.
Well, they no longer appear to be interested in masking their laughter in Dublin. This government will see out its term to 2012. Not because it has any plans or ideas of things to do, much less innovative means to solve the problems. No, it will do it because it can, and it has no idea of whatelse to do. Over in Britain, there is the question of whether Brown is sustainable as he was not the elected PM – a silly question that could never have arisen before Blair, as this is not an autocratic state with pretensions towards democracy, rather an oligarchical one with pretensions to democracy. However, though the rules of governance in Ireland are quite similar to Britain, “De Party” is an utter totalitarian state within it, and whenever you elect an FFer, you are making a vote for that “Leader of the day”. But no one questions this. No voice of dissent is raised on the matter. Indeed, in the past 12 years, the disparity in Ireland has become like a gentle comedic mirror of 1984. If you are with the party, well and good. If you stand outside it, you remain a prole.
It is at times like this that I am relieved I no longer live in Ireland – I am someone who keeps abreast of the local and political situations, and for all the whining and hand wringing here in Britain, it is a fairly handy number in compared to Ireland. The three main parties all have an identity, or a sembalance of one, they generally attempt to discuss the issues in parliament, they seem concerned about the country, if only for their constituents.
The Irish parliamentary process has become a political parody. In the last election, the opposition used it’s tried and tested systematic route to failure of defining itself as being against the Government. It was rightly pilloried, and lost against a government losing its already questionable way. Now the Government is defining itself as being not the opposition, which has to be the single worst move on the part of any leading party Europe-wide. Whether the opposition still defines itself as being not the government, I cannot say, but they have great opportunity to slip this definition now. Unfortunately, there are so very few politicians of any talent remaining in Dáil Éireann, be that talent political will, ideology or even simple charisma.
Do the people of Ireland care any longer? Are they actively electing their own national Big Brother House, circumventing Channel 4 and seeking out the biggest losers to populate it? Is it a case of “He’s great craic. that fella will surely start a fight. You can rely on that one to say something dodgy” – is this what the country has come to? I mean to say, one must simply look at the opening day’s behaviour from the
Ceann Comhairle, the Chair of the Parliament.
One way or another, it appears as though we are about to hear once more how the people of Ireland have failed their government.
Tags: 1984, Arrogance, Ceann Comhairle, Cowan, Dáil Éireann, elections, Fianna Fáil, Haughey, ireland, Irish, Parliament
