Eamon Ryan has done the State some service

The thought struck me that the General Election has got the lads and lassies up off their asses in the Dáil and walking, in some cases running, to meet the electorate. Though they have not met with the voters often over the past five years, they will find the electorate, apart from the usual groan-a-lots, in the main to be courteous, polite and approachable. They will also find, and this applies mainly to the two main government parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, that people have questions that need answers.

Questions about the high cost of living, the continued scraping to make ends meet, the deplorable lack of housing, the creaking health service which is saved only by the quality of the staff on the ground, including the much-maligned GPs, the greatly underfunded education system, the deplorable inequity in development funding as between Dublin and the rest of the country, the failure to fund and support a properly resourced Garda Siochána - a failure that has allowed criminal elements and drug suppliers to take over the streets of our cities and towns, the endemic poverty in certain sections of society, and on a more global level the failure to meet the Government’s own targets on climate matters and the lack of action to secure humanitarian protection for the starving people of Gaza, the Lebanon and millions of climate change-effected people in much of Africa.

Both Micheál and Simon have come out with “radical” manifestos that provide “solutions” to the housing crisis, to the cost of living crisis, to the problems of crime, education, health and infrastructure but they have yet to answer the critical question: why, if you’re proposing solutions now, did you not implement these solutions over the past 15 years in government? It is an obvious question and it is a question that they do not seem to have a credible answer for.

If history repeats itself then the Greens would appear to be in for a hiding. The tail that props up the big dogs is generally shunned. It happened to Labour and the Greens in the past. In the 33rd Dáil, the Greens emerged with reputations enhanced. This was especially true of their leader Eamon Ryan who clearly fought his corner in Cabinet and delivered some astonishing achievements. Look at all the buses we now have running here, there and everywhere in Mayo and thank God for Eamon Ryan. 

He twisted the arms of the FG/FFers on the closure of the big operators on the bogs. He got the country onto bikes and out walking and created hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jobs in bike hire, sales and repairs and coffee shops as greenways sprung up all over the country. He is standing down now but his legacy is secure even if the cowardly FG/FFers are in retreat to those with an interest in destroying all that remains of our bogs. Perhaps the upcoming election will be kinder to the current crop of Greens.

Having taken a reasonable degree of interest in the performance of the last Dáil, I have to say the performance of the Opposition - Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats, PBP/Solidarity, Independent Ireland and Aontu has been less than impressive. However, the job of Opposition is the most difficult job in the Dáil. How do you impress when you don’t have control over issues and don’t have influence on the finances that might provide better solutions? 

One can keep whining about the poor job a Taoiseach or a Tánaiste is doing but whining grates on the nerves of all but the most committed adherents of the whiner. Mary Lou has wisely taken the advice offered here and has cut back on her whingefest. She has put her deputy, Pearse Doherty, out front more frequently in recent times. Pearse grates on the nerves even more than Mary Lou but that won’t harm him in Donegal.

Lesser lights like Labour’s Ivana Bacik and Holly Cairns of the Soc Dems give the impression of being more concerned about the non-issue of a bicycle shed in the Dáil grounds and the cost overruns on the Children’s Hospital. There has never been a major infrastructure project that has not involved cost overruns, especially one that has been dogged by planning disputes, one that has been delayed by vested interests and one that should probably never have been built on a site that was less than ideal.

It’s a mystery to me why we have two parties of the Left with the munificent total of 12 seats between them and they can’t find sufficient common ground to come together as one. A bit further left is the People Before Profit/Solidarity Party who could (at the moment, perhaps not for much longer) add five seats making 17 - let’s call them working-class seats. Seventeen seats, give or take three, would provide the Left with considerable power in bargaining terms when the 34th Dáil comes to be formed. Will it happen? No. Personal ambition and leadership lustre comes before the national interest.

And what about the Independents? One expects Independents to be free. Free to make up their own minds about what is good for the country. Free to speak their minds, free to change their minds, free to support or oppose the government of the day. There were three groups of Independents in the last Dáil that could not see their way to coming together under one umbrella. There were the Rural Independents, the Regional Independents and the Independent Group. It’s a bit of a hodge podge, if you ask me. I’d have sympathy for the party that finishes with the biggest number of seats in the 34th Dáil. Trying to get a group of Independents on board would be as deadly as fighting 50 feral ferrets in a bag.

And there is the Independent Ireland Party. It has three breakaway members from the Rural Independents group. They are now a party, with a leader who is the proud possessor of the name Michael Collins. Can they remain together? It is unlikely. Sure they are all Independents, they all have their own minds, they all have their own priorities and, no doubt their own red lines (someone might explain what red lines are or what they do). They also have their own MEP in Ciarán Mullooly. They have right-wing tendencies but may not all be Trumpians. I wonder can Ciarán survive as Independent Ireland. Don’t be surprised if he jumps ship to become an Independent.

There are a few truly independent Independents - people like Catherine Connolly, Thomas Pringle, Noel Grealish and Verona Murphy and then there are the Kerry Independents, the Healy-Raes who are independent in the sense that once Kerry is looked after they will unequivocally support the party leader who will do their bidding. Tony Gregory is alive and well and living under a tweed cap in Kilgarvan.

The line-up for Mayo is now pretty much settled. We have a few independents, one of whom, Patsy O’Brien, will be closely marked (I hope there is no blanket defence thrown on top of him!) by the three big parties. He is the one who might up skittle the ambitions of the big guns who have their eye on the double. Of that, more anon.

Thought for the day 

G.B. Shaw (Again. Not very complimentary to either the electorate or the politicians!): “Democracy substitutes the election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”