Day 100

On Enda Kenny rests that most daunting of responsibilities in this battered society:
the fulfilment of Hope

In our last edition just before the general election we expressed, without confidence, the hope that having been the victims of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, at election time we saw no new ideas and no significant new parties. The non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the incompetent pragmatic centre touted their old ideas, bolstered only by professions of aspirations to higher standards of ethics and transparency.
Village has consistently made the case that Fine Gael is the closest thing to Fianna Fáil, being driven by small-time vested interests (see for example the Cherrywood article at p60) and a blasé laissez-faire. We see no reason to alter this judgement in terms of the fundamentals of policy: wealth creation and distribution (see Niall Crowley at p46), and the environment (see for example the cute handling of the despoliation of Ireland’s raised bogs at p16). The handling of the debt crisis is indistinguishable from Fianna Fail’s, despite a manifest, though comprehensively obviated, public desire for radical change. Fine Gael’s manifesto declared, “Borrowing up to €25bn in additional funds from the EU/IMF at 5.8 per cent to cover additional bank losses from firesales of loans and other bank assets at rock-bottom prices, as this government has agreed, will push Irish government debt towards unsustainable levels and hinder economic recovery, threatening the stability of the entire Euro area”. Yet this is what the coalition is doing, even as the coalition concedes major interest-rate changes are unlikely. Elsewhere also the coalition are pushing the previous government’s programme.
Fine Gael implied it would hesitate to recapitalise the banks if bank losses were higher than anticipated. In fact it recapitalised them anyway. It said it would burn unsecured senior bondholders “as part of a European-wide framework for senior debt focusing on insolvent institutions like Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide that have no systemic importance” but will not. Fine Gael said it would introduce water and property taxes only after preliminary measures and safeguards were in place but is now moving ahead anyway. And so on. There have, however, been some substantial policy improvements. Restoring the minimum wage level is a welcome gesture to social solidarity as is the IMF-mandated intention to shake up the legal and medical professions in openness in government. There have also been important improvements in openness including promised referenda on compellability of witnesses for Dáil committees and overdue whistleblowers’ protection, (see Noel Wardick’s article at p25), extension of the bodies covered by Freedom of Information and expansion of the role of the Ombudsman. There have too been marked improvements in tone. These include the reduction in ministerial cars, a promised referendum on judges’ pay and less-partisan Seanad appointments. Nevertheless, the change is fragile: nepotism continues in the hiring of political assistants and drivers and, depressingly if predictably Phil Hogan has downgraded John Gormley’s review of local authority planning malpractice.
In our last edition we predicted that Mr Kenny would collapse under scrutiny, particularly on the international stage, and we churlishly queried his credibility. This was too harsh. In fact, despite a strange cattlemanish delivery and a tendency to term his co-nationals ‘Paddy”, lachrymosity in the presence of Riverdance and some probably-unfairly-derided oratorical plagiarism, he has performed adequately, and sometimes well, as his confidence has risen with high office. In this he mirrors the ascent of other assumed light-weights such as John Bruton; and even Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern. The Taoiseach has certainly been helped by recent State ceremonies and the associated pomp. The Queen’s visit was a triumph and, like most reconciliations, worth the effort. President Obama too, though not at his charismatic best, leavened the pervading national misery; and the death of Garret FitzGerald provided an opportunity to reflect on the possibilities of a lifetime dedicated to public service.
Enda Kenny should use his political capital to take a braver, more economically-literate and indeed, since it is unfair to make a country including its most vulnerable pay the debts of its banks, more ethical stance on the elementary truth that Ireland is insolvent (see Constantin Gurdgiev at p6).
It will anyway be exposed as such next year when it must seek investors in government bonds who, given current rates of 11%, are not likely to provide affordable funding.
While the government ignores this, pursuing chimerical economics, it is difficult to divine much clarity of purpose anywhere, a difficulty that can only get worse if the political capital dissipates.
On the narrow shoulders of Enda Kenny rests that most daunting of responsibilities in this battered society: the fulfilment of Hope. On the economy, on the environment and on equality he should be braver.

The Left: more ideas and more focus needed.

This edition we look at Ireland’s Left. We scrutinise  the Labour Party and find it a little short on radicalism. We also  look at alternative political movements – particularly on the left – and find them somewhat wanting in clarity of purpose.

More generally we also survey [ p80] Ireland’s currently-ubiquitous crisis-driven outpourings of ideas on Renewing the Republic, particularly those on RTE and in the Irish Times and find little inspiration there either (though at least they opened the discussion).

Perhaps Frank Callanan’s thesis [p44] that the country was mesmerised by Bertie Ahern is true.  Far too many Irish people became Economic and practical rather than idealistic or ideological.  We simply don’t have many good ideas. That, even more than the reality of the Economic Depression, posits subduing prospects for the future.

We interview three key Labour Party spokespersons.  They display competence,  shrewdness and an acute awareness of the public interest, if a pronounced weakness on the environment. However, their party has consistently failed to play to public anger and the appetite for change, often fudging and triangulating its policies.

While Éamon Gilmore, perhaps the country’s most talented politician, certainly provides leadership in the Dáil,   there is little sign Labour is leading the country towards a new humane ideology.  Joe Higgins [p6] describes Labour as “fundamentally dishonest about election campaigns”, since it is doomed to coalition and a watering down of the political premises that drive it.

Nevertheless, Niall Crowley’s interview [p22] suggests Gilmore is thoughtful and passionate about society and equality – even equality of outcome – though no doubt the prospects for this ultimately lie with the unimpressive and rightist Fine Gael which seems to have learnt little enough from our values crisis. Labour’s Finance Spokesperson, Joan Burton, gives a sparky interview [p26] and highlights Labour’s thoroughly circumspect attitude to the guarantees recklessly given to Anglo and Irish Nationwide – encapsulating the difference it makes to be driven by the public interest.  Indeed in general Labour probably reflects what most of the country believe in when they apply themselves.  This does not necessarily endear it to this magazine.

In short the Labour Party is neither as radical nor as fresh as it needs to be.

This all opens up a gap, into which hopes to jump a smorgasbord of fringe groups. We assess them in this issue [p47].  Richard Boyd Barrett [p13] offers the compelling analysis that the Left‘s “failings include being too divided and failing to communicate its message in a language that ordinary people can understand”.   But Village prefers Déirdre de Búrca’s perspective that there is a need for a new electoral party and not just a movement or an alliance.  In particular there will be a need to take on Fine Gael which, without a concerted new electoral movement, will take power – presumably  in coalition with a compromised Labour Party – and exercise it in a way that will be almost indistinguishable from the Fianna Fáil (or at best Fianna Fáil/Green) way. Many people believe the country deserves a citizens’ forum.  Village concurs but hopes that any consensus achieved should be used to animate a new political party.

Village believes renewing the republic would best evoke a tri-partite agenda   animated by equality, quality of life/sustainability (which – since the purpose is to pass our resources undiminished to our children – is equality between generations) and transparency. Bunreacht na hÉireann was driven by greater pariochalism and religiosity than is appropriate in a sophisticated and diverse society like Ireland’s today.  The constitution should be overhauled immediately: to reflect these tripartite principles.  Change might be expected to  entail removing the religious and ritualistic elements; guaranteeing equality of outcome (so account is taken of the structural disadvantages in some people’s lives); including commitments incrementally but swiftly to improve the Gini coefficient (which registers equality); promoting the rights of minorities and the vulnerable including women, sexual and ethnic minorities, children and the aged.  A new constitution would need to ensure that the exploitative and criminal are properly investigated no matter how great their resources; guarantee a right to a good and improving environment and that Ireland aims to the highest standards of planning and environmental protection; explicate rights to work, shelter and facilities, rights to equal access to first-class health services and education up to third level; attenuate the current rights of property and provide that land may be cumpulsorily purchased at current-use value and should be rezoned in the public interest by public  authorities rather than under pressure from vested interests.  Political parties should be funded only from the public purse, whistleblowers would be protected, the judiciary and the legal profession subject to scrutiny by independent assessors. We would also like to see government at a level so local (‘parish’ or ‘Community’) that elected representatives represent and are responsible to their own most immediate communities.  That tier of government should be supplemented by powerful directly-elected mayors in urban areas and a new level, of regional government. Elected members should take decisions in concert with cross-sectoral elected-stakeholder roundtables i.e. elected members’ decisions should be informed by the views of businesspeople, community activists, environmentalists, trades unions etc, as well as ther usual bureaucrats.  Balanced roundtables conduce to sustainable development and would preclude the  excesses of  régimes like the Dublin Docklands Authority and the zoning-profligate current local authorities. This preclusion would be reinforced by strict legal obligations on Community and regional authorities to implement a planning hierarchy at the apex of which would be national spatial strategy.

These precepts emanating from a new constitution could drive a comprehensive vision of society, implemented in multifarious ways. Other issues like Dáil expenses, an electoral list system, Seanad abolition and the length of a Presidency relate to the efficacy rather than purpose of the system. In the context of a new constitution they are of rather less concern to us.

The main opposition parties offer an agenda for change.  It is unlikely their agenda will transform society in the way public contempt for politicians would suggest is possible. It is time for a new departure.