HEART BEAT:Our leaders don't comprehend the scale of our problems
JOE LOUIS said of one opponent before a big fight, “he can run but he can’t hide”. I feel a bit like the runner. It would be nice to write about inconsequential, pleasant subjects and pretend that our country is not in serious trouble. The problem is that those supposed to be proposing solutions to our woes, seem to be in a state of denial. Worse than that, at times it seems they do not comprehend the scale of our problems. Think about what has occupied the public mind in recent weeks and try to relate the events to our overriding problems.
First George Lee resigns from Dáil Éireann and party politics. I am at a loss as to what this means, other than he didn’t get what he wanted or felt he deserved. It’s a pity because he seemed an able man. Why didn’t he stick around and prove it? He should have known that you have to climb the tree; you don’t just get wafted to the top.
Next up we lose a government minister over an allegation about something called a “brottle”. No question but that the man had to go, our politics may be hard and uncompromising but there are limits.
Rather there should be limits. In this case it was extremely unedifying to see our leader and his colleagues attempt to defend the indefensible. Not that such a stance is new. Franklin D Roosevelt once said, “I know Somoza is a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” It’s hard to think that that was the same man who wrote at the beginning of the Great Depression in the US: “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” That was shortly before he pledged the New Deal that transformed America. I don’t see any new deal here, just a tired shuffle of the same old cards from the tired old players who have sat at the table far too long.
Next up was a double whammy from the Greens. First Senator de Búrca does a George Lee in the Senate. It was leaked that she was unhappy that a deal worked out between the Greens and Fianna Fáil, which would have given her a place in the cabinet of our new commissioner in Europe, had not been honoured. It was eloquently put that she, and by extension her party, had been “shafted” by the bad boys of Irish politics. Not so, cried the innocents; the commissioner, herself a totally independent individual, had no room for her. Please don’t ask from what “independent” stable she came.
Putting this at its most charitable, it was a case of patronage gone wrong. It had nothing to do with the welfare of the State. In the present climate of bitter anger it showed how far removed from the people these folk are. Jobs for the boys and girls as of old and to hell with the plebs; this episode was quite simply an outrage.
We weren’t finished yet. Junior Minister Trevor Sargent resigned over inappropriate representations made to gardaí on behalf of a constituent.
However, he put his hands up and went quietly.
So four of our lights went out, for one reason or another. The Americans would call such a conglomeration of misfortune a “clusterf***”. Indeed, it is an apt description and while it entertained us all, it diverted minds from the problems pressing from all sides and the pitiful lack of solutions.
The sorry saga of hangar six at Dublin airport was another example of inertia or worse. Michael O’Leary promised 500 high-worth jobs for Dublin in return for the facility. Aer Lingus, in the process of seeking 900 or so redundancies, refused to move from the facility, despite its apparent underuse. The Government backed the airline, citing a legal contract.
The Opposition raised this nonsensical decision in Dáil Éireann. Some of the exchanges are revealing. The Taoiseach said: “It may be news to Deputy Kenny that neither Government nor State bodies can act unlawfully”, and again, “If it is Deputy Kenny’s view that one can simply walk in and tear up contracts, then he should be prepared to take the consequences legally” etc, etc.
Perhaps the Taoiseach would be good enough to explain to my colleagues, the vilified hospital consultants, to the nurses, to the pharmacists and others that the principles of sanctity of contract did not apply to them, and that their contracts could be dishonoured with impunity. I don’t think you are aware of what you are doing Taoiseach, and that you are in touch any more. I would prescribe a long rest.