Chuckles rippled through the audience, though no one in the room was quite sure if Leo Varadkar was joking. The former taoiseach was the star speaker on the final day of the Centre for Justice and Law Reform’s summer school last Friday. The question he was asked was if it is embarrassing that Ireland depends on Britain to defend its territory. He answered, to paraphrase, that we need heightened security because we’re next door to Britain. “They should be paying us danger money,” he concluded.
No wonder London’s establishment never liked the man. “Why isn’t he called Murphy like the rest of them,” his counterpart, Boris Johnson, sneered. Unlike Johnson’s colourfully imaginative utterances, Varadkar’s were unvarnished, often blunt, sometimes politically toe-curdling. Listening to him plain-speak in the Law Society’s headquarters last week, the thought occurred that his departure from public life is a loss to Ireland. Many of us baulked at his prioritisation of “people who get up early” but at least we knew what he thought. In an age of craven world leaders too scared to tell the emperor in the Oval Office he has no clothes, guts are needed. Regardless of whether you love his world view or loathe it, Varadkar has guts to spare.
“Taoiseach sidesteps Varadkar criticism of US ambassador visit to McGregor pub – Tánaiste says decisions regarding actions of ambassador a matter for the US”. The headline in The Irish Times on Tuesday said it all. Neither Micheál Martin nor Simon Harris dared rebuke Uncle Sam. Their reticence will deepen the isolation felt by many sexual assault victims when Ed Walsh graced the pub owned by Conor McGregor, the professional fighter a High Court civil jury found to have assaulted Nikita Hand. It is an unconscionable dereliction of duty for the State’s leaders to fail to support victims in a climate of growing violence against women.
The usual arguments will be made that Government tact is necessary to protect jobs, foreign investment and Klondike-scale tax revenues – even at the cost of further traumatising victims. Besides, some may say, it’s easy for Varadkar to talk when there is no risk to him. But there is risk. He mostly earns his living in America as a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in Boston and as an adviser to the Washington-based PR outfit, Penta Group. He is constantly moving through American airports where anti-Maga comments in your phone can get you thrown out of the country.
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Martin is not a gutless man. He demonstrated courage in March when he publicly challenged Trump in the White House over his vicious slurs on Keir Starmer but when he returned to the Dáil the Opposition only harangued him for not challenging him enough. Discouragement to talk frankly is everywhere. Social media pile-ons, threats of physical violence to politicians and their families, and targeted killings of three British MPs in just 10 years are making it harder for elected representatives to say what they really think. When they do, the failure to acknowledge it places another brick in the wall of self-censorship.
In his memoir aptly entitled Speaking My Mind, Varadkar warns against “excessive caution” by politicians. “You might last longer, but you’ll achieve less,” he writes. Dissimulation, dissembling, obfuscation, waffle and flannel are the products of excessive caution. All those familiar cliches and verbal dodges that make us scream “will you answer the bloody question” at the radio, or make others switch off entirely from the democratic dialogue.
In every life, be it public or private, it is wise to pick one’s battles. How we pick them matters because it shows who we are. Despite siding with Ukraine, Ireland defended Aughinish Alumina, a major employer in the Shannon estuary, after the news broke that alumina it produces had entered Russia’s weapons supply chain. Since this newspaper exposed the scandal on March 24th, there has been the standard foot-dragging of waiting for an official report. Plain-speakers call it buying time. Meanwhile, according to UN statistics, Russia has killed more than 800 civilians in Ukraine and injured at least 2,300 other civilians since the story was reported.
Ireland sides with Palestine too, officially recognising the state and condemning Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and violent land-grabbing in the occupied territories. Yet the Central Bank of Ireland continues to facilitate the sale of Israeli bonds in the EU and the Government’s Bill banning trade with illegal settlements exempts the lucrative services sector. Ministers cite vague legal obstacles when everyone knows it’s really about keeping the tech giants happy in this country. When did we decide the exchequer must trump human rights every single time?
That is a question we ought to be debating. Europe’s renewed arms race and the Continent’s rising mortality rate from climate change make it an urgent imperative for Ireland to determine how it picks its battles. Are we going to go on ducking behind cliches to safeguard the economy or, when needs be, are we going to speak and act against injustices?
Another thought occurred while Varadkar was speaking at the Law Society. It is possible to disagree with aspects of his world view and still appreciate his analysis. His sort of smarts and guts should be harnessed for use to Ireland. Ditto Martin’s whenever he retires from the Dáil. Others’ too. Bertie Ahern’s dissection of the Brexit dilemma was manna from Drumcondra.
The Law Society audience chortled again – and, once again, it was unclear if he was joking – when Varadkar observed that half of America’s Nobel Prize winners have hailed from other countries because its universities imported “big brains”, but now Trump’s crackdowns on visas and universities’ funding are deterring the hiring of international academics. “That’s a great opportunity for us and our European universities,” he posited.
The irony is that he himself is dispensing the knowledge and experience he gained from running this country to students in an American university. As if to rub it in, he will be addressing tourists at the Great Wall of China on Monday.
Ireland’s historical brain drain is leaking from the very top.
