Even Michael McDowell might be troubled by the scale of Labour's success in targeting every vulnerable group, writes VINCENT BROWNE
MICHAEL McDOWELL wants to put his “shoulder to the wheel” in this time of peril, according to this newspaper two days ago.
Although he seemed to hint some new political movement might again be required, one has to assume his ample shoulders would be put to the wheel of a party that represents everything he stood for in politics since he first stood successfully for election 25 years ago.
A party which most wants to carry on the tradition of targeting every vulnerable group in society, from single mothers, to the unemployed. A party eager for privatisations. A party eager for labour market “reforms” and “flexibility”. A party keen on signing up to a programme of economic and fiscal supervision indefinitely.
A party keen on an economic agenda that the ideological progenitors of the Progressive Democrats, Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Ronald Reagan, would approve of, to be imposed forever via this fiscal treaty, on which we are to vote.
Why the need for any new party when the Labour Party ticks all the hard right boxes? Yes, the party of James Connolly and Jim Larkin, now transmogrified with the aid of refugees from the Stalinist Workers Party!
Michael McDowell might be a little troubled by the scale of Labour’s achievement in targeting every vulnerable group for, after all, he can claim, while the PDs were in government social welfare payments increased hugely (in spite of that, to the credit of the PDs, inequality deepened to the extent that Ireland was one of the most unequal societies in the developed world). But just note the catalogue of what Labour in Government has done, with a little help from Fine Gael:
The top rate of VAT hiked from 21 per cent to 23 per cent, which impacted most on poorer people.
Child benefit for families with three and more children was cut by €19 a month for the third child and €17 a month for the fourth and further subsequent children – hitting the poorest families in the State.
The back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance was cut by €55 for children aged 12 or more and €50 for children aged between four and 11 – the eligibility age of this allowance was raised from two to four years.
The upper age limit of the youngest child for new claimants of the one-parent family payment is to be reduced to 12 and it will then be further reduced on a phased basis.
The fuel allowance payment is to be reduced by almost a fifth, in the context of a report by the Institute of Public Health which found that levels of fuel poverty on the island of Ireland remain “unacceptably high” and that these are responsible for “among the highest levels of excess winter mortality in Europe, with an estimated 2,800 excess deaths on the island in the winter months”.
The emasculation of the voluntary and community sector has been continued by Labour in Government, with a reduction in funding of 15 per cent by 2010 and a projected reduction of 35 per cent by the end of 2013.
The continuance of the deep cuts on health expenditure: €2.5 billion over three years, over 8,000 fewer staff resulting in closure of hospital wards and beds, leading to more public patients waiting longer for hospital treatment; poor, inadequate or non-existent community and primary care services; closure of public nursing homes; a 5 per cent cut to home helps; and cuts to the State subvention for prescription drugs.
All this done at a time when clear-cut evidence of social inequality has emerged via the CSO and evidence from the Revenue Commissioners (published in answer to a Dáil question from Labour TD, Robert Dowds that the highest earners have had a reduction in their effective tax rate in recent years).
It might be that Michael McDowell will find that Labour has veered further towards the hard right than he would wish to go, in which case he might think of rejoining Fine Gael.
There is also the option of opting for Sinn Féin, which is making leftish noises these times but, remember the elephantine pirouette it did in the 2007 election campaign, when it ditched the leftish stuff, in expectation of getting into government with Fianna Fáil?
But Labour is the realistic option right now and Michael McDowell need have no anxieties about the welcome he would get in the party. Only last week Pat Rabbitte was sighing in the Seanad about how much he missed him.