INSIDE POLITICS:Only a spirit of working for a common cause can get us through the current crisis, writes DEAGLÁN DE BREADÚN
FORMER BRITISH prime minister John Major relates an anecdote about sending a message to Boris Yeltsin during a time of great turmoil in Moscow in the early 1990s. He asked the Russian leader to describe, in a word, the situation in his country.
Yeltsin’s answer came back: “Good”.
His curiosity aroused, Major then asked how, in two words, Yeltsin would describe the scene. The answer came back: “Not good”.
There is no doubt that the latter description is the most appropriate to the current situation in Ireland. As an ambassador from another EU member state put it in a private conversation, “You flew higher than anyone else, and now you are falling the furthest.”
Exaggeration is an inbuilt feature of contemporary politics and media, but it is hard to overstate the scale of the crisis we are going through. All eyes now focus on the forthcoming budget on December 9th. The choices are stark. For once, the old cliches ring true. We really are living beyond our means. The figures can hardly be disputed.
We have been here before, but on a smaller scale. The crisis of the 1980s was eventually resolved by a combination of public spending cuts and social partnership.
We didn’t take the all-out Thatcherite route of our nearest neighbours. That is not the way you get things done in this country. This is a small place where everyone knows everyone else or their first cousin. Since the end of the Civil War era, our society has operated largely on the basis of consensus.
The wartime Emergency was a classic example. Looking back on it, one may have certain doubts about Irish neutrality during the second World War, but at the time it was seen as both a physical necessity and a morally respectable choice for a country with a very limited capacity to defend itself. Other countries in a similar position adopted the same approach, although unfortunately it did not save them all from invasion and conquest.
The political class and virtually the entire nation united during those dark and dangerous days. I recall an impressive photograph of an all-party rally outside the old parliament building in College Green. These thoughts are inspired by a very accurate impersonation of Éamon de Valera running on radio at the moment. The actor in the commercial has clearly been listening to Dev’s famous reply to Winston Churchill in defence of Irish neutrality. My late father told me how the streets of Dublin were deserted on the evening of May 16th, 1945, with not a tram running, as the entire population tuned in to their primitive radio receivers.
Although nowhere near as bad as in many other countries, the wartime years were harsh, yet we got through them. Political leadership was crucial, with bitter opponents making common cause for the good of all. The focus was on unity among political parties. Now the spotlight is on the “social partners”, principally the Government, employers and unions, who literally hold the fate of this society in their hands.
Just as families all over the country have to find ways through the current difficulties, so, too, must the national family find an appropriate framework in which everyone makes sacrifices for the common good. Current political leaders can only envy the kind of moral authority that the likes of de Valera could exercise. It all boiled down to one basic factor that is in short supply in political discourse nowadays: respect.
The decline in respect for politicians in our own time is to a large extent – though not entirely – their own fault. The continuing flood of revelations over travel and other expenses reflects a mentality that our political system could well do without.
There were distasteful and worrying aspects to the downfall of John O’Donoghue as ceann comhairle. It would not have hurt to give the man a bit of extra time to secure a proper hearing. As a political property, he was damaged beyond repair and would have had to vacate the chair sooner or later, but it was unedifying to see the holder of such a high constitutional position getting what amounted to the bum’s rush. The sight of the robe of office draped over the chair in the Dáil as it awaited the new Ceann Comhairle was a telling symbol of the fragility of democracy.
But if O’Donoghue’s departure was rough and ready, it was a salutary lesson to the political class in general to tighten their belts. The people are hurting, and they want their political leaders to be hurt too. The furore over HSE boss Brendan Drumm’s €70,000 bonus was in the same vein. Curiously, the same level of censure does not apply to broadcasters in the super-salary league: a tribute to the power of television, no doubt.
The Green convention last weekend is out of the way and the smaller party is, at least in rhetorical terms, signed up for a very tough budget. The Bill to set up the National Asset Management Agency has passed second stage and, for good or ill, Nama looks like being part of our lives for many years to come.
But even these important events could look like sideshows in the coming weeks. The spectre of industrial unrest looms large as the irresistible force of the public sector unions meets the immovable object of budgetary imperatives. We need the spirit of 1987 back again, even in this less-favourable climate.
It is not too much to say that the future of democracy as we have known it could be at stake. And as the aforementioned Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.
Stephen Collins is on leave