Political World
Time runs out in the shadow of Clery’s famous old clock
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
The closure of Clery’s Department story last Friday was brutal; the manner in which the workers were informed, told to gather their personal belongings and then shown the door was callous and clinical and just awful.
And the reaction to it has been a little odd to watch. Those who immediately reacted in the political sphere were those who had fingers closes to the pulse – local politicians like Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald and Labour’s Joe Costello, with Fianna Fáil’s Dara Calleary the first of the national spokespeople on jobs to protest.
“The workers were given just 30 minutes notice that the store was to close and they were to lose their jobs. This is an appalling way to treat workers, some of whom had been working at Clery’s for many decades,” said Costello.
It took Fine Gael a few days to get its act together. The party tends to be a bit more cold-blooded about job losses than other parties.
It does hold the Job and Enterprise portfolio in Government and its Minister Richard Bruton is an economist. He probably has the view that in any functioning economy – even one that is doing relatively well – such eventualities are inevitable.
In the past, Bruton’s bedside manner has been a little wanting when crippling job losses have been announced. He’s just not great at it – maybe it’s not in his manner.
Like his colleagues in Fine Gael, it took him a while to react. At least this time, his language was correct – railing at the cruel and inappropriate manner of the closure.
It’s a very sad day for Dublin and the rest of the country to see an institution, which has been at heart of Irish life for a century and a half, go under like that. It’s not just the tradition of meeting under Clery’s clock. It is the grand department store which acted as a magnet for generations.
It goes to prove the old adage that nothing in this life is certain other than death and taxes. Time moves on and the habits of people change.
Clery’s grew up in a period where instant transport options were not available and out-of-town retail centres didn’t exist. Those changes were inevitably going to affect its business and they did.
In the past three decades, the profile O’Connell Street has changed from being primarily a shopping street. Like Arnott’s (which also had its problems) and Brown Thomas Clery’s was forced to change its model.
What was interesting was that only 130 of the 460 jobs in the store were actually Clery’s staff. The rest were employed by the clothing and goods companies who had concessions to sell their brands in the store.
There were difficulties too with access. Unlike Arnott’s and Brown Thomas, Clery’s did not have its own dedicated car park.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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