Continuing farce shows we need to reclaim our country now

Date Published: {J}

SO Joseph McNamara, the guy who pushed his cement truck up to the front gates of the Dáil, says he’s going to run in Galway West. Fair play to him, he’s determined to get in there one way or another.

Frank Fahey convened a meeting in the Clayton Hotel on Monday to discuss the country’s economic future. Does that not strike anyone else as incongruous? Lectures on economics from this government make about as much sense as lessons in skydiving from a dead giraffe. It was a party event, but it Fahey had expected a gathering of the remaining faithful he was in for a shock. A healthy contingent were there to discuss their own concept of contemporary economic theory, and where he could put it.

Unfortunately perhaps, one of the most vocal was the said Toxic Avenger. He laid into guest Padraig O’Ceidigh of Aer Arann, whom he accused of being a "Fianna Fáil puppet" (or according to one witness, a "Fianna Fáil f . . . wit"), and threatened to oust Fahey at the polls.

Now I’m really in favour of protesting candidates standing up and driving the party drones out of the next Dáil. People with real grievances should demonstrate that yes, they can do a better job than those idiots. But dammit, property developers are not exactly what I was hoping for. Anyway I’m thinking Fahey will be able to lose his seat perfectly well without help from McNamara or anyone, thanks.

So what else happened this week? Oh yes – the non-story of Cowen surviving an "attempted coup" or whatever they wish to spin it as. RTÉ’s reporters spent Wednesday morning asking leading FF TDs if they were being hypocritical, which is like asking a wall if it’s a wall.

You know what the answer is, you know you’re not going to get an answer, but you ask anyway. Really this is a huge waste of everybody’s time. Kremlinology is only interesting when it matters a damn who is in the Kremlin. This non-issue has occupied our national leadership for the last several days when really there are more pressing questions – like how soon can they please give us our country back? This is what happens when a party comes to consider itself the "natural party of government". Running the country becomes their second job; the real career is the constant internal jockeying for power. We must never again have a party that feels government is its by right. People like that come to think that they own you.

But now, some news of my own. Micros Cosmopolitan is becoming a blog. In the old money, that means you can read it on your computer or your phone or what have you. Yes, you can actually see it now in the Opinions section of the Tribune’s website (www.galwaynews.ie), but the blog will be updated far more frequently and have a huge amount of archive material stretching back – would you believe it – over fifteen years. And you’ll be able to comment too. So if this column has ever made you want to shout at me, now’s your chance!

The address: http://microcosmopolitan. wordpress.com