Political World
End of term brings contrasting report cards for country’s political leaders
It’s now official – we are into silly season. The Dáil is in recess until September and the politicians, if they have any sense, are abroad on holidays…with their mobile phones turned off.
So who has had a good political year? And who has had a bad political year?
We might as well start at the top this week, looking at the leaders and the wanabee leaders in each party.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has, in the round, done relatively well. He has at times being petulant and blasé in his remarks during leaders’ questions in the Dáil (but that is ultimately not of any great import). Some of his pronouncements seem a little glib and shallow, verging on jingoistic.
However, overall, he has performed well above expectations and shown real political acumen and the kind of steel that is a prerequisite of leadership.
He made a mess of his response to the Magdalen enquiry early in the year but recovered magnificently three weeks later with one of the best speeches he has given during his career. The emotional pitch of that speech, as well as the sense he was speaking for everybody, reflected the overriding public sentiments on that particular matter, though some considered it maudlin.
He also displayed the ruthlessness that’s another essential trait of a political leader (even Garret ‘the Good’ FitzGerald possessed it!) when he made good on his threat to remove the whip from any TD who voted against the abortion legislation.
The steeliness of Kenny was in marked contrast to his Fianna Fáil counterpart Micheál Martin. Although his political reputation is tainted by dint of the fact he was a Minister in the last few Fianna Fáil governments, his party has done well under his leadership, and he has also done well generally as leader.
However, Martin’s weakness as a leader was exposed during the abortion debate. Instead of imposing a whip, he took the easy option of allowing a free vote. It looked very bad for a party that was trying to present a modern image that the vast majority of its members in the Dáil and in the Seanad voted against its own leader.
It also looked bad for him. He has worked hard to negate his image as a Minister who dithered a bit and vacillated – commissioning reports rather than taking hard decisions. Since becoming Fianna Fáil leader he seemed to have confronted this perception very well – his disciplining of Eamon Ó Cuív over the fiscal treaty referendum was a case in point.
For Eamon Gilmore and Labour, after a dismal 2012 and a bad start to 2013 (a rake of defections from the parliamentary party and a disastrous by-election in Meath East, it has not turned out to be at all bad.
After a series of false starts and misfires, some of the policies identified with the party have finally materialised.
Sinn Fein has also been on a bit of a comeback trail in the past few months. The early advantage they enjoyed in the wake of the 2011 election seemed to have been eviscerated by a resurgent Fianna Fáil in the latter half of 2012 and the early stages of this year.
The view among elected representatives of other parties is that Gerry Adams just doesn’t cut it as leader in the Dáil and either misses the point or is out-manoeuvred by other leaders.
And yet Adams is a brand and has a purchase with the wider public that is sometimes not appreciated within the beltway.
For a complete report see this week’s Tribune here.
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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