Fall-out from election that turned politics on its head

World of Politics with Harry McGee  – harrymcgee@gmail.com

How many had heard of Louis O’Hara before last week? No disrespect to the post-grad NUIG student from Casla, near Athenry who is, I hear, a very credible person – but in political terms, he was a complete unknown. Until a month ago, anyone doing the arithmetic for Galway East would see one definite Fianna Fáil seat and one definite Fine Gael – which meant that the Independent seat, held by Seán Canney, would be the one that came under pressure.

And then we got the Sinn Féin surge – and a guy nobody had heard of got over 7,000 first preferences to almost turn political wisdom on its head.

Which sums up why this general election has been one of the most disruptive in the history of the State.

It’s more dramatic since 2011, when Fianna Fáil saw its support quartered from almost 80 to 20 and faced questions about its future.

But this has been more far-reaching. Back then, Fianna Fáíl was replaced by essentially a centrist government – comprised of Fine Gael and Labour – that did what it was told by the Troika (up to a point) and imposed some very tough medicine for a few years.

People have different perspective on the austerity years. But the truth of the matter is that it did take us out of the bailout and then delivered seven years of continuous growth that saw unemployment fall from a high of 15 per cent to below five per cent.

That said, the fruits of economic growth are always unevenly distributed. While the money was coming in, there were deeper problem and they were associated with underinvestment in housing over a long period of time, as well as health.

Health is like a cuckoo chick in a sparrow’s nest. It is always hungry and the sparrow – thinking it is its own – drives itself to exhaustion trying to feed its inexhaustible appetite.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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