Political World
Kenny’s State of the Nation allows him seven minutes of airtime without being interrupted
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
A quiz to be held in about a month’s time.
Question One: Where were you when 9/11 happened?
Question Two: Where were you when you heard Nelson Mandela had passed away?
Question Three: Where were you when Galway won that fateful All-Ireland in 1980?
Question Four: Where were you when Enda Kenny made his State of the Nation speech marking the moment when Ireland exited the bailout?
The chances are, when asked those posers sometime in early 2014, you will be able to make a fair attempt at the first three. But mark my words, if you are not stumped by the fourth one, they are going to need crowbars to lever and prise that political anorak off you.
Yep, Enda’s seven minutes of intonement to the nation isn’t going to live long in the memory banks – the best that can be said about it is that it wasn’t as awful as the last ‘State of the Nation’ speech he made in 2011.
That one was made before the Budget and was a naked party political broadcast for Fine Gael and the Government, letting rip at the Fianna Fáil led Government and telling everybody how brilliant the Coalition was.
Even back then he admitted it wasn’t going to be easy. But unforgivably he used the opportunity to float for the millionth time that cringe-inducing cliché of his that he wanted Ireland to become the best small country in the world to do business in by 2016.
The message last Sunday night was that he wanted to become the best little government in the world to vote for in 2016.
Usually, ‘State of the Nation’ addresses are reserved for times of national emergency. In fact, the Broadcasting Act gives the Taoiseach of the day an automatic right to make a ‘State of the Nation’ address to the Irish people on national television, but only in the case of a national emergency.
The two most memorable examples are Jack Lynch’s address in 1969 when it looked like there was going to be a pogrom of entire Catholic communities in the North. With a huge upsurge in violence directed at Catholic communities seemingly imminent, he told the Irish people that the Government would not stand by.
Eleven years later, Charles Haughey had just succeeded Lynch as taoiseach and it became quickly clear to him that the economic policies set out in Fianna Fáil’s expansionist 1977 manifesto were not working and the economy was heading for a shock.
He took to the airwaves in early 1980 to inform the nation with a funereal voice that “we as a people are living way beyond our means”.
The address was dramatic and would have been remembered in any instance. What made it doubly memorable were the revelations that followed 15 years later about the massively extravagant lifestyle Haughey himself was living at the time. The phrase ‘living way beyond our means’ might have been invented for him.
In fact, there were two other such ‘State of the Nation’ broadcasts. Both of them were made by Garrett FitzGerald during the 1980s but were very political in tone and focused on economic issues. Both have fallen into obscurity since, as Kenny’s two less than memorable efforts have.
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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