Political World
Lucinda gets political new year off to a flying start
World of Politics with Harry McGee
It goes without saying that 2015 is going to be a fascinating year in Irish politics. Already – and the New Year hardly a wet week old – we have already had two portents of things to come.
The first is Lucinda Creighton’s pre-announcement of a new political party. The press conference last week was like a trailer for a movie… ‘Coming to a Polling Booth near you, a new Political Party’.
Lucinda and a cast of minor characters set off on a dangerous mission to win at least 14 seats in the next Dáil. The obstacles are immense: no money; no policies; and no name.
And then at the weekend Enda Kenny and Joan Burton set out their stalls. Each said this year would be different; that the Government would retake the initiative, that an improving economy would benefit the squeezed middle; that there would be cuts in income tax and the hated Universal Social Charge.
So far, so good.
But within nanoseconds of those statements being made the Government faced its first crisis of the year. And it wasn’t a small one or one that hit the Coalition by happenstance or through sheer bad luck.
Acute hospitals always feel the squeeze around the New Year and this was foreseeable. Indeed the new Minister for Health Leo Varadkar had warned about it in December.
But sometimes even when you batten down the hatches you can’t match the hurricane. The crisis when it came was the worst we have seen in a terribly long time in Irish politics – and the trolley and bed shortage issue has been around for 20 years.
The €28 million extra (€25m in the estimates and a further €3m for the end of 2014) was clearly inadequate.
So if they knew about the gathering storm, why did they not act precipitately? Well the problem is a structural one. One of the difficulties is the lack of step-down beds for those (mainly elderly) people who should no longer be in an acute hospital. Put simple, there’s no place for them to go, especially if they are not quite well enough to go home. The Fair Deal scheme is capped which means very hefty supplements out of people’s income (which means that people can’t afford nursing home or home care). Also continuing cutbacks in the health services has reduced the availability of non-hospital residential beds for those who are convalescing.
“It’s not about just throwing money at it. It’s a massively complicated issue,” an insider told me this week. “You need to look for a permanent solution. And that will involve a number of things including providing more beds and perhaps raising, or removing, the cap from Fair Deal.
A taste of things to come?
Well, yes. There’s definitely going to be a lot of topsy-turvy turbulence in the political waters during 2015, as two different currents fight against each other.
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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