Political World
Moving the Euro constituency goalposts one more time – but who’ll notice the difference?
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
I’d say only a tiny percentage of the electorate in Galway could name the three MEPs for the North West constituency without any difficulty. I’ll go even further and I’d say that at least half my fellow political scribes in Leinster House would also have to think long and hard. And even after that mental struggle, I’d say about half of them would get it wrong.
The European Parliament is an institution that seems very distant from the lives of ordinary people in the West of Ireland and elsewhere. It’s a parliament, sure – a very big one with over 600 members – but it does not have much relevancy in people’s lives.
The first reason for that is that few people know what it does. And the second (more potent) reason is that its powers, albeit increased, are very limited, especially when compared with the European Commission with its executive Commissioners (including our own Maire Geoghegan Quinn) and with the Council of Ministers (the prime ministers of all the 29 EU countries).
So it’s Europe’s version of our Seanad, a talking shop that struggles to justify its existence.
And now here’s your starter for three – who are the MEPs for the Dublin constituency? The answer is at bottom of the column.
I know that sounds like a hard judgement as there are some very hard-working MEPs and some of the committees are effective. And yes, the parliament has acquired more power in recent weeks, but the relationship with the other two institutions remains very lopsided, a small satellite to two mega planets.
But for most of the general population, their only meaningful encounter with the parliament comes when its elections are held every five years.
And if you look at the way those election campaigns have been run, they have mostly been about just about everything else except the politics of Europe. A little analogous to the presidential elections, they have tended to be political beauty contests with more emphasis on image and style than substance.
That said, parties put a lot of emphasis on the elections, as they can give a psychological boost during the mid-term and also allow smaller parties a chance to acquire a national platform.
The Green Party had two MEPs for a long period even though its national figures were tiny. The Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins won a seat in the European Parliament in 2009, two years after losing his Dáil seat. The seat gave the party profile and funding at a time when its stock was low.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has announced that he will stand and if he wins a seat next year, it may give the same adrenalin shot to his party, after it reached rock bottom after the General Election two years ago.
Similarly, the European elections gave Fine Gael a massive fillip in 2004 and established a solid platform for the future, only two years after a disastrous General Election. It won five of the seats including getting two candidates (Avril Doyle and Mairead McGuinness) elected in the East constituency.
The expansion of the EU has meant that Ireland’s number of seats will be reduced to 11 for next year’s elections. The group which will recommend the changes will not be reporting until September (it’s very late, I know!) and the most likely outcome is the country will have three constituencies.
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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