Political World
Shadow of scandal hangs over Dáil like dark cloud
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
A sense of low-level crisis is hanging over the Dáil like a Cumulus cloud. Maybe it’s the after-effects of Brexit but even this week’s positive Exchequer figures (tax revenues are running €720 million ahead of projections) have failed to temper that feeling that it might be 2008 and 2009 all over again.
What the Government didn’t need was a handful of other embarrassments hanging over it.
For one, there is the scandal of Console, which is getting worse by the day. Now on top of that another controversy over very generous non-disclosed executive pay has cropped up.
And again it affects a Section 38 Agency, this time the St John of God group. A total of over €1.6 million was paid to 14 executives in 2013. That payment was not disclosed to the HSE apparently on “professional advice”.
The optics are bad. It has echoes of the controversies from three years ago surrounding executive pay and conditions at the Central Remedial Clinic and Rehab.
It’s a reminder too that the Government has not come to grips with this issue. Coming hot on the heels of the Console scandal it has not been a good weekend for the Government in terms of its handling of governance in the charitable and so-called voluntary sectors.
Those images of the interim chief executive repossessing the top-of-the-range Mercedes and Audi that Paul Kelly and his wife were driving were really bad, really bad.
We have had a Charity Act in place since 2009 yet none of the provisions that give it real teeth (investigating financial irregularities and preventing dodgy fund-raising) have been commenced.
Frances Fitzgerald has now promised to fast-track the commencement of the Part 4 provisions to early September. That will give the regulator enough powers to go in and investigate charities like Console where there is dicky stuff going on.
If that wasn’t enough Mick Wallace’s private members Bill on abortion split the Cabinet with the Independent Alliance members insisting on a free vote. Enda Kenny was very adamant about collective Cabinet responsibility at last week’s meeting of Ministers, delivering a 40 minute lecture on the same topic.
There were only two possible outcomes to this. One was the Government breaks up. The second was an embarrassing climbdown from one side or the other. Shane Ross was defiant, even to the point of disagreeing with the Attorney General’s advice that the private members Bill was unconstitutional.
Then John Halligan tweeted to say he would be supporting the Bill.
This has the potential to bring this fragile coalition to its knees before it has even started to walk. There were signs earlier in the week that Fine Gael was going to take a hit on it, despite all the grandiose talk of collective responsibility.
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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