Political World
Waiting game still going on for Labour despite Spring Tides and Gilmore Gales
Political World with Harry McGee
Eamon de Valera’s famous remark from the 1930s that ‘Labour Must Wait’ has remained part of the political vernacular to the present day – and the three words have been subjected to regular analysis over the years.
Dev is assumed to have meant that the conditions for socialism were not ripe in Ireland during the 1930s. But it is an altogether different proposition to say that the conditions would never exist for a government of the left in Ireland.
Still, some commentators have interpreted the comments on a wider canvas pointing to the lack of an industrial base, Ireland’s agrarian nature at the time – and, ergo, the lack of an identifiable socialist/capitalist divide in the country.
I’m not sure if Dev was soothsaying to that degree. How and ever, the question that the sentence begged was how long would Labour have to wait? In perpetuity? A century? Twenty years?
Well for some, the answer was about 80 years and the date on which that question was settled once and for all was February 2011 when Fianna Fáil got the order of the boot from the Irish electorate and Labour coasted to its best ever electoral performance.
That’s all very well, but the problem with such high tides is that they are often followed by a demoralising and inexorable ebb. More crucially, Labour’s 37 seats didn’t make it the leading party in Government but the foil to Fine Gael once again, albeit in a much stronger position than any previous smaller coalition party.
And besides, a little like Obama’s over-pitch to the American electorate in 2008, Labour was never going to live up to the vaunted rhetoric it pumped out in the run up to the election.
From the hubristic ‘Gilmore for Taoiseach’ to ‘Labour’s Way or Frankfurt’s Way’, there was an abundance of material to be disappointed about.
As a point of fact, after a very shaky start Labour has began to perform well in Government, given its comparative strength. Brendan Howlin has done very well to deliver the Haddington Road agreement (against considerable odds); Labour has been able to point to achievements on its social and equality agenda (the legislation to give effect to the X case) and it has managed to protect some services from considerable cuts that would Fine Gael would have imposed if it had been a single party government.
And indeed, even though none of its critics admit it, it hasn’t been all about Frankfurt’s way in the last year with Labour and Fine Gael some big concessions on Ireland’s banking and fiscal debt burden.
Besides, the unusual set-up of the Cabinet has equalised the respective strengths of both parties in Government.
The splitting of Finance into two as well as the Economic Management Council (the four-man star chamber of Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore, Howlin and Michael Noonan which runs the country) has given the party a say it never had before.
Sure, there’s something about it that dilutes and damages democracy – the concentration of so much power into the hands of so few in an atmosphere of secrecy.
We will dwell on that and go for a little diversion for a second because it’s important in the current debate on the Seanad.
Last week I said I saw little virtue in the Upper House’s retention. I still don’t. But that’s not to say the quality of democracy will magically improve in its absence. It won’t.
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.
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
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.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
