Who can sate the appetite of Irish voters seeking change?

Political World with Harry McGee

Could this be the year that we finally see revolutions as well as resolutions in Irish politics?

A lot has happened already, with the Government already in the midst of its first crisis of the year – hospital overcrowding.

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar seems to have dealt with it relatively adequately – he tempered expectations by saying the trolley situation could be worse this week before getting better.

As it happens, the trolley numbers declined over the weekend, so anything better than the grim scenario predicted will be read as a win of sorts.

And then on the electoral front there’s been a lot of footsie going on between the non-aligned TDs as well as the smaller left-wing parties.

After ploughing his own furrow with a view to setting up a Clann na Talmhan type party or group, Michael Fitzmaurice quickly threw in the towel on that and declared he was throwing in his lot with Shane Ross.

The group already has about six or seven TDs signed up, from disparate political backgrounds.

But as yet it has not a single policy statement other than the declaration that it going to trade on the ‘independent’ brand – the most fashionable thing to be in politics these days.

It reminds you a little bit of the Pirandello play ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ – except you have six politicians in search of a policy.

It’s the same with Lucinda Creighton’s party – not only does the nascent entity have no name, it has no policies as yet.

The real test for those groupings will come when they formulate policy and core principles. The next trick after that will be to get the members to agree on it – it will be fun seeing how the likes of Shane Ross (a free market enthusiast) and former Workers’ Party member John Halligan can come to a happy compromise.

My own view is that it’s a job of work to get those alliances to work. The more rules they draw up, the more they look like a party. The more they look like a party the less attraction they have as independents.

The problem with keeping the alliance very loose is that nothing will get decided, as there won’t be a whip.

If the Government has to take a really harsh decision that will affect people’s livelihoods, will they all stand foursquare behind it? I doubt it.

There is a danger they will stand for everything. And then stand for nothing.

On the left, there are moves afoot to create a United Left Alliance mark two. What ULA mark one showed was that the far left can be a force if it presents a broad front. The problem with the ULA is that, almost from Day One, it was neither united nor an alliance.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.