The Irish election

 

The anger is general

 

Bill Heaney

 

Photograph by Bill Heaney

 

Just three months ago at a crossroads near the house where I am on holiday in the remote Atlantic seaboard village of Kincasslagh, huge posters bearing flattering images of all the candidates for a by-election in Donegal South West stared out at the storm-tossed Atlantic.
     The occasion was a by-election which Fianna Fail, the ruling party of government in Ireland, could have seen far enough and wanted to avoid so badly that they had to be hauled into the High Court in Dublin where a judge insisted they issue the writ to allow voters to have their say.
     Beleaguered by the financial crisis that has now engulfed the republic, Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny) had been dragging their feet for 18 months since their own man quit, not wanting to lose the seat or to be on the receiving end of unchallengeable evidence of the opprobrium in which they are now held by the incandescent electorate.
     The toxic government, held in place only by a shaky coalition, finally quit last month unable to hold back the clamour for their departure after having presided over the collapse of the nation's economy and having brought the country to its knees. Taoiseach Brian Cowen resigned from politics altogether, even after having won an unprecedented vote of confidence in himself in parliament.
     Cowen cut a sad, shambling figure this week, head downcast, collar up against the rain, out canvassing for his brother to whom he has bequeathed his Co Offally seat. Cowen, who earned more than Barack Obama while in office, steps into retirement and a bitterly criticised pension of €150,000 a year. Such is the hubris amongst politicians here in Ireland that they continue to believe in political dynasties and that parliamentary seats should be passed around as a right within families.

 

     The person who took the government to court was Glasgow-born Pearse Doherty, a 33-year-old candidate from Gaelic-speaking Gweedore and the political party which backed him was Sinn Fein, the party of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Sinn Fein, of course, grew out of the Provisional IRA and they now operate a political power-sharing arrangement in Ireland's other parliament at Stormont in Belfast. They are pledged to make significant and serious political inroads in Dublin in their quest for their ultimate aim, a united Ireland.
     Doherty, who was virtually unknown outside Donegal, where most families have a connection with Scotland – their forebears worked mainly as seasonal tattie howkers and railway and building site navvies – not only won the court case. He also won the by-election by a large majority. And in the 12 short weeks since he was elected to Dail Eireann, his world has changed, changed utterly.
     It is generally held here that Pearse Doherty is a shoo-in for Sinn Fein at the general election, which takes place on 25 February. The signs are that there is no need – thus far at least – for party workers to have to brave the bitingly cold winds, driving sleet and salty spray from the sometimes 20-foot waves currently breaking along the rocky Donegal shores in order to put back the posters they so recently took down.
     The opposition parties appear to be discouraged to the extent that they have already accepted defeat here. There is only one opposition poster on our scenic road, which runs along the fringe of the Atlantic, whereas in November posters proliferated.
     The single poster, nailed to a telegraph pole in the garden of the house next door, is for Fianna Fail's candidate, who came in a poor second in the November by-election. Not only is he thought to have no chance of winning, his running mate, the highly experienced Mary Coughlan, a party high flyer, is widely believed to be in danger of losing out in this three-seater constituency. This would leave local Fianna Fail, who have ruled the roost here since the Irish state was founded, without representation in Dublin.
     While others are reeling from the onslaught of invective against the politicians and bankers who took Ireland to a place teetering on the economic abyss, Pearse Doherty has been catapulted into the political spotlight. Columnist John Drennan in Ireland's Sunday Independent has him down as Sinn Fein's 'pin-up boy'. And Kathy Sheridan in the Irish Times reports that Doherty is Gerry Adams' 'go-to-guy' on economic matters. She claims that Adams is 'only unflappable as long as he has Pearse by his side'.
     The bearded Adams has, of course, given up his Westminster seat to stand for the Irish parliament in the border constituency of Louth, where the main town is Dundalk, which was known as El Paso during the Troubles of the 70s because of the large number of terrorist gunmen who passed through it. He is widely tipped to win.
     The Irish public and journalists with a colourful turn of phrase are already calling the Doherty-Adams relationship the Pearse and Gerry Show. Sheridan, who was at the media conference to launch Sinn Fein's 40-page manifesto, described Doherty as 'the new fair-haired boy with the fabulously free-flowing Gailge'. He is said to be so well got with Adams, who is currently using Gearoid, the Gaelic version of his first name, that, where others defer to their leader, he 'simply calls him Gerry'.

 

     The young father of two, who lived in Glasgow until he was three years old, is said to be 'settling very nicely into his new role as Gerry's economics go-to-man. The boss's exhalation of relief is almost audible when someone asks why Sinn Fein thinks it's fine to burn the bondholders or kill off NAMA, the National Asset Management Agency, as he can pass the baton to whip-smart, serious Pearse'. Sheridan says Doherty knows 'which end of the balance sheet is up, thus freeing his leader up to be leaderly, to smile and charm, to emote and fulminate, and occasionally expound on economic policy in pleasingly broad-brush fashion'.
     Sheridan adds that while middle-earning, middle-class voters might see Sinn Fein as a bunch of working class left-wingers who only take home the average industrial wage – which in fairness they do, giving the rest to their party – Doherty and his colleagues are out to convince them that they really do know their stuff. And that they are the party to rescue Ireland from the financial maelstrom in which it now finds itself rapidly drowning. If it really is 'the economy stupid' then Sinn Fein are putting it about that they are the cutting edge, street smart experts in that department.
     However, while Doherty is setting the heather on fire around the slopes of Mount Errigal, there is deep scepticism in urban Dublin about the policies outlined in Sinn Fein's 40-page manifesto. Despite the fact that people in Donegal have lost their jobs and that lobster fishermen have been forced to forego serious income through being kept in port by horrendous winter weather, I am told they will stand over their by-election decision and vote Doherty again.
     The conversation over pints of Guinness in Beedi's Bar in Main Street, Dungloe, where business has been quiet since Christmas, is that yet another hotel, this time in the nearby fishing port of Killybegs, has gone bust and that the receivers have been callecd in to three businesses in the little town of Ardara – 'People are genuinely frightened of what is coming next', one woman told me.
     One of Sinn Fein’s major manifesto pledges is to 'burn the bondholders' – the investors in those insolvent banks whose money was rashly guaranteed by the government. They want to see them take a percentage rate haircut like everyone else.
     Like Labour in the UK, Sinn Fein want to close the deficit over six years, not four, and for a €7 billion job creation programme to be created from the National Pension Reserve Fund. They promise a 1% income-linked wealth tax on assets over €1 million in value and a third tax rate of 48% on individual incomes in excess of €100,000 per annum. They also want the minimum wage to be retained a €8.65 an hour, restore social welfare and child benefits to last year's levels and implement a 'mortgage debt forgiveness' for those on low and average incomes in danger of losing their homes. Sinn Fein would cap ministerial salaries at €100,000 and TDs (MPs) salaries at €75,000. So it's not hard to see why hard-pressed citizens in Donegal would stand by them.
     But while Sinn Fein's policies will go down well on most Donegal doorsteps, they are unrealistic and unsustainable, according to the eminent political analyst Declan De Breadun. He says the establishment would throw up its hands in horror at the sanctions on bondholders and that opponents would see as madness Doherty's plan to have no further drawing down of the recently negotiated IMF-EU loan, which has been the catalyst for this general election. Ireland would be shunned internationally if these things were implemented.
     Meanwhile, commentators are preparing to burn Sinn Fein at the same stake as the rest of the politicians and their parties. Feelings are running high. All the politicians are accused by author Gene Kerrigan of drawing up their manifestos with the sole purpose of getting themselves re-elected. When the election is over, he adds, the manifesto can be 'burned along with the rest of the junk… and the voters will be blamed for not giving the winning party enough seats to enable them to achieve more'.

 

     John-Paul McCarthy, who holds a doctorate in Irish history from Oxford, has written of the irony attached to Gerry Adams running as a 'people's champion'. He says: 'Many elements of this particular scene jar, not the least of which is the Provisional Sinn Fein economic analysis, based as it is on antique welfarist thinking'. Adams's 'supposed solidarity with the working man reeks of hypocrisy', he adds, as he 'poses as a gentle Samaritan who has come to a town near you to squeeze the bankers and the ECB securocrat-types until the pips squeak'. Dr McCarthy has reminded the Irish electorate that 'Adams and Co killed almost 60% of the recorded victims in Northern Ireland and that included over 70 children'.
     So the knives are out, if not the guns. Where does Ireland go from here? Irish businessman Dermot Desmond, whose portfolio includes a major shareholding in Glasgow Celtic Football Club, much loved in Donegal, appears to have survived the country’s economic storm and has just written an 11,000-word report entitled 'Ireland First: Political Reform – Effective and Efficient Government'. In it, amongst many other things, he calls for reform of the electoral system of PR-STV (proportional representation – single transferable vote), which is widely blamed for the localist and clientelist focus of many Irish TDs (MPs), which has led to a number of tribunals exposing graft and corruption at the highest levels of government.
     Desmond says there is little evidence that moving to a mixed member system, as advanced by many reformers, will make much difference. He advances alternative reforms which could include non-geographic constituencies and the creation of an electoral commission. Other radical suggestions are that ministers should not be constituency representatives and that they should not depend on support from within their constituencies for promotion. Also that non-parliamentarians should be allowed to become ministers; the size of the cabinet should be reduced to just 10; the speaker should be elected by secret ballot, and all senior public and judicial appointments should be approved by government committees. Desmond also recommends the abolition of the second chamber Senate.
     Meanwhile, the waves continue to crash along the Donegal shore and to paraphrase James Joyce, rain is general all over Ireland. Snow is forecast to fall soon on Errigal, the country's highest mountain, and this is no longer the country where W B Yeats said peace comes dropping slowly. Anger is everywhere and bankers and politicians are rightly taking the brunt of it.

 

Bill Heaney is a Scottish journalist