Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 12/03/2008

Henry Kissinger, America’s National Security Advisor during Nixon’s presidency, once remarked that “ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation”. Surveying the Irish political landscape today you’d be hard pressed to disagree with that assessment. We’ve got tribunals coming out of our ears, accusations of corruption flying left, right and centre, a government that nobody really trusts, and an opposition that’s basically woeful.

Did our esteemed government win the last election on the merits of their own policies? Did they cruise back into power, perhaps, on the back of public confidence in their performance? Or did they endure purely and simply because the electorate baulked at voting for even more unpalatable alternatives?

The competent politician appears to be an endangered species in Irealand today. Try picking one out the next time you catch a glimpse of the sparsely populated Dail Eireann on the telly. It’s a task that seems to be much harder than it should be, given that these are the people we’ve selected to represent our best interests at the very pinnacle of public office. Isn’t that disturbing?

So you have Bertie, Brian and Co. sitting pretty, knowing that they don’t really have to excel to retain their primacy. All they need to do is perpetuate the general perception that they’re a wee bit better than the alternative “team” across the floor of the Dail. Let’s face it, that’s hardly a tall order at present, is it? Continue reading »