Writing for life

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?

We took the girls swimming the other day. Our nearest public swimming pool is in Dunmanway. It’s the only public pool within striking distance for the population of a huge area in West Cork, and while it’s an excellent facility it’s sorely in need of a bit of modernisation. But what I find absolutely amazing is that this is the only public swimming pool available for such a vast tract of the county.Why isn’t there a pool in Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen or Bantry? Apparently, it’s because there’s no money. It’s the same story in the city: councillors and locals have been campaigning to get the public pool in Douglas renovated for years, but the City Council says it’s strapped for cash, and Central Government are less than forthcoming with the funds.

No doubt I’m missing some of the subtle intricacies of public sector funding here… but the “no money” argument is a bit hard to swallow when you look at some of the bottomless money pits the government continues to throw our hard earned tax-euros into.

The ongoing saga of the Mahon Tribunal as it investigates planning corruption is just one in a long line of examples. The sums being investigated are laughably insignificant compared to the amount of money being pumped in to the tribunal itself. An IR£15,000 payment here, an IR£20,000 sweetener there, and of course the fate of Bertie’s infamous IR£38,000, which is the tribunal’s current focus. Yes, these corrupt payments, which happened years, even decades ago, were wrong, yes it’s a terribly indictment of the politicians involved… but do people really care? Is this really the most beneficial way to spend public money, when so many things in this country, things that would make a tangible difference to people’s everyday lives, are crying out for government investment?

Up to October of last year the Mahon Tribunal had cost the Irish tax payer a far from paltry €65 million. Estimates for the final bill range from €300 million to a staggering €1 billion, depending on who you believe. That, my friends, would build an awful lot of public swimming pools!

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