The race hasn’t quite started yet, but the show ponies and the jackasses are getting ready to line up and start the sprint to the finishing post that is 83 Dáil seats come March 11. This of course means that houses up and down the country will soon face the tapping of door knockers and ringing of bells as candidates of all parties and none come looking for votes (or at least a chance to explain themselves) of an electorate which has been baying for the chance to go to the polls.
One benefit of the horrible mess we find ourselves in is that we are now a nation of more politically aware people, a fact which politicians will ignore at their peril. The lack of interest held by much of the electorate in the last two or three general elections has been replaced by a wave of anger and a demand for information as to what any new government will do to make things better.
I, for one, am planning on having lengthy chats with any candidate who comes looking for my support. The following are the issues I’d like candidates to address.
1. How do you intend to create new jobs in this country? This is probably the most important question, relating as it does to fixing the economy by increasing tax revenue and reducing social welfare payments. The next Dáil will have to focus on ways of making Ireland more competitive against its rivals, and invest in the new green industries.
2. What do you intend to do regarding ministerial and TD pensions, and the bonuses paid to state employees, including the leaders of the banks we now own? Let’s face it, reducing the amount of money TDs and ministers make is always a popular issue with the voters, but the nonsense of the last few weeks justifies it. Some thirty TDs retiring (so far), including half a dozen ministers, with the majority looking forward to getting huge pensions, set at 2008 rates, unaltered by any pay cuts TDs agreed to take in the last two years. The excuse that people are stepping down to “allow the next generation take charge” not only smacks of a generation refusing to take responsibility for the mess they created, but of a group willing to get very generous pensions without offering to help fix the problems they’ve left for the next generation of leaders.
As for bank bonuses, I doubt I’m alone in the anger I felt when I heard that AIB were willing to pay €40 million in bonuses to its staff, fearing legal action were it not to, despite the fact that it effectively had to be nationalised with taxpayer money to cover the bad debts it, and other banks, willingly loaned out in the good times. If we own the banks, then employees in them should not get rewarded for costing us more money.
3. Are you eager to look for a better deal from the EU and the IMF, and what makes you think you’ll get a better deal? Yes, the interest rate appears high, but it’s lower than what Ireland would have to pay on the open markets. Given that a lot of talk has come from some opposition parties looking to renegotiate the deal (a move which might get support from the other weak eurozone countries, especially Greece and Portugal, but would get short shrift from the big players, France and Germany), how will a new government get a better deal for Ireland?
4. What are your policies on equal rights for the LGBT community? Settle for the Civil Partnership Act, or introduce legislation allowing equal access to marriage and adoption? Will legislation be introduced recognising sex changes? Any LGBT legislation would have no effect on me, but placing limitations on how citizens can interact in their state, when heterosexual couples have extra freedoms and rights, is an appalling injustice which should be remedied.
5. Have you plans for political reform? The Seanad has become a big topic in the last two months, with parties across the divide giving varying sounds of approval to abolishing the second house. I feel too much focus has been placed on closing the Seanad, without looking at any reform in the Dáil or in local authorities. The cynic in me feels that Dáil deputies are looking for a sacrificial lamb to slaughter, taking the pressure off the main chamber to sort itself out.
If the problem is that the Seanad is little more than a talking shop, why not give it more powers? Similarly, make local authorities more powerful by letting them deal with more local issues, the issues one would assume county and city councillors were elected to deal with in the first place. Localism will continue in the Dáil if TDs have to placate their electorate by looking after the potholes, whether there’s one national chamber or two.
6. Are you willing to change the way candidates for the Presidency of Ireland are nominated? Granted, this isn’t a major issue for many, but it could be a source of grief for any new government next autumn. Under the status quo, prospective presidential candidates need support from at least twenty members of the Oireachtas or from at least four local authorities, one-term incumbent or former presidents excepted. This is a system which effectively guarantees candidacies for people supported by the major parties, and makes life difficult for anyone running independently or for smaller parties.
The single most popular prospective candidate is Senator David Norris, who probably would not seek a party nomination anyway, but would need to court local authorities for support. The problem arises that if local authorities refuse to support him, the most popular candidate would be unable to enter the contest.
In the interest of fairness for candidates outside of the big parties, a referendum to change Article 12 of the Constitution should be considered before the election next October; perhaps introducing an additional qualification, say allowing someone to enter were they to have a petition supported a significant number of the electorate.
These are some of the issues I want to see tackled early in the next Dáil. I’m sure everyone has different issues, ranked differently. But the key aim of this piece is to get minds thinking; what is it that we, as citizens of this country, want from our government and our public representatives? Never mind what parties and candidates say they want to do for us, what do we demand of them? Perhaps a few more questions from an angry public might get a few more honest answers when our preferences are on the line.
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