Different faces, same politics

IT was another disappointing week in Irish politics for all those who believed a new dawn had broken after the last general election.

There are thousands of young people all over the State who thought that by electing TDs like Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan in Roscommon-South Leitrim, Mick Wallace in Wexford and other candidates, they would be sending out a message that the young people of Ireland were no longer going to tolerate the old ways that passed for politics in this country for decades. Corruption, cronyism and hypocrisy were to be consigned to the pages of history.
Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, in particular, seemed to represent that new order. He was totally different to the deputies of all parties who had represented the people of this very rural constituency of Roscommon along with South Leitrim in the past. He dressed differently and he spoke out in favour of ideas and practices that his predecessors would have roundly condemned. His anti-establishment stand on a lot of issues endeared him to young people all over the country.
Now he has let them down. Over the past few months, he had been to the forefront in criticising gardaí for quashing penalty points imposed on certain favoured people, only to have it revealed in recent weeks that he had penalty points quashed himself.
I don’t have to call Deputy Flanagan corrupt. He has said so himself. On local radio, he admitted to being corrupt over the quashing of penalty points for using a mobile phone while driving on two occasions.
“On the issue of the penalty points, it was corrupt what I did,” he humbly admitted. But his admission came only after he was found out and after he had lied about the matter.
We have had corrupt politicians before and we will probably have them again. And politicians often feel that if they want to remain in politics, they must tell lies. Not all politicians are by any means corrupt liars but we have come to accept and tolerate them and often we put them at the top of the poll. It seems to be ok to tell a lie but it is not ok to be found out.
Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan is also a hypocrite. Speaking in the Dáil, he painted himself as a knight in shining armour, going into battle on his white charger against all the old evils that still exist in Irish politics.
“I want to expose a rotten culture of cronyism and backslapping within politics and the gardaí, he declared. “Not only is there a cohort of gardaí who are going around asking people do they want points cancelled but it appears there is a franchise system going on whereby if you are close with a senior garda, then you can have those offences quashed,” he added.
How can Deputy Flanagan remain a member of the Dáil after that? How can he speak out against corruption and cronyism again? Who can believe anything he says in future? This is a man who was elected to take on the establishment and everything that is rotten about politics in Ireland. However, he has shown himself to be as bad as, if not worse than, those he was elected to replace.
Of course, his answer might well be that you could say the same about Fine Gael and Labour. They have shown themselves to be as bad as, if not worse than, Fianna Fáil. They told lies too. They promised us they were going to be completely different to Fianna Fáil. They were going to take on the banks and burn the bondholders. They were going to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in Irish society. They would ensure that people would be selected on State boards on their merits and not because they were party hacks. Like ‘Ming’ Flanagan, they were going to root out corruption and cronyism.
So why should we single out Deputy Flanagan and Mick Wallace and some other Independent deputies as TDs who should resign their seats following their disgrace? I suppose it is because we expected something different from people like Flanagan and Wallace. A lot of people expected something different also from Fine Gael and Labour. At least enough people did to give them a record majority of seats at the last general election.
Now, too late, these people realise Fine Gael and Labour are no different to the crowd that was there before them. No more than Flanagan and Wallace were different to the Fianna Fáil TDs that were there before them in Roscommon-South Leitrim and in Wexford.
And what are we going to do at the next general election? Going on the latest opinion polls, it looks as if we are going to go back to Fianna Fáil once again and we are going to ask them to lead us once more. All is forgiven or we have very short memories.
The antics of people like Deputy Flanagan and of the political parties have turned people against politicians in general in Ireland.
The latest Millward Brown Opinion Poll published in The Sunday Independent last Sunday showed that only small minorities would support any kind of combination of coalitions between any of the parties in the Dáil. While Micheál Martin was shown as the most popular of the party leaders, there were more people dissatisfied with him than were satisfied – 47% against 36%. However, there were fewer dissatisfied with Martin than with any of the other party leaders. 
Meanwhile, I think Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan should keep the head down and the mouth shut for the foreseeable future.