Forget about the empty promises

Have our politicians who hope to lead us into the future learned nothing at all? They are still making the kind of promises that got us into the trouble we are in, promises they have no hope of fulfilling.

Sure, some of them are talking about more pain but they are talking about pain in a general sense and to listen to them you would think they were talking about pain that will not affect you or me but will hit some powerful interests in the banks and some fat cats in the public service that we see only in cartoons.
They are all talking about creating thousands of new jobs while some of them talk about taking the axe to thousands of other jobs in the public sector. No problem. Wave a magic wand and it will all happen.
Many of the parties can, of course, promise all they like but they are not going to be in power and their promises are totally irrelevant. And Fianna Fáil can always be asked why they didn’t do these things during all their years in government. The only two parties who have a good or reasonable hope of forming the next government, Fine Gael and Labour, should be careful about what they promise as they will be called to account later. Anyway, their promises should be also be ignored as they will not have any goodies for us to enjoy. There is no money in the kitty and our masters in Europe and in the IMF wouldn’t let them anyway.
Have they all forgotten that it was over-spending on ourselves that left us dependent on the financial institutions in Frankfurt and elsewhere? The reason they charge us such high interest rates is because those foreign bankers question our ability to repay.
It was Fianna Fáil that landed us in the economic mess that we are in because Fianna Fáil was the party in power over the last 13 years or so. So they have to carry the can. They are the scapegoats we all need to blame for our profligacy during the Celtic Tiger years. The buck stops with them and they are going to suffer the consequences in this election.
However, we would be in the same economic mess no matter which party was in power. Go back over budget speeches made by Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin speakers over the past number of years and you will find that while some of them might have condemned in general terms the extent of public spending, when it came to the detail they actually wanted the Government to spend more. I cannot find one politician who said we should not be spending as much as we are or were on old-age pensions. I never heard any of them saying unemployment benefits should be reduced in line with richer countries in Europe.
Of course it was easy to spend when the money was flowing into the State coffers. But when the economy was on the verge of collapse and the cupboard was emptying, there was nobody among the politicians to shout stop.
We knew in 2007 that the economy was heading for the rocks but that didn’t stop the politicians in that year’s election campaign from promising that by now old-age pensioners would be getting €300 a week.
People should bear in mind before polling day that party promises have only one aim and that is to win as many votes as possible for the party and that when the election is over those promises will be forgotten about if it suits the party to forget about them.
Winning the election or as many seats as possible is the name of the game at this stage. Saving the country is secondary to that aim and that is the situation with all the parties from the socialist parties right through Sinn Féin, the Greens, Labour, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Certainly, they all want to save the country but they cannot do that unless they get into power first and they cannot get into power unless they get enough votes. They cannot get enough votes unless they make promises they cannot fulfill and they cannot fulfill those promises because to do so would destroy the country.
That’s the vicious circle that has devastated this country. So when the election is over, Fine Gael, Labour or whoever is going to be supporting Fine Gael in running the country, should put their election manifestos to one side and ask themselves what they must do for Ireland.
I know, I know, campaigning for the next general election after this one begins as soon as the last vote is counted in a little over a week’s time.
However, I would put it to Fine Gael that if they do succeed in pulling us out of the fire, the electorate will be kind to them in the future despite the pain they may have to inflict on us in the intervening years.
Better to forget those empty promises as soon as the election is over than do further damage to the economy.
While there has never been any doubt that Fine Gael would lead the next government, the only question now is will Fine Gael need a partner at all. With the latest opinion polls showing Fine Gael pushing 40% of the vote, they may yet get the overall majority every party would like to receive but no party has managed to reach since Fianna Fáil in 1977.
That overall majority was achieved because Jack Lynch made promises we would have been better off if he forgot after the election.
There are a lot of undecided voters out there and there is still a week to go before polling day. So anything can happen. My hunch, though and it is only a hunch that could be wide of the mark, is that Fine Gael will continue to gain ground in the coming days. Whether they gain enough to present them with that elusive overall majority is a separate question.
However, it is looking bleak at this stage for Labour’s hopes of going into power with Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil and Micheál Martin are going to have to start from the scratch they were in 80 years ago. And Sinn Féin do not appear to be doing as well as was expected of them a week or two ago.