Quangos bonfire was a damp squib

Do you ever wonder why so many people don’t bother to vote at elections? They may, of course, be ill; they may be abroad on holidays or they may be otherwise indisposed. Some of them are probably too lazy to bother going to their nearest polling booth to register their vote.

But I suspect that a lot of people don’t vote because they don’t believe their vote will make any difference. They have become disillusioned with politicians. They don’t see any difference between one party and another. “All politicians are the same” you will hear them say, “they are only in it for what they can get out of it.”
I disagree fundamentally with that outlook. I believe most politicians want to contribute something but they themselves can become disillusioned as they find themselves abandoned and powerless on the backbenches.
Fine Gael and Labour promised before the election to carry out radical reforms to the system to give more power to individual TDs who are not members of the cabinet. We are still waiting for those reforms but it is probably still too early to be expecting too much progress in that regard.
However, it is by their deeds we will judge them and not by their promises. To be honest, I am always somewhat sceptical about political pledges and I believe that is the main reason why many people don’t bother to vote at election time. They are cynical about politicians in general and they never believe what politicians promise.
Fine Gael and Labour, for example, promised us they would stand up to Angela Merkel and to the IMF when they got into office. “Frankfurt’s way is not Labour’s way,” for instance. They were going to “burn the bondholders”. Unlike those so-and-sos in Fianna Fáil who sold us out, they were going to assert Ireland’s independence.
Most of us believed them. We gave them the biggest majority they ever had and such a beating to Fianna Fáil that many people are now questioning whether that party has any future at all.
But we are gradually finding out – those of us who were not already aware of this – that there is no basic difference between any of the parties. Fine Gael and Labour have adopted the Fianna Fáil policies that they condemned so harshly before the general election.
This week we learned that despite their promises to end political patronage when they got into power, Fine Gael and Labour have installed a large number of people with party links to State boards.
So much for that pre-election pledge. So really nothing changes. While Fianna Fáil might have been kicked out of office because of that party’s behaviour in Government, Fianna Fáil might as well still be in power because their policies are still being implemented. The only thing that changed was the personnel.
I am so sceptical about political parties and politicians in general that I don’t believe Sinn Féin would behave any differently if they were in power.
One reform I would like to see is some kind of legislation to stop politicians from making promises they will not, or cannot, fulfill if they get into office. Perhaps a heavy fine on those parties or individuals who break their election promises might do the trick.
Hit them in the pocket. Perhaps then we would have more honest election campaigns. The electorate might be less cynical about politicians and more people would turn up to vote if they believed political pledges.
The problem is that they are never properly asked to account for their empty promises. Fianna Fáil cannot with any sincerity condemn the Fine Gael/Labour coalition of providing jobs for the boys when that party brought political patronage to unbelievable extents during all the long years while they were in power.
If Fianna Fáil ever get back into power again you can rest assured that State boards will once again be packed with party hacks.
It is only human that Fine Gael and Labour, who had been out of power for so long, would want a little bite of the cherry now that their time has come at last.
But that’s really not my point. The kernel of my argument is that Fine Gael and Labour promised us they would end that kind of behaviour if they got into power. So we voted them in with a record majority. And what do we get? More of the same codology, that’s what. Now you see why so many people don’t bother to vote.
Go into the Dáil any day and you will find Opposition deputies tearing into the Government on any national or local issue you like to pick. Sure, that’s what you would expect. The Opposition’s job is to make the Government account for itself. But the crazy thing is that the Government will be defending issues they condemned last year and the Fianna Fáil Opposition will be attacking issues they defended a year ago.
Absolutely nothing changes. I do understand the Government might feel they have no alternative but to basically follow the Fianna Fáil line in regard to the banks, to the Euro and to the IMF. But they should not have promised us before the election that they would be different to Fianna Fáil in that regard.
Neither should they have promised us that they would put an end to the practice of political patronage so loved by Fianna Fáil in office.
I expect we will know this Thursday how sincere the parties now in Government were when they promised us “a bonfire of the quangos” when they were in Opposition. I won’t be holding my breath on that one, even though I suspect there will be far more smoke than flames.
Meanwhile, this week we did see a politician pay a price for being unable to fulfill a promise he made to his constituents. Labour Junior Minister Willie Penrose felt he had no choice but to resign from the Government after it had decided to close down the military barracks in Mullingar. Deputy Penrose had promised he would fight tooth and nail to keep it open. Of course he should never have made that promise in the first place but then he might not have been elected. By resigning now he is seen to be a man of principle. Pity there couldn´t be a few more like him around.