The arrogance of those at the top table

ONCE upon a time there was a Fine Gael backbench TD with whom I had a very friendly relationship. I hasten to add that I have been friendly with many Fine Gael TDs over my years covering politics for various newspapers.

But with this man I am talking about, I had a particularly friendly relationship. We talked the same language; we met regularly when he visited Dublin and we drank together. He gave me the odd story about what might be happening behind closed doors in Fine Gael and I did my best to get his name into the paper now and then.

That close relationship continued for a number of years until one day he became a junior minister in the government.  The friendly relationship came to an end overnight and he became a different man.
He was an ordinary friendly backbench TD on Monday. On Tuesday, he received his badge or seal of office and his whole personality changed like a shot.

He seemed to feel that he was now above all that went before. He was no longer comfortable in my company. He no longer drank in the Dáil bar but confined his drinking when in Leinster House to the Members’ Bar, which was out of bounds to the great unwashed general public, including myself.

I remind you that this man did not become a member of the government; he became a minister of state without access to cabinet meetings and without much authority. I often ask myself how much worse he might have become if he were appointed a full minister.

Do not think that he suddenly took a dislike to me personally. Others also remarked on the change. He became an arrogant so-and-so. Even his accent also changed.

It happens. Not to all politicians who get some kind of promotion but I highlight the case of this man as an example. I have known others also whose personality changed when they achieved high office but this man that I used to know fairly well became arrogant faster than any other I knew.

I suppose in a way it is part of human nature. The worker who was popular with the lads is promoted to an executive position and no longer has the time or inclination to knock around with his former colleagues.

With politicians it is different. On promotion, they tend not alone to discard or lose their former friends but they also lose touch with reality, with what is happening on the ground all around them.

Remember Fianna Fáil? Remember the sight of all those posh ministerial cars bringing all those posh ministers to a government meeting in Farmleigh House a few weeks before the fall. Most of the people watching that scene unfold on their television screens were finding it hard to keep up the payments on their little battered old Ford Fiestas.

It never dawned on those cabinet ministers that their display of pomp and wealth in the midst of so much human misery could cause so much offence among so many people. They found out a few weeks later, however, as most of those ministers either lost their jobs or resigned in the face of more anger than was ever before seen in Irish politics since the Civil War.

It took Fianna Fáil several years to develop that height of arrogance, which can blind office holders to the reality of a situation from which they are cocooned.

It took Fine Gael and Labour only a couple of weeks. By now they are so arrogant that it doesn’t bother them. They don’t mind when they contradict each other or even contradict something they might have said themselves a little earlier.

They don’t seem to mind what the rest of us think; they are so right and we are so wrong.It can only get worse. It is a collective arrogance that seems to have afflicted all members of the present Government whether they are Fine Gael ministers or Labour.

Remember last year the Taoiseach denied that he had ever given any promise about the future of Roscommon Hospital. Until somebody came up with evidence that he had. The Taoiseach was caught up in a lie but it didn’t knock a feather off him.

Remember Eamon Gilmore and his promise that Labour would not be bound by pledges Fianna Fáil had given our German masters. Where is that promise now? He told us around the time of the French presidential election that promises made by Francois Hollande to renegotiate the European fiscal treaty were merely election promises and could be taken with a grain of salt. Putting official approval on all empty election promises as mere bulls**t to get elected. We should remember that at the next election.

We had honest Richard Bruton telling us that if we voted No in the referendum, we would have to vote again; denying that seconds later. We had Michael Noonan telling us that Greece leaving the Eurozone would be of as little importance as the slice of feta cheese in our shopping bag, while the rest of the world knows that a Greek departure could spell catastrophe for the rest of Europe.

We had Enda Kenny telling an unemployed man in Athlone that he should go and get a job and that things were looking up for the economy.

Could you ever beat men like Pat Rabbitte or Alan Shatter for arrogarnce? Those people are not living in the real world. Like the Fianna Fáil ministers before them, they don’t know what it is like to go hungry.  They have never had to decide whether or not they can afford to bring a sick child to the doctor.
They might have taken cuts in their salaries and expenses but they are still earning far in excess of what the ordinary family in this country has to survive on.

This arrogance is not confined to Government ministers or ministers of state. It now also seems to affect ordinary Fine Gael backbench TDs such as Cork deputy Aine Collins, who told constituents last week that she was struggling to survive on a mere €92,672 a year salary (plus over €50,000 in expenses). Her supporters said it was wrong to report her as she was speaking in a private capacity. So what they say in public has to be different to what they say in private?

Where oh where, tell me, has Big Phil gone in recent weeks? The man who can really put his foot in it has gone silent. No matter, the foot-in-mouth disease has now spread to all other members of the cabinet, so there is no need for Phil.

By the way, in case you were wondering, my former Fine Gael friend that I mentioned at the start of this column lost his seat at a subsequent election and faded into oblivion.  And I am still struggling.