Time to pursue rogue bankers

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is far more clever than we have been giving him credit for. Instead of debating economic issues, where the Government is weak, he has had us arguing about getting rid of the Seanad and about abortion, issues where a majority of the people are backing the Government.

 

This week, we have been further diverted from talking about the Government’s handling of the economy by the scandal revealed by the Anglo-Irish tapes.

Not alone is Enda clever, he is also lucky. He is lucky in that but for a few hundred votes here and there, it is he who would have been elected Taoiseach in 2007 and been in charge when the crash came. I am sure he would have handled the collapse of Anglo-Irish Bank as Fianna Fáil did. However, because of the way the cookie crumbled, he is able to make Fianna Fáil share with the banks the disgrace of bringing this country to its knees.

We are ground down by an economy that has left most of us without a cent to spare at the end of the week because of Government budgetary policies but the topics that are uppermost in the minds of those of us who spend a lot of our time thinking and writing about politics are issues – apart from the banking crisis – that are irrelevant to most of us. We have been arguing about abortion, about the Seanad and about a former Fianna Fáil junior minister who wanted to bring his wife on a foreign holiday at taxpayers’ expense some years ago when we all had money. Subjects that have nothing to do with the way this Government is handling the economy; that have nothing to do with the fact that thousands of our brightest and best are being forced by Government policies to look for work abroad, that have nothing to do with the new poverty that is rampant among those who were well off a few years ago and subjects that have nothing to do with an unbelievably bad health system.

When we should be taking the Government to task about cutting back on benefits to the old, the sick and the most needy among us, there we have been, talking about an institution that has had no relevance to the vast majority of the people of this country from the day it was established over 70 years ago. We have been getting ourselves worked up about a piece of legislation on abortion that is not going to make a blind bit of difference to anybody, whether they are pregnant or not. I mean, what woman expecting a baby she doesn’t want to have, is going to face a barrage of doctors and psychiatrists to argue that if they don’t let her have an abortion she is going to commit suicide? Why would she do that when all she has to do is book a Ryanair flight to London and have her abortion with no questions asked?

Those are the issues we have been talking about and Enda knows he is on a winner if he can continue to distract us from the real issues, which are the economy, the economy, the economy, stupid. He is playing a blinder in his defence of Government policies on abortion against the holy wrath of the Catholic Church. He knows he has the support of the vast majority of the people with him on that issue and on the issue of getting rid of the Seanad.

He must be delighted with all those so-called pro-life people who are heckling him whenever he appears in public and sending him unmentionable stuff in the post. They are making a martyr out of our Enda and allowing him to say that he represents all the Irish people and not just the lunatic fringe of the Catholic Church. He was a Taoiseach, he said, who happened to be a Catholic but not a Catholic Taoiseach. Good man Enda. Sock it to ’em. The political editor of The Irish Times compared him to Daniel O’Connell, the Great Liberator. Another Daniel has come to judgement and Enda doesn’t mind borrowing phrases used by present and former Presidents of America to show us how good he is.

Isn’t it great to see him standing up to powerful institutions like the Catholic Church. Big deal. The Catholic Church is no longer the powerful institution it was when Enda was a lad. It is a church without teeth. Gone is the crozier. It is a weak institution that is easy to tackle today. God doesn’t seem to be with it any longer.

Would Enda be so willing to take on the Catholic Church if it had leaders like McQuaid of Dublin, or Browne of Galway, or Lucey of Cork or Fogarty of Killaloe? He would have run for cover as his predecessors did and sworn allegiance to the hierarchy as an Irishman second and a Catholic first.

It took no great courage for Enda to do what he did and say what he said to the Catholic Church. He had neither hand, act nor part in the softening up of the Catholic Church over the past decade or so. Neither had any other politician. The Catholic Church did it to itself by allowing clerical paedophiles to continue destroying the lives of innocent children and covering up what they knew was happening. So they cannot expect many of us to listen to them today when they preach about what this Government’s legislation on abortion is going to do to unborn children.

When Enda says he represents the ordinary people of Ireland, does he include those old people living alone who can no longer afford to pay for someone to care for them in their dying days because of Government cut-backs? Does he include the tens of thousands of young people who have had to abandon their homes and loved ones to seek employment in some far foreign lands? Does he include the new poor who cannot afford to pay their mortgages, cannot afford to see a doctor and cannot afford to continue living?

It’s good to see him take up the fight against a feeble church but it would also be nice if he could stand up for the people who are really suffering.

Perhaps he might pursue those rogue bankers he promised to pursue before the general election.