Fail To Change

I don’t usually write about politics, but I am still coming to terms with the result of the general election result. In spite of the past 10 years of incompetence, mismanagement and administrative recklessness, it looks almost certain that Fianna Fail will be in charge for the next five years. Allegations that Bertie Ahern, our Taoiseach (prime minister), was corrupt only served to increase Fianna Fail’s support in the last poll before the election. It seems that most of the ‘swing’ voters were convinced to vote for the current lot on the basis of their stewardship of the economy. This is an argument that doesn’t wash with me: sure, the Republic has experienced the strongest growth in its short history over the past 10 years and most of the ‘floaters’ decided that it would be preferable to let the ‘devil you know’ rather than the ‘devil you don’t know’ (the alliance for change – opposition parties Fine Gael and Labour) preside over the economy for the next five years. Fianna Fail didn’t run a very coherent campaign, but they consistently - and far more skillfully that their outright negative-campaigning Government partners, the Progressive Democrats, who were decimated on election day – reiterated the point that under the alternative coalition, Ireland’s new-found affluence would be endangered.
This tactic worked, and those people who have become accustomed to owning two cars and going to far-flung places on holiday a few times a year turned out in their droves for Fianna Fail. Of course, scratch beneath the political spin and the reality is a little different. Despite being the second richest country in Europe, we have the highest poverty rate and child illiteracy rate in Europe. Fianna Fail have also mismanaged the economy, overspending by a few hundred million euro on infrastructure projects like Luas, the tram system for Dublin, and the port tunnel, throwing billions at the crumbling health service without any improvement in services and green-lighting the worst examples of urban sprawl without providing basic facilities like shops, schools and green spaces.
These are just a few examples of FF’s incompetence and inability to provide strong economic leadership, something that the alternative coalition should made a greater play of. Unfortunately, when it came down to the wire, those who live in the commuter belt around Dublin, the people who are affected negatively by this poor, myopic administration, voiced support for the current leadership.
The age-old maxim that a country gets the government that it deserves is depressingly true, but for those anti-Fianna Failers like myself, there is one upside to the result: there are indicators that the economy is about to dip in the next few years: the property market is cooling and a recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce showed that nearly half of the US multinationals located here are considering either seriously scaling down or moving their operations entirely from this jurisdiction.
For this reason alone, it’s better that FF are in power rather than the alternative coalition: if Fianna Fail could make a mess of things during the boom, just imagine the kind of mistakes they’ll be responsible for in the leaner years ahead. They won the election because of ‘the economy, stupid’, now let’s see how they fare when they have to deal with ‘the downturn, dummy’….