Ireland's crisis catalogue - Ireland's bad times through the ages

Living in Ireland at the minute is just one big frustrating frying pan to the side of the head, but it’s made somehow worse knowing that everyone else can see it. The BBC had Ireland’s political woes as their lead story earlier this week, and it’s also graced the pages of the New York Times, the Financial Times and countless others. So bad is the nation’s Tyranno-mess that it’s nearly preferable that people abroad think of us as ponderous Leprechaun-chasing stereotypes rather than seeing the terrible truth.

As it stands, Brian Cowen literally stands on the brink of being illegal. His government, blighted by retirements and withdrawls, is down to the bare minimum the constitution requires: seven members, all of whom now have implausibly large workloads. Pat Carey for example, the one of the seven who looks most like Yul Brynner, is currently Minister for Transport, Gaeltacht and Community Affairs, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Eamon O’Cuiv also has three ministries, but such is his work ethic that he also applied for another one: leader of Fianna Fáil. Yes, because while Brian Cowen is still Taoiseach, he’s no longer leader of the party that following the Greens’ pull out is the only component of government. There is hopefully a dimension somewhere where all this makes sense.

As Irish political crises go, it’s the most baffling and volatile we’ve had in a long while. This one has inevitably been compared to all manner of past disasters, but as is often the case with Muppets, one of these things is not like the other.

The Arms Crisis, 1970

Time was when a host of ministers left the cabinet it was because some of them were accused of subversive and nefarious behaviour. Back in 1969 as The Troubles raged splits in the cabinet emerged: doves like Taoiseach Jack Lynch wanted cool heads to prevail, and hawks like Neil Blaney advocated busting into Northern Ireland like the A-Team to save the oppressed Catholic population, and to hell with the kaboom-inducing consequences. A committee involving three border county ministers and Finance Minister Charles Haughey secured funds to aid nationalists in the north. The problems arose when £50,000 was allegedly put aside to buy weapons using a Belgian former Nazi’s contacts on the continent in a vast conspiracy involving a renegade army officer and senior ministers of the state. Bad Bond film plot it might be, but the scandal had long-lasting effects. Legend in his own peninsula Blaney was expelled from the party and spent the rest of his career on the backbenches. Haughey remained tight lipped in the party’s doldrums for half a decade before being readmitted to shadow cabinet a la the prodigal son, and four years later used that fattened calf knife to cut Jack Lynch out of the picture.

The GUBU Era, 1982

Resignations and sackings weren’t the only thing Fianna Fáil did more enthusiastically in the olden days. Back in the eighties Fianna Fáil heaves weren’t the bloodless affairs they are now. People got hurt back then.

Following the second heave on Haughey’s leadership in 1982 (the first one was a bit of a phony war) dissenter Charlie McCreevy was jostled as he left the Dáil (and repeatedly told to GO BACK TO KILDARE! by a heckler while being interviewed on radio), while former minister Jim Gibbons took a heart attack a couple of weeks after being assaulted by a Haugheyite mob. 1982 is now referred to as “The year of GUBU” because of the grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented events of Charles Haughey’s nine month second term in power. That description was first used by Haughey himself in relation to double-murderer Malcolm McArthur staying at the house of the Attorney General. Retrospectively though the term came to embody the general calamity of his tenure, from promising expensive pet projects to independent backers of his minority government not long after telling the country was living beyond its means, tapping journalists’ phones, attempting to lean on the President improperly to refuse to dissolve parliament (and threaten the President’s aide de camp with career ruin) and generally being an eerily prescient version of Mr. Burns.

Coalition Switcheroo, 1994

Back in 1992 following their best ever election showing Labour made a terrible mistake of Gob Bluth proportions by going into coalition with Fianna Fáil, and by 1994 were staring to get panicky. Following posturing over the Beef Tribunal, the mishandled extradition of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth by then-Attorney General Harry Whelehan, who had just been appointed as President of the High Court, proved the last straw for Labour and they withdrew from office. Whelehan served for a day, and Albert Reynolds resigned under the expectation that Bertie Ahern would take over. But quite literally at the eleventh hour, a news story suggesting Ahern knew more about a previous case similar to Smyth’s than initially thought spooked Spring, who called off the deal and formed a coalition with Fine Gael and Democratic Left instead. In terms of sheer velocity of bemusing twists, it’s probably the one crisis that most closely resembles our current melee.

The events of the last few weeks may have slotted effortlessly into the Calamity Hall of Fame, but with an election coming presently, with a new Fianna Fáil leader and a Fine Gael leader who may as well be searching for Jimmy Hoffa for all he’s been visible of late, and a whole host of other characters who could trip up or have a Howard Dean moment at any minute, expect it to be matched.

Frontrunner of Irish presidency Senator David Norris launches his campaign

On Monday week, I’ll be interviewing Senator David Norris on his bid to become Ireland’s President later this year. In what’ll be the first big event of the campaign, the Senator and I will be having what promises to be a fun evening in front of a live audience in Galway’s University campus. In a news environment where it’s impossible to avoid the dismal conduct of politicians, it’ll make a welcome change to discuss positive issues with such a colourful figure.

In recent times, the Presidency has been transformed. What was formerly the political equivalent of a nice pen set for a retiring Fianna Fáil minister, the cobwebs in the Aras were emphatically blown out following the election of Mary Robinson. While the hand that rocked the cradle rocked the system during her campaign, she rocked the foundations of her office for seven years: she met with Queen and shook hands with Gerry Adams, she spoke out on human rights disasters in Somalia and Rwanda, and in her constitutional battle with Charles Haughey she asserted the President’s independence and gave what was a staid and dowdy office a fresh and liberal face.

Her successor Mary McAlesse’s carried on that torch in a slightly more moderate way, but her two terms were very much carried out on Robinson’s trail. Now, when the reputation of the political classes would have to reach up to get in the gutter, a vibrant, active and morale-boosting President has rarely been as important.

As candidates go, Norris is a popular contender even at this early stage, but he has his obstacles. For starters, he won’t get on the ballot at all if he doesn’t get the nomination of 20 Oireachtas members or the sanction of four county councils. On the issues, his sexuality has been deposed into the argument with brazen and innuendo-laden vigour by the Campaign For Conscience. Since his term would encompass him being Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces for the Easter Rising centenary celebrations, his republican credentials will also no doubt be called into question. But, it’s a long campaign, and no doubt it’ll be an eventful one. But it starts this Monday. 

Due to an unforseen medical appointment, it is my deep regret to say that we've had to postpone our evening with Senator David Norris. We hope to reschedule again as soon as we can, but in the meantime my sincere apologies for everyone who had planned on watching either live and online, and my heartfelt thanks for all your best wishes and support.

Arguments for the abolition of Ireland's upper house of parliament

Irish politics have taken a turn toward Springfield of late. Such is the opprobrium caused by the government that people are turning in their droves towards some manner of alternative. But, like a town hall meeting in The Simpsons, collective disquiet doesn’t necessarily mean an ideal outcome:


“WE’RE SICK OF THIS GOVERNMENT AND WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” “YEAH!”


“WE WANT DRASTIC CHANGE IN THE WAY THIS COUNTRY OPERATES!” “YEAH!”

“LET’S ABOLISH THE SEANAD!” “Ye-wait a minute, what?”

Yup, in spite of the freakshow they call a government and a banking industry sharing the same hip, in spite of the Dáil railroading through umpteen pieces of publically maligned legislation from budgets to four year plans to Nama, and in spite of the fact that same chamber facilitates the election of more arse-backwards moonshine salesmen per square inch than any other legislature in the known universe, it’s the Dáil’s staid older brother that becomes the focus point of everything we hold disastrous in the Irish political system. I can’t help but find that strange.

Granted, the Seanad is not perfect. In fact it’s in such dire need of reform it should only be recognisable by its dental records. The method of electing Senators is byzantine and insane, as 43 are elected by vocational panels that make as much sense as a Japanese gameshow, 3 are elected by the graduates of the NUI colleges, 3 by Trinity graduates, and the 11 others are nominated by the newly elected Taoiseach.

But in spite of the fact pretty much every Senate candidate touts reform of the House on their manifestos, there hasn’t been the collective inclination to action it. And now, when the appetite for wide reform is ravenous, there doesn’t appear to be the stomach for it.

Fine Gael were the first to call for the abolition of the Seanad. Well, I say Fine Gael, it was really more of an Enda Kenny solo run, with the Senators in his own party looking like they’d been heaved out of their beds at three in the morning when asked about the issue at first. And now, Labour have jumped on that bandwagon. Although, their engineering is a bit more advanced.

Brendan Howlin released Labour’s document for political reform last Thursday, a 32 page document that advocates Seanad abolition (or, more precisely, advocating a yes vote in the referendum to abolish it) as just one of the changes in a wider crusade for wholesale change of the system. When I talked to him about the proposals the day before he certainly put forward a reasoned case: countries like Sweden (widely acknowledged as the Marcia Brady of political systems) and New Zealand have unicameral legislatures and they operate well, and proper reform of the Dáil with a rebalancing between executive and legislative power, would negate the need for a Seanad anyway.

When questioned on the virtue of having a Séanad as a “place apart”, elected differently to the Dáil and inhabited by people who may not correspond to localised, clientelist politics, Howlin responded by suggesting any public representative must be the choice of and have the will of the people, and if a candidate is good enough they can get elected, pointing to Senator David Norris’ strong challenge for the Presidency. While Howlin’s fidelity to the voting public is admirable, it’s well worth noting that the last two elected Presidents, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, both failed in their attempts to get elected to the Dáil.

One woman who has also followed in both Robinson and McAleese’s footsteps as Reid Professor of Law at Trinity is Labour Senator Ivana Bacik, Eamon Gilmore’s running mate in Dun Laoighaire for the following election. Bacik too takes a pragmatic view that as it stands the case for the Séanad has failed, and she also echoed concerns about the viability of reform, saying any suggestions made would be “unlikely to please everyone” and “very hard to see working”. There’s a lot of anger and distrust in the system, claimed Bacik, which makes it so important to have the discussion as part of a wider, nuanced constitutional review.

While the opinions of Bacik and Howlin were earnest and considered, the phrasing in Labour’s actual report was much more disappointing:

“The question boils down essentially to whether we really want or need a second chamber that represents a different configuration of the people. If so, what should that configuration be?

The fact that the question is so rarely asked indicates not so much an implicit approval for the status

quo as a general indifference to both the question and the answer. And that indifference of itself

answers the question whether we need a Séanad. The State can do without a house of parliament

that so few of its citizens know about, care about, or would miss.”

It goes on to say:

“The Séanad, on the other hand, is not essential. It is an optional extra. Because it is not directly elected by the people, its existence is not central to the concept of representative democracy.

The second house must therefore have some other, additional function. It must in some way

contribute added value to the process. It has to justify its existence. If the justification is inadequate,

then it should go. The reality is that there is popular indifference about the future of the Séanad. The reasons are clear enough; they have persisted since the Séanad’s establishment in its present form in 1937. Quite simply, no one is sure what purpose the Séanad is meant to serve.”

In essence, the Labour stance is that reforming the Séanad is an enormous and complicated job for an institution nobody cares much about anyway. While that may be the harsh political reality, the invocation of indifference as a reason for abolition is intensely unnerving. Now more than ever, politicians need to combat indifference, not succumb to it.

As Ivana Bacik’s argument bears out there are more than enough shades of grey on the issue to go around, and maybe Brendan Howlin’s utilitarian approach is the most sensible, but I can’t help but feel this is a missed opportunity.

In an atmosphere where the amount of well-considered politicians could be counted on your thumbs, it’s worth considering some of the luminaries that have taken their seats in the Séanad over the years: Nobel laureate WB Yeats, future Presidents Douglas Hyde and Mary Robinson, pioneer of the co-operative movement Horace Plunkett, the most important political revolutionary of our times TK Whitaker, playwright Brian Friel, peace campaigner Gordon Wilson, northern politicians Seamus Mallon and Brid Rodgers, legendary jurist Catherine McGuiness, and many more besides. They were all independent voices, all had something valuable to say, and none of them ever sat in the Dáil. They never had to play the parish pump game, and their style wasn’t cramped by party whips. Even now, the standout performers in the Séanad are independent university candidates the likes of David Norris, Joe O’Toole and Shane Ross. We desperately need people like that now, and a framework that allows them to work properly.

While the Dáil reflects an electorate based on geography, the Séanad could represent constituencies based on communities of common ground: workers and professionals across the sectors like farming, production and services; the graduates of universities and IT’s, all of them; representatives from the arts, community and NGO sector, the most underrated in the country by miles; and, the most sizeable section of all, the Irish abroad.

The franchise rights of Irish emigrants have been a hotly contested issue of late, and author of GlobalIrish.ie Noreen Bowden is an enthusiastic advocate for giving the diaspora a say in the how the home country is governed: “Because we have about a million Irish-born citizens living overseas, the key thing we need to do is achieve a balance between the rights of non-resident and resident citizens. We do have a high number of citizens abroad, but that in itself is no reason for not allowing them a vote: we just need to work out the fairest and most appropriate method of representing them.”

“Emigrants are affected by government policies and decisions: perhaps most significantly right now, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of recent emigrants who may hope that their stay will be temporary. They should have a say in policies that may affect their chances of return. We need all hands on deck here to get us through this crisis: we should be working to maximise the contribution and input of all our willing citizens, no matter where they live”. Regarding the potential role of the the Séanad, Bowden says its role could be an important one: “At present the Seanad is seen as a talking shop, of course, as there's little real power there, but there's a real openness to reform right now. We need to reinvent our structures to better represent - and give real power to - all of our citizens, including those overseas.”

Of course, the composition of such electorates would take a lot of definition and logistical management, but it is possible. If Italy, with possibly the only other established government more chaotic than ours, can manage a system whereby émigrés get represented in both their legislative houses, there is no earthly reason why we couldn’t do the same, for all those panels. One of the other big problems with the Séanad is that the elections take place so close to the Dáil that they are essentially an appendix to the big ticket event. If they were given their own separate date of election not linked to that of the Dáil - on the same day as Euro and local elections perhaps, or even standalone - then that would go a long way to increasing profile and interest.

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of will. As it stands the Séanad may not have any meaning for the public, any purpose for the deficit hawks, or any incentive to amend for politicians, but we have to look beyond what it is and imagine what it could be. It could be a place full of truly representative national figures, of big ideas, free from partisan politics, with a real impact on Irish life and a mature counterweight to the Dáil. Yes, the Séanad in its current form is a problem, but Ireland has become all too used to burying problems instead of fixing them. Fixing this one is an enormous opportunity to have an enormous effect on the future civic health of the country. But only if we’re so inclined to grasp it.

Bertie Ahern - a leader who fled a sinking ship

Prior to the 2007 general election, it felt like it was going to be a line-in-the-sand election of the 1948 variety. But, instead of the ‘48 outcome, where the other parties (and the public at large) grew so weary of the long reign of the Fianna Fáil government that they all banded together to heave them out of office, something else happened. That thing was Bertie Ahern.

Even though his personal finances wouldn’t have been out of place in 1920’s Chicago, and even though he and his government ran the country in a fashion so lackadaisical it was almost Zen-like, on the two central acid tests of the election (the North and the economy) Bertie was deemed to have passed with a push and prevented the opposition from winning what should have been a slam dunk of an election. It also helped that a sizeable portion of the population seemed to think he was a puppy, as criticism of Bertie back then was often met with a loud chorus of “Ah would ye leave him alone, sure he’s only lovely!” Boy, was that a mistake.

Now, two years after the former captain of Ireland’s political Hindenburg fritzed out the controls and leapt off with the only parachute on board, Bertie Ahern announced on New Year’s Eve that he was officially giving up the old flying Zeppelins business. That Ahern won’t run in next year’s general election, thus bringing an end to his 34 year reign of inanity, is no doubt satisfying, but in so announcing he made some statements that brought my gorge rising levels back to 2007 standards.

“If I had seen the banking crisis coming. Nobody advised me, no economist, all those people now writing books saying ‘I told you so’ – none of them”, was one of his gems, for instance. For a politician with such a reputation for astuteness, he makes it sound as if he became Taoiseach as part of a TV talent contest with no prior experience in the field. While everyday politics is behind him he still has a promising career as a fantasy fiction writer at least.

Of course not only were there some economists, journalists and, amazing as it is to conceive, ordinary people waving red flags (or at least suggesting that which goes up might have to come down eventually) but they were steadily trashed by the economic gravity defying Ahern, who insisted “the boom times are getting even more boomer”. He actually said this. On one shameful occasion, he notoriously suggested that anybody unhappy with the state of the economy commit suicide. When he was taken to task on it, he grinned his stupidest grin and said he didn’t mean anything by it. In the spongy, brightly coloured ball pool Bertie calls reality, this makes it all OK.

If only he’d left his retirement speech with a merely galling “Sure how was I to know?” statement to satisfy his ego, but no, he had to out-git himself. In an interview with The News Of The World (the paper he writes a sports column/climbs into cupboards for) he criticised Brian Cowen’s leadership, intimating he wasn’t doing a good job at getting the government message out there and that if corrective measures had been taken by Cowen earlier or had a plan in place to make sure Ireland didn’t go the same way as Greece, Ireland may have dodged the EU/IMF bailout. Even by Ahern’s amoral standards, that is pretty extraordinary.
Say what you want about Brian Cowen, and you could say loads, but loyalty is something he’s put a high premium on all his political life, and with this interview Ahern has shown that loyalty isn’t in his mangled vocabulary. Brazen self-preservation however courses through his veins, and with his criticism of Cowen he’s trying to get people to think that he would’ve handled things differently (and better, naturally) while at the same time scrawling “Nothing to do with me, pal” on the walls of the Irish financial system. But hell, why privately relay your concerns to the man who replaced you when you can get your sainted, perceptive head in the papers instead, eh?

While those statements are enough to get the most mild mannered of people riled up, the one that really gets me is his response to questions about whether he will run for the Presidency later this year. “I don’t know. I honestly haven’t decided that”. Ahern knows full well that there’s more chance of William Shatner being elected Irish President than him, yet he couldn’t even answer that question honestly.

Presidential run or not, Ahern’s recent statements show that he is fiercely protective of his legacy, and will do or say pretty much anything to maintain it. While of course his part in the Northern Ireland peace process was distinct and valuable, he was part of a large ensemble cast, and as the other promises of his 2007 election campaign are now distant spectres, he’ll struggle to stop his name sliding inexorably into historical disrepute no matter what he does.

Ahern’s late constituency rival Tony Gregory used to commonly rail against various governments’ “Thatcherite” policies, and whether you agreed with the policies that word represented, you have to respect the fact that Thatcherite means something, that it stands for a certain set of values and principles and way of thinking that were resolutely defined. To what set of principles or causes of devotion would Ahernism correspond? It’s Ireland’s tragedy that during its’ most prosperous years we had a man in charge whose position was to be pro-being in charge and anti-someone else being in charge, whose policy was to vacillate and kick the ball down the field anything remotely contentious, whose philosophy was “Don’t over-think it, lads”.

In the eleven years he was in charge, with the money we had swimming around, we could have had a health or education or transport system the envy of the world. We could have led the charge on the big challenge of the 21st century: making renewable energy mainstream. We could have promoted better civic engagement, encouraged the valuable work being done by ordinary people in their communities, and made big strides in ending inequality and disadvantage. Instead we drifted along, purposeless, with only a catalogue of waste, pointless pet projects and blunders masked by the heady aroma of economic growth a mile wide and an inch deep to show for it.

That is Ahern’s enduring legacy. It’s a well-quoted fact that after securing a coalition deal with the PD’s in 1989, Charles Haughey called Bertie “the most cunning, the most devious of them all”. Charlie being Charlie he meant that as a compliment, but I’d go one better than that. Bertie Ahern is the most feckless, the most craven, the most ruthless, the most contemptible, the most noxious weasel of them all. Good riddance you wastrel, don’t let the doors of the Dáil hit you on the way out.