Election of our MEPs is nothing short of a joke
ASKED her reaction to Fianna Fáil’s selecting Barry Cowen to join Billy Kelleher and Barry Andrews as c a ndi dates in J une’ s European elections, Maria Walsh offered a withering put- down. ‘I think male, pale and stale is a very common theme out here,’ said the Midlands North-West MEP from her perch in the parliament building in Strasbourg.
As insults go, it’s not exactly original. Yet it’ s the most remarkable and incisive observation the MEP has made since becoming a parliamentarian. Indeed, after five years travelling between Ireland, Brussels and Strasbourg, there’s probably a lot more Maria Walsh could say about the parliament’s make-up.
After leveraging her celebrity stardust, acquired for nothing more onerous than winning the Rose of Tralee and making history as the first lesbian to wear the sash, Walsh might be slower to point out how, among the ranks of male, pale and stale MEPs, there have also been a fair number of fading stars who, like her, threw themselves at their national electorate without a single political achievement to their name.
Walsh follows in the footsteps of Dana, who also arrived on the scene with a set of hard and fast ideological principles in place of solid political experience. It’s ancient history now but Dana campaigned in the same EU race as screen siren Gina Lollobrigida, who was rejected by the Italians.
That utter neophytes can acquit themselves in jobs for which they have no track record or qualifications other than a watery kind of fame says a lot about what the job entails, and the massive amount of professional expertise that must be available to help them navigate the parliament’s committee system and the welter of international issues and legislation debated in Brussels.
We Irish are enthusiastic Europeans. Polls show that our support for its institutions is higher than in most countries and that we believe it’s imperative to have politicians to represent our interests in the heart of Europe.
But while our national interest dictates that MEPs are a vital necessity, it’s also hard not to be deeply cynical about the incumbents.
Polls show that many voters are entirely in t he dark about what t he European Parliament is about, and view the goings- on in Brussels as a complete mystery. Added to the well of ignorance, there’s the perception of the job being a bit of sinecure.
Certainly, that feeling prevailed until 2007 and the ending of the ‘dual mandate’, which allowed Irish politicians to sit in the Dáil as well as the European Parliament, drawing down salaries and expenses from both. Watching ambitious politicians like Simon Coveney effectively double-jobbing invited many of us to conclude, rightly or wrongly, that at least one of his careers couldn’t be too rigorous. The startling revelation that despite not attending a single day in the 2014-2019 term due to illhealth, MEP Brian Crowley was entitled to a severance payment of more than € 350,000 and a € 1.4million pension packet copper-fastened the parliament’s reputation as a gravy train where washedup politicians and hasbeens were handsomely rewarded for not even going to work. Like a seat in the Seanad, a seat in Europe can appear like a consolation prize for younger politicians who have run out of luck in the Dáil or for those who, on the other end of the spectrum, are in the twilight of their career. After resigning during the Garda whistleblower crisis, Frances Fitzgerald ran successfully for Europe.
Former Mayo TD Lisa Chambers who, despite her disappointment at the selection for the newly enlarged Midlands North-West constituency, may still be included on the Fianna Fáil ticket, possibly sees Europe as a means of bolstering her brand with a new political platform before ultimately trying her hand again in national politics.
Mary Lou McDonald did something similar when, after standing unsuccessfully in the 2002 general election, she won a seat in the European Parliament in 2004.
Perhaps Regina Doherty has the same idea in mind as she slugs it out for a spot on the Fine Gael ticket in Dublin.
BUT if the parade of ambitious politicians using the European Parliament as a sort of ‘last- chance saloon’ – or indeed the stereotype of the faded star – leads to voter apathy, the exodus of our politicians as the height of their powers to Europe engenders the most cynicism.
This year’s election creates a potentially greater brain drain than usual. It’s disheartening to see dynamic politicians such as Josepha Madigan and Aodhán Ó Ríordá in opportunistically throwing their hats into the ring when the country is in difficulty.
Madigan is in the Dáil only eight years, yet she seems to believe she has achieved all she can here.
She pledges to harness the EU to assist her beloved Dublin, as does Ó Ríordáin, who claims his ‘visceral’ reaction to the riots in Dublin mobilised him to run for Europe. But surely the interests of our dilapidated capital city are better served by having politicians who care passionately about it working to make sure it’s not pushed off the Dáil agenda by domineering rural TDs?
Ó Ríordáin must have forgotten his fiery and apparently heartfelt complaint about a lot of the energy in the Dáil chamber being consumed by rural Ireland and about Dublin ‘being allowed to die’?
Barry Cowen must also feel he has run out of road in Fianna Fáil but his departure for Europe will, like former minister Billy Kelleher’s in 2019, be a loss to the party, its chances of a revival and to national debate.
The exit of experienced political hands for Brussels is a measure of the survival instincts of politicians and of their careerism. Nothing wrong with that. The question for voters is whether the national interest is served by having our most trusted hands – male, pale and stale or not – doing work in Europe that, experience shows, may be just as effectively carried out by complete novices.