Electorate won’t get fooled again by guff from new Taoiseach
THE Who’s famous lyric “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” sprang to mind when Simon Harris was elevated to Taoiseach this week.
Ironically, that memorable line comes from the British rock band’s anthem Won’t Get Fooled Again, which cautioned of the dangers of falling for false promises.
Simon Harris pledging to do in 10 months what his party failed to do in 13 years and build 250,000 houses by 2030 could well be seen as an attempt to take the public for gullible fools.
This is the same kind of guff fed to the British people in the run up to Brexit and unfortunately they now realise they were fooled again.
It’s a bit rich for the party which invited in the vulture funds and created generation rent putting owning a home out of reach of most young people promising to end the housing crisis.
The truth is that it will take years, if not decades, to undo the damage done to the social structures of this country caused by Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party.
The quarter-of-a-million new homes baloney accompanied a raft of other promises, including business supports, reduced education fees, child care assistance and illegal immigration restrictions.
It’s a case of simple Simon said but the public will put their hands on their heads in disbelief because if these issues are a priority now what has he and the rest of the Government been doing for the past four years?
Along with the promises he has pledged to lead his party with a “new energy” as he vowed to hit the ground running and then failed to turn up for work on his first day in the job.
Both Sinn Fein and the Progressive Democrats were highly critical of the Taoiseach for failing to appear in the Dail to answer Leader’s Questions on his first full day in the post.
He said he was too busy phoning world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
What is it with Irish leaders that they believe they can help resolve international conflicts when they can’t even supply housing and a functioning health service for their own citizens?
But did the public really expect anything new when the Taoiseach had a chance to stamp his authority, probably the only one he will have, and blew it?
The only difference between Simon Harris and Leo Varadkar is that he is a few years younger.
In what is undoubtedly a metaphor for what is to come he hadn’t the balls to remove Helen Mcentee from her post as Justice Minister in the reshuffle that never was.
Minister Mcentee is deeply unpopular and is seen by the public as being unable to get a handle on crime or tackle the growing emigration crisis.
But apparently she is too valuable an asset to certain elements within Fine Gael so could not be removed from office.
When it really came down to it the party’s interests proved to be way more important than the public interest.
I use the term elevated to the post of Taoiseach because we now have a prime minister who is the leader of the third largest party in the State who scraped into the Dail at the last general election he helped bring about.
Back then those who were this week singing the praises of the incoming Taoiseach, including leading members of Fianna Fail, were ridiculing him on the floor of the Dail for being inept.
They claimed they couldn’t back the then Health Minister in a vote of confidence because he was useless, yet four years on they voted for him as leader.
Simon Harris is the Taoiseach that nobody wanted, including many in his own party, heading a government that the public did not ask for.
Mr Harris has been described as the Tiktok Taoiseach but he’s not, he’s just a temporary one.
The latest Journal/ireland Thinks poll released yesterday revealed that 15% of those asked said they are less likely to vote for Fine Gael in the upcoming European elections as a result of Simon Harris becoming leader of the party.
Far from being a bringer of change Harris leads a party and heads a government that didn’t just leave a generation without homes, they have robbed them of hope as well.