A tale of two Irelands: selfless endeavour on the frontline and naked self-interest in politics

It was a week of two halves. Anyone keeping an eye on public life in the country was certainly taken to the heights of history as the two post-Civil War factions set aside their differences and joined a coalition government.

For students of history this was a unique moment almost 100 years after the then monolithic Sinn Féin party split into two warring factions.

Nevertheless, the highest point of the week had to be the heroics of our frontline workers as portrayed in RTE’s documentary on Covid-19.

For two nights we watched as our nurses, doctors, hospital attendants and hospital staff faced the horrors of Covid-19 with professionalism, dedication, tenderness and love.

They risked their own health to protect the lives of others. The balm of human kindness shone through the masks and plastics of pandemic care.

But we were brought crashing back down to the ‘old normal’ with the unedifying spectacle that surrounded the dishing out of junior ministries.

It was incredible to behold the snivelling self-regard many in political life have for themselves. At a time when the country needs selfless service more than it ever did, when we are in the grip of a deadly pandemic and about to enter the teeth of a recession, all we got from would-be ministers and junior minister were cries of ‘me, me, me’.

Those with the greatest welcome for themselves cocked their noses when the responsibilities offered them didn’t fit their notions of their stations in life. They told their leaders where to stick the positions on offer.

The sense of entitlement was jaw-dropping. Some such as Fianna Fáil’s Michael Moynihan seem to believe that party loyalty should result in even more lavishly feathered political nests.

His party colleague, the lofty Jim O’Callaghan, turned down the opportunity to serve his country, saying he wishes instead to use his time and energy as a legislator to serve his party’s advancement. As other commentators have pointed out, his eschewing of a junior ministry also leaves him free to continue to practise as a senior counsel in the courts.

Fine Gael’s John Paul Phelan and

Joe McHugh are also to be found in the ranks of the sulking wounded, while the real wounded are trying to get their lives back together after months of sweat and tears among the laboured and the dying.

North of the border Sinn Féin showed that it still operates in a parallel universe where regulations are meant for everyone else.

Those who suffer bereavements as a result of Covid have their pain and suffering doubled and tripled. They are unable to see, to hear or to feel the support of their extended families and communities as they carry their loved ones in sealed coffins to lonely graveyards all over the country. But obviously the Sinn Féin dead are more important than anyone else’s dead.

And the Greens haven’t covered themselves in glory.

Newly elected TD Steven Matthews handed his council seat to his wife, while also appointing her his secretarial assistant.

Meanwhile, Vincent P Martin, the

Business as usual:

The Dáil sitting in its new venue at Dublin’s National Convention Centre brother of deputy leader Catherine Martin, has been appointed to the Seanad. At the very least the optics of this stuff are appalling.

Many sides of human nature have been on display over the last number of months. We have seen outstanding examples of leadership, we have witnessed people take life-threatening risks for the sake of the public good and some paid the ultimate price.

But things haven’t really changed. As we move on to the next phase of the pandemic, it is regrettable that the much-spoken-of ‘new normal’ won’t be very much different from the old version.

When it comes to our political classes, the notions of service, selflessness and civic mindedness are set to remain just that, notions, while a crass sense of entitlement pervades the system that sustains them.

On February 11, 1926 WB Yeats took to the stage in the Abbey Theatre as the audience disrupted a performance of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. He shouted at them: “You have disgraced yourselves again.”

If his ghost were to appear on the stage of the National Convention Centre at the next gathering of our parliamentarians, he would surely be justified in repeating that sentiment.

While our politicians squabble bitterly about the division of ministerial spoils, thank goodness for the redemption personified by the actions of the men and women who scrub floors, change drips and kiss the dying in our hospital wards.

Thank goodness for the redemption personified by the actions of the men and women who scrub floors, change drips and kiss the dying in our hospital wards