‘Republic of Opportunity’ remains just a big slogan

SOME parents may recall reading the much-loved ‘Winnie the Pooh’ bedtime stories, by the English writer AA Milne, to their children. These featured the loving mother kangaroo, Kanga, and her vulnerable little baby, Roo.

And, since it is something of a mouthful, there was no great surprise to find Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s lieutenants calling the ‘Republic of Opportunity’ draft document by its initials ‘RoO’.

Similarly, Mr Varadkar’s ‘RoO’, as it was first unveiled, seemed rather small and helpless in a political sense. The Fine Gael policy wonks like to call it “a rolling political programme”, which will, ideally and in fullness of time, be honed into party policies aimed at changing citizens’ lives for the better.

In a sense, we are being invited behind the scenes to see policy and election manifestos being made. Now, that runs the same practical risks as public visits to a sausage factory have for future sales.

Mr Varadkar has been talking about “RoO-making” since he first used the term in his successful quest last April and May to lead Fine Gael. He deserves credit, and some forbearance, as he promises to think beyond the next general election, and do the so-called “vision thing” by thinking a decade ahead.

Yet this first draft of Mr Varadkar’s big idea is a mixture of the vague and aspirational, the old, and the politically obvious. So far, it remains a slogan seeking a policy.