As it is, so shall it be and there’s a reason why

They made a mess of the country, but in a stagnant political culture, the parties don’t fear the voters, writes Gene Kerrigan

IT’S getting so I dread turning on the radio or the television. The horror stories are multiplying. And, at the same time, the complacent grins of those in office become more smug. As it is, so shall it be. They count the days to the next election, confident that their spin doctors have a better grip on the public ear than the other party’s spin doctors.

Two wings of the same party, flying in the same direction. Talk about change, but work to keep things the same.

Look at yesterday’s Irish Independent and there’s a report of a doctor telling the IMO conference about losing six patients to suicide in a period of five years. The mental health crisis is killing patients and stressing doctors, and the political record on mental health — in particular that of the current Taoiseach — is not good.

A headline in the same newspaper tells of “Thousands of kilometres of Ireland’s roads disintegrating due to chronic funding gap”.

And we all know that underneath the ground the gas and the water pipes are crumbling — the necessary repairs persistently underfunded.

But, sure, I remember Frank Cluskey warning about that in the 1980s, and the neglect continued.

Hundreds of millions of euro that could have been used for repairs were squandered on water meters, in an attempt to prepare the system for privatisation.

We get sick and we have to lie on a trolley for hours or days before we’re admitted to hospital. As we lie there, we hear chatter from the TV down the corridor — it tells us the Government has terrific plans for spending billions on exciting projects that will make us the envy of the world in 2040.

(Or, maybe 2080, you know how these things go.)

Age weakens us, we need help and there’s a waiting list into the middle of the year after next.

How many of us are destined to die on that trolley, in that noisy corridor?

Alan Kelly, Minister for Failing to Do Anything About Homelessness, strutted and fretted and assured us the dynamism was only brimming out of him.

When Kelly made a balls of the job, Simon Coveney took over and didn’t strut and fret as much, but — like Kelly — he left things worse than he found them.

Eoghan Murphy is now on the job, and Eoghan’s a great talker. If only we had a house for every confident speech Eoghan has made, we’d all be living in mansions.

Does anyone believe anything Eoghan says about housing? As it is, so shall it be — for a reason.

Last Friday, I listened to Sean O’Rourke on RTE and it was heartbreaking — a woman struggling to raise her kids, her husband dead, and one of them is about to hit 18 and all the supports are about to be kicked out from under her.

The kid doesn’t know what’s about to hit him, but it will hurt and confuse him, it will make him upset, the woman is pleading for help. The system grinds on — the State will help until the calender says he’s 18, then screw him.

That woman is a blazing example of the good person. No one gets up earlier in the morning, no one puts more love into her family. And the State is about to shower further pain on to her.

Again: as it is, so shall it be — for a reason.

It’s this. The trail of destruction is being wreaked by hopeless, fossilised policies, and a severe lack of empathy.

Look at this Government — Varadkar, Donohoe, Coveney and the rest of them. Born in the age of Thatcher and Reagan, their formative years spent comfortably in a world shaped by over-confident right-wing economists and ideologues.

The fact that those policies collapsed the economy in 2008 was seen as a minor matter.

The bottom line of that thinking was laid down by Thatcher: “There’s no such thing as society.” There are individuals, entrepreneurs, strivers who “get up early in the morning”.

And these are held back by hopeless cases who “don’t want to pay for anything”.

These politicians see their job as sustaining the entrepreneurs, making their life easier, hoping the wealth will trickle down to the rest of us, so we’ll keep voting them into office.

The State, in that view, has a role — but it’s one of providing a charitable “safety net”, grudgingly bestowed, perpetually underfunded.

It exists not to meet the needs of citizens but to take the edge off the horror stories, so they don’t upset too many people.

In housing, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail see their role as bolstering the position of those who gamble on property. With a tax cut here and a grant there, regulations streamlined or ignored, vultures fed and landlords incentivised, they live in hope that the supply of housing might be roughly adjusted to the need.

So far, they fail miserably. Confident and smug, they know no other way.

In this view, it is sacrilege for the State to intervene in the private market.

The politicians crushed this country by allowing the banks to turn it into the wild west of the finance business. Now, the casino continues, as the gamblers borrow to buy apartments, to rent them out, easily outbidding people who just want a roof over their heads. And the gamblers recoup their borrowings by pushing prices up again.

As a result, the rent of a one-room flat in the centre of Dublin is twice that of central Berlin, 50pc more than central Paris.

And, as politicians sing of great things to come, the legions of the homeless grow, and more people sleep in the spare rooms of relatives and friends. As it is, so shall it be. All over Europe, wages were hit when the gamblers crashed the economy in 2008. Gradually, by 2015, France and Germany saw wages rise by over 10pc. Even struggling Spain managed a 2.8pc increase. Here? It was 1.6pc.

Today, in this country where rents soar, where people in good jobs can’t get a mortgage, wages lag behind.

Michael Taft recently published figures for the median wage. Averaged across 10 advanced countries it was €32,540. In Ireland, it’s €30,130, and Taft calculated workers here need an 8.6pc increase to catch up.

Those at the upper end of the pay scale are on 3pc more than their counterparts in other countries.

Those at the bottom end of the pay scale need a 22pc increase to reach the wages paid to lower-paid workers elsewhere.

For many, particularly the young, jobs are precarious and underpaid, under conditions that border on cruelty.

They fleece us by underpaying wages; they fleece us again with the cost of a roof over our heads.

We could perhaps tolerate this fleecing if the State was providing the services every society needs — ensuring supports for those in need, ensuring adequate childcare so that the workforce can do its job.

But the children of Thatcher who run this country are reluctant to accept that the State has a role in these matters. The state services that should be ours by right are reduced to a “safety net”, overstretched and full of holes. Thus, the inevitable horror stories.

Money that could be spent on state services is used strategically to bribe voters, as ministers deliver goodies.

We work, pay the taxes and levies, we complain about the government but we keep putting Tweedle Gael or Tweedle Fail back in charge and they keep kicking our shins.

The old dodge of passing the keys of the kingdom back and forth between the twin parties with the interchangeable policies continues to prevail. As it is, so shall it be.

‘Low-paid workers need a 22pc increase to reach the level of wages paid to lowerpaid workers elsewhere’