Summertime and the politicians are leaving

TDs absent for months. A needless presidential election. Just as well we’ve no big problems, writes Gene Kerrigan

ANOTHER summer, another long, long, long political holiday. It’s nice to live in a country without urgent problems, isn’t it?

The Dail shut down on Thursday, July 12. It won’t sit again until September 18. Then it’s just a hop and a skip to the Dail Christmas break.

Last Christmas, the TDs took a month off to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Their holidays aren’t as generous as they used to be. After the bankers broke the economy in 2008, people were angry. So, fearful TDs cut about 25 days from their holiday time. They’re very proud of that.

But they feel terribly overworked. Last Thursday, the Ceann Comhairle hoped TDs will “try to find some downtime for themselves in the summer period”.

“Hear, hear,” said Mattie McGrath.

Tanaiste Simon Coveney suggested that TDs “take time off with their families to recharge mentally and physically from the pressures of this job”.

FF’s Dara Calleary urged TDs to “take a little holiday during the recess”.

The Ceann Comhairle knows the public are sceptical. “The cynics out there believe we’re embarking on a two-month holiday,” he told the Dail. “Those of us who live the life know the situation is quite different.”

He means they do “constituency work”. No other aspect of politics eats up so much of their time.

Some of it might conceivably be public service. Most of it is a form of electioneering.

That is, abusing their position to curry favour with voters by pretending to help them get something to which they’re already entitled — or not.

As far back as 1963, Professor Basil Chubb wrote an analysis of TDs’ work. The title is enough: Going about persecuting civil servants: The role of the Irish parliamentary representative.

As recently as 2014, Conor Lenihan (who had then left politics for business), conservatively estimated that 40pc of a TD’s time involves this “work” for individual constituents.

It paralyses parliamentary democracy, he admitted. It should be done by an Ombudsman with a bigger staff and greater powers.

The legislative schedule is sacrificed to facilitate TDs’ “hard work”. Between September 2017 and last Thursday’s shutdown, the Dail sat for just 100 days.

The UK parliament, which is no great shakes, won’t take a summer break until next Tuesday week, July 24.

And yet it’ll be back two weeks earlier than the Dail.

And last Christmas it took 18 days off, compared with the Dail’s month, to celebrate the Birth of the Saviour.

This goes some of the way to explaining how the House of Commons sat for 158 days in the same period that the Dail sat for 100.

The US Congress, widely regarded as slackers, sits 138 days a year.

We’re facing a range of heavyweight problems. Housing is in crisis, the public health service has been in a state of emergency for years. Half the water we produce leaks into the ground — Government has known about this for decades and does nothing. Parliament shrugs at the continuous crises.

And the police force — oh, dear God, now we’ll have to ask civilians to keep an eye out for the machine guns they lose on the street.

I open the Independent and find that Minister Finian McGrath “let rip” at the Cabinet. Apparently he had to “read about Government decisions in newspapers”, because Fine Gael has been “taking Independent ministers for granted”. Boo hoo. The poor man. The Business Post tells me that Michael Healy-Rae TD missed over 90pc of Dail votes on Thursdays. He has a “clinic” on Thursdays. “I’m in the Dail when I’m to be in the Dail,” he explained. “I’m not in the Dail when I can’t be in the Dail.” Mmm. That’s clear.

Not to worry, Minister Josepha Madigan has a plan for reducing Dail “tension” and making it less “adversarial”, according to The Sunday Times. Instead of sitting in an adversarial semi-circle, TDs should sit cosily together, according to constituency — so the parties will intermingle. (Sigh) It’s politics, Josepha. Supposedly the clash of ideas. Passionately held ideas. About liberty and fairness and power. About ensuring housing we can afford, functional health facilities, water and security for the citizens.

The parliament is supposed to clash, with parties representing and mediating the competing interests of different elements — landlord and tenant, banker and borrower etc.

In truth, the landlords and the bankers and estate agents have it sewn up.

So, we have heavyweight problems, with a lightweight legislature dealing with them. Or, failing to deal with them, while TDs waste time kissing constituents’ arses.

And the media facilitates all this. We treat it as panto. TweedleFF versus TweedleFG. We love the horse race element. It’s like a parliamentary version of the voting in the Eurovision Song Contest. The music’s crap, but the voting is exciting.

This can be seen in the current flapdoodle over the Presidential election. We’re treated to claims about “democracy” from people who tolerate an Oireachtas that represents the parties, and their patrons, not the people.

Mary Lou McDonald wants a “national conversation”. The conversation she should be leading is, “Which of the right-wing parties will SF put in power after the next election, and why?”

SF wants a presidential election so it can canvass every constituency. Various individuals want an election that will raise their personal profile.

No problem. Why don’t they just say that? Why the waffling about being concerned about democracy? The media? Yeah, we want a presidential election. It sells. And, in the silly season, while the TDs are off watering their grassroots, we have little to waffle about. Here’s the truth. Three of the nine presidents got their first term unopposed.

In the 80 years since the post was created in 1938, any sitting president who wanted a second term got one unopposed. Except once — in 1966, because Fine Gael hated de Valera.

The presidency isn’t a terribly democratic institution, because it’s powerless. It’s symbolic, and sometimes that means something — the election of Mary Robinson signalled a crack in the male monolith.

And the popularity of Higgins suggests we recognise his human rights concerns as important. It says that politicians don’t have to pander to be popular.

I don’t really care who’s president — but if we have to have one, I’ll vote for Higgins, for two reasons.

1) That human rights stand. Too many others stand for only their own alleged entrepreneurial zeal.

And 2), because as far back as 1982, Higgins identified a crucial need for Dail reform. TDs pandering to individual voters “disorganises” us, he argued. Citizens look for a personal favour, rather than demand a political reform.

And we can see where that’s led us. Heavyweight problems; lightweight politicians.

‘And, in the silly season, while the TDs are off watering their grassroots, we have little to waffle about‘