Whatever you do don’t call it a bailout
MAYBE if he had a beard and a robe (and a deep connection to the force) we might be more inclined to believe him, but as it was Shane Ross’ Jedi mind-trick didn’t really have the desired effect on any of us.
He rolled into town last Thursday and told us these are not the droids we’re looking for. Instead of quickly agreeing with him and ushering him through when he told us the bailout of the FAI wasn’t a bailout – “It’s quite the opposite to a bailout, it’s a highly conditioned loan and grant” – we stared at him disbelievingly and with no small degree of incredulity. Does he really think we’re this dumb?
We can kind of understand why he wanted to give the impression that it’s not a bailout. We’re in the teeth of an election campaign and with health and housing dominating the agenda it’s probably not great politics to be seen to be giving millions of Euro to what Ross himself described as a “toxic organisation”.
On that score at least the member for Stepaside Garda station’s political radar isn’t far off. That’s what nine or ten months of horrendous headlines will do for an organisation’s standing in the country at large.
Where Minster Ross is wrong is in thinking that telling us something so preposterous would do anything other than make him look foolish. It was always much more likely to generate more comment about the bailout than to shut it down. By trying to be too clever by half, Ross has created a political Streisand effect.
The smart play here would have been to own the decision to bail the FAI out fully and forcefully. To say that yes it’s a bailout, to say that it had to be done, to challenge anybody to say there was a better option.
Even if his voters in leafy south Dublin feel that the money could have been better spent, at least he would have been seen as standing on a point of principle, as a man able and willing to take the hard decisions even if they’re unpopular. Instead it seems like Ross wants it both ways and ends up looking like a typical mealymouthed politician.
Not a great look a week before an election.