Business savvy alone just won’t cut it, Verona
IT’Shardly a surprise that on beingdisowned by Fine Gael, VeronaMurphy has come out all gunsblazing. While meeker mortalsmight belicking their wounds inthe bosom of theirfamilies in therun-up to Christmas, thehaulage bosshas been firing on all cylinders on theair waves. No sooner had Simon Harris voiced hislooking-better-by-the-minuteapproval forher removal from the partygeneral election ticket, an unbowed Veronahit back,labelling him the worst health ministerinthe history of the state and claiming shehadbeen silenced during the campaign.
‘Politics is a dirty game… Everyoneseems to be in it for themselves,’ shepiped up with abutter-wouldn’t-melt-in the-mouth innocence.
Who knows what evisceration awaits-PaschalDonohoe for maintaining that shewas neverasked by the party hierarchy toapologise for her comments linking asylum seekers to Isis.
But it’s exactly her tough-talking vituperationthat Leo Varadkar signed up forwhen he chose Verona to fight theWexford by-election after hertrenchant contributions duringtheBrexit debates made such animpressiononhim.
‘She is some one who left schoolat 14,but got her Leaving Cert at35, got a law degree, ranher ownbusiness, raised her own family asa single mother,’ gushed the privateschool boy in a video. ‘She is somebody whoinspires me.’
GRANTED , Verona’ s up by-the-bootstrapslife philosophy ticks all Fine Gael’s ideological- boxes . It sets high premium on self- reliance, determination , and as the Tao is each put it so pithily when he came to power , its favouring of those ‘ who getup early in the morning ’.
She left home at 14, becameestranged from her family, suffered a toxic teen age romance and spent a period in homelessness. Yetshe survived to become a goodmother to herdaughter Robyn anda formidable force in atough andmacho business.
But the darkside of the self-mademan orwoman who steam rolls over-obstacles placedon their path isthat they can make a virtueout ofgood luck and career breaksand regard those who ‘fail ’in lifewith impatience and, at worst,an attitude bordering on contempt.It means that while they areusually admirable, they are rarelylike able as well.
Capable achievers like Veronaoften reason that if they builtan empire on nothing morethan the clippings of tin and a furious workethic,then so cant he restof us and that if we don’t, it’sbecause of some moral failing, like-laziness or criminality.
They forget that there are oftenvalid reasons for welfare dependency, that hardship andmisfortuneis a fact of life for many peopleand that gaining wealth and influence doesn’tconsume all of us.
Murphy apologised for heranti-migrant prejudices and heregregious claim that three-year-old refugees should bede programmed ,charges she made innot one but three separateinterviews .
Presumably she has sincelearned some compassionfor people who , just like the 21- year-old her buying herfirst refrigerated truck ,want onlyto carve a betterlife for themselves and to over come their dubious origins .
PRESUMABLY she realises now that vilifying innocentchildren is the lowest ofthe low . But the factthat it took her the bestpart of 40 year sand the heat of aby- election campaign to learn lessons about human vulner abilitythat most of us know instinctivelyis telling.
It shows that while and shoot-for the-hip manner took her far in theworld of commerce, it is a poorcalling card for politics which isabout improving the lives of theweak and thestrong.
During the banking collapse therewas a lot of discourse about theperils of conflating an efficienteconomy with a thriving society .The same can be said of individual sand the difference between a goodbusiness person an da decenthuman being.