This leadership change is a last minute PR ploy to try to revive a dying project
IT HAS been a seismic week in Irish politics. To witness the outgoing Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, unexpectedly call time on his political career, on his Fine Gael party, live on air, was extraordinary. I have wished him well personally, but his surprise decision was effectively a vote of no-confidence in his own Government.
The coronation of Simon Harris as the next leader of Fine Gael has already been described as a ‘poisoned chalice’ by many political commentators. The writing is on the wall for the failing, marketfirst approach of this conservative Coalition. Fine Gael’s time is up.
They know it, the public knows it. And that’s why we in Labour are urging this Government to listen to the people and call a general election now.
We know that at least 11 current Fine Gael TDs will not contest the next general election. Fine Gael representatives have lost confidence in their own Government. They’ve lost confidence in their own capacity to govern. They’re out of ideas and they’re out of time.
That’s why the sooner we have a general election, the better. People want radical change. We in the Labour Party want to offer that radical change. We offer a real alternative to the tried and failed policies of this conservative Coalition.
Everything has changed since the formation of this Government in 2020. Back then, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party promised to build back better but, instead, they built back only for the better-off.
The most recent budget provided tax breaks for landlords, and a series of once-off payments; so everyone got a touch but no one got a helping hand. It’s emblematic of the Government’s failed market-led approach to solving the crises of our times.
It doesn’t work. It isn’t working. Hospital waiting lists are at record highs, children are not getting the therapies they need, gardaí are resigning in their droves, and that’s before we even get to the civil rights issue of our generation – the housing disaster.
Over 4,000 children are living in homelessness. That’s over 4,000 children doing their homework on hotel room floors. No play dates, and no space to grow and gain independence. It’s a national disgrace.
On top of this, Ireland is experiencing record rents and unaffordable housing. Working people are stretched beyond their limits. Food and energy prices are breaking the bank every month, and the chaos in emergency departments means that sick people are afraid to go to hospital.
THIS Government has broken the social contract, and incoming Fine Gael leader Simon Harris is hardly the person to put the pieces back together.
Under his Government, Fine Gael has failed to provide the basics, the fundamentals in any society; a roof over their heads; fair pay for a fair day’s work; heat in their homes; healthy foods in their fridge. One in seven children here are living in poverty. So something is not adding up. Ireland is simply not working.
This Government is not working. And changing the name over the door of Taoiseach will do nothing for those who are struggling in our country.
Working people are caught in a triple bind – fighting for their children, fighting for supports for their parents, and all the while trying to meet their own needs.
Seven out of 10 young people live at home with their parents, stuck in arrested development, even having to delay starting their own families because of the housing disaster that has worsened under this Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government.
People have no security, no certainty about their future, for themselves, for their family, for their neighbours. This Government has created a new Precariat.
That’s because these Government parties do not believe in the power of the State, the same State that supported us through the crisis of a lifetime during the Covid19 pandemic.
Fine Gael can clearly recognise it themselves with their lastminute PR exercise in an attempt to breathe some life into a dying political project.
Yet they will remain the same, out-of-touch cohort, with solutions that rely on the private sector, tax breaks and one-off grants.
THIS is the tragedy of Ponzi scheme politics. We keep hearing that the budget books are good, yet our society faces more challenges than ever before. Resources clearly aren’t a problem – but leadership and ambition are both sadly lacking.
That’s not going to change under this Government, and certainly not under a new Fine Gael Taoiseach. Things will remain the same in April. We will still have ministers who are out of touch, have lost control, or who are clambering to resign before their next colleague does.
They want to do anything but govern. That’s why Labour has a plan, an ambition to deliver change for communities nationwide.
Last night in Dublin’s Helix at our 73rd National Party Conference, I laid out Labour’s plan to deliver housing, protect workers, tackle climate change, and ensure people can get care and support when they need it most.
For us, change isn’t a slogan, it’s our life’s work.
The Labour Party is a party of political passion, of conviction, and of courage. We believe that we are strongest when we work together. Because that’s the future of social democracy. It is the future for Ireland. We need a general election and we need it now. We are asking you to join us to deliver real change for Ireland. For an Ireland that works for all.
CIARáN CAREY was always on target in the ’90s as one of the most talented hurlers to ever wear Limerick’s green, and that’s saying something in light of what’s been happening since 2018.
Now running the counselling and addiction service MyMove in Limerick, Carey is back on target this week with his frank warning that a blizzard of cocaine is sweeping the country.
People shouldn’t be surprised given that cocaine is now claiming as many lives as those destroyed on our roads. In 2020 there were 130 cocaine poisonings, almost a three-fold
increase in such deaths in just three years. The losses for 2024 are likely to be much higher.
The threat from illegal drugs is now everywhere. Over the St Patrick’s weekend, a horrified rural solicitor told me how big farmers’ sons, who wouldn’t even consider wearing shorts preferring to stick to the traditional denim, are now taking keys of cocaine on a regular basis and then driving huge John Deere-style tractors the morning after.
The normalisation of drug use has been a game-changer and he predicted multiple and ongoing
tragedies. All this on top of 200 years of alcohol abuse and widespread depression.
Ciarán Carey says cocaine is now the most used illegal substance ‘by a country mile’ and that drug suppliers have set up sophisticated distribution systems, meaning anybody, no matter how isolated the location, can get cocaine within minutes.
Meanwhile, gardaí are struggling to cope with a dramatic character switch in street violence, where all bets are off when push comes to shove. Basically, it’s turbocharged to extremes, with
restraint a thing of the past. Last August, the Health Research Board reckoned about 260,000 people over 15 years of age have used cocaine.
That’s three Croke Parks filled to the brim.
On top of all that, there are now almost 12,000 people in Ireland receiving treatment for opioid (heroin) abuse. It’s a dismal picture as gardaí with scarce resources battle the cartels, even with some notable recent successes.
Ciarán Carey and others are raising red flags. We’re all on notice.