Every problem looks like a nail to a hammer

ARE you not dazzled by it? This bright new era in Irish public life. With the election of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach we were promised something new, something fresh. A changing of the guard and of the generations. An opportunity for rebirth and renewal. A time for new voices and new ideas to spring forth into the public square.

And what did we get? The same old story. The new guy couldn’t go a day without his government becoming embroiled in a scandal with accusations of stroke politics from the opposition benches.

That the decision to appoint the former Attorney General, Maire Whelan, as a judge on the Court of Appeal was the final decision of the out-going Taoiseach’s administration cut little ice with most people.

Mr Varadkar was at the cabinet meeting where the decision was taken. He had eyes and ears and a vote and the clout to stop the appointment had he chosen to speak out against it. He didn’t and Ms Whelan became Justice Whelan.

Maybe we shouldn’t be disappointed by this. Maybe we’re just being naive here to expect more and to expect better of our politicians. They’re going to engage in the rough and tumble and the Realpolitik.

Micheál Martin was always going to up on his high horse about it and the new Taoiseach was always going to face him down. One-nil to the new Taoiseach and game continues merrily along much as it always has.

If all this – this dog and pony show – were accompanied by meaningful debate about policy or the direction of the country, you might be inclined to brush it off as just one of those things. The cost of doing business in Dáil Éireann.

Alas that hasn’t been the case since Mr Varadkar has assumed the burdens and responsibilities of the Taoiseach’s office. Instead we’ve been treated to a diet of orthodox pieties and platitudes, where the solution to every problem seems to come in the form of tax cuts or tax relief.

The lack of imagination, of fresh thinking is stunning. The new generation of leadership is pursuing a set of policies that looks a hell of a lot like the polices pursued by the previous generation.

To be fair Mr Varadkar’s government is constrained somewhat in what it can do by the confidence and supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil, but that only places limits on policy and concrete action, not on its imagination and its vision.

Take the comments this week by the new junior minister in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Brendan Griffin, as an example.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner the Kerry TD stated that he would like to see GAA players – as well as other sports people – being given a tax exemption as a sort of reward for their efforts.

“In some cases, artists have tax exemptions, so can we do something more for our sports people along those lines?” he asked.

“These are the things I would like to explore at the moment and I would like to see looked at, to make things a bit easier to help those excelling in sport. It is something I have discussed with my own officials.”

You’ll forgive us for groaning when we saw that on Tuesday morning. Where to start? Well first of all with the idea that a tax break is the solution – and we’re not even accepting there’s a problem here to be solved.

What is it with these guys and tax cuts and breaks? A lot of the political establishment in this country have a one track mind. They’ve limited their imagination to such an extent that it’s their only frame of reference. When all you’ve got is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

What to do about the housing crisis? Hmmm let me guess, a tax break? Bingo. The government’s tax break for first time buyer’s proved so unsuccessful they’re likely to repeal it at the next budget. No doubt their fresh new idea will be to replace it with a tax break for developers instead.

Then we have a Taoiseach who ran a leadership campaign focussed on those who get up early in the morning. Ignoring for a moment the problems with that particular framing, what prey tell is the Taoiseach’s solution to the concerns of the squeezed middle? A tax cut, what else.

Forget about what improvements could be made to people’s standards of living through improving public services or to the cost of living through other means, a nice simple tax cut is the bright new Taoiseach’s bright new idea.

Which brings us back to Deputy Griffin’s proposal. Does the new minister not realise that a similar debate was already held, a debate which resulted in the Player Grants scheme being introduced?

Does he not realise that the reason a tax scheme wasn’t introduced was that it was largely unworkable as it would produce different categories of GAA players for the simple reason that the GAA is a thirty two county plus organisation and the Irish government’s writ stops at the border with the six counties?

Unless he can get Her Majesty’s Treasury to come on board – or the US Treasury for that matter if the New York footballers aren’t to be excluded – then this proposal is dead in the water and it so it should be.

Has there been some sort of epidemic of footballers or hurlers walking away from the games at inter-county level or something that we’ve missed? Just a little under a fortnight ago we sat in a room with Paul Murphy – not the Solidarity TD but the Kerry footballer – and he described playing for his county as a “kind of a lifestyle choice”.

Only in Ireland could a lifestyle choice be considered grounds for a tax break by a government minister, but, as they’re so fond of saying in politics, we are where we are... and the only people who can change it are the

voters.