Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Previous editions
Saturday, November 07, 2009
THERE has been talk about cutting the size of the Dáil and abolishing the Seanad, but nobody seems to have suggested abolishing the Presidency, which is the single most expensive office. How much could be save by abolishing it?
In fairness Mary McAleese has shown some leadership. She has cut her salary and she has announced that she is cutting her expenses by €40,000 (12.5%).
I did not vote for Mary McAleese when she ran for the Presidency, because even members of the hierarchy were calling her "the bishops’ woman." After all, she was chosen by the hierarchy to be their spokesperson at the New Ireland Forum in 1984.Any woman that the bishops would pick back then seemed likely to be in their pocket. This was sending the wrong message to the world. Hence I voted one, two and three for the other candidates.
When McAleese won it looked like we were going to have a right pain in the Áras, but I was never so happy to be proved wrong. She promptly demonstrated that, as President, she was not going to be led and said by the Hierarchy, unlike all the men before her.
She attended a service at Christ Church Cathedral and received communion there, despite the objections of Desmond Cardinal Connell, who had the contemptible arrogance to denounce her behaviour publicly. But she had the exquisite audacity to put him in his box by announcing that she would go to other Protestant services and would receive communion there as well. In the next public opinion poll 78% of the people agreed with her.
For the first time in the history of the state, the bishops were firmly put in their place. Now they are where they belong. President McAleese has done a great job in demonstrating that we have become a republic, and we should recognise that this symbolic republican alternative to the monarchy has become a superfluous extravagance.
Since independence we have had 11 different Heads of State – three Governor Generals and eight Presidents. The first Governor General was Tim Healy, who was one of the men who sided with the bishops against Parnell in the 1890s.
Our Heads of State have been expensive symbols, with the exception of Dónal Ua Buachalla, who served as the last Governor General from 1932 through 1937. He replaced James McNeill, who was removed after he defied the government by publishing his correspondence with de Valera. The latter demanded that King George V remove McNeill. There were suggestions at the time that Dev would appoint a charwoman. He did the next best thing. The Government appointed Ua Buachalla, whose salary was slashed by 80%. He moved into a house in the Dublin suburbs and essentially only signed bills when he was told. The country did not collapse with the Head of State in obscurity during those years. In 1938 the Governor General was replaced with an elected President under the new Constitution.
The Governor-General had been the official representative of the British king, but under the new Constitution, the President was to be elected by the people as head of state. He would also be commander-in-chief of the Irish Army.
Opponents of the Constitution contended that the office of President was being set up for de Valera to establish himself as a grand Dictator. He argued the position would be largely symbolic.
If this was so, Fine Gael suggested privately that he should nominate the retired academic and founder of the Gaelic League, Douglas Hyde. De Valera agreed and Hyde was duly elected President by acclamation.
It was a major step towards the formal establishment of a republic. This was essentially symbolic, but it was over such symbolism that the civil war was fought less than a decade and a half earlier.
Shortly after becoming President, Hyde suffered a severe stroke and was incapacitated for the next seven years. The country still survived.
Seán T O’Kelly was put out to pasture in the Park in 1945 and Eamon de Valera succeeded him in 1959. Both signed bills, travelled a bit, and acted as the nation’s chief greeter and head mourner.
Ironically when Hyde died in 1949. President O’Kelly, Taoiseach John A Costello, and de Valera, then leader of the Opposition, all remained outside the Protestant church service, for fear of upsetting Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.
As President, de Valera involved himself in a few questionable political moves. When Kevin Boland walked out of Jack Lynch’s cabinet, the President persuaded him to withdraw his resignation in the interest of the Fianna Fáil government. And when Frank Aiken withdrew from the 1973 election over the nomination of Charlie Haughey as a Fianna Fáil candidate, de Valera intervened to persuade Aiken not to go ahead with plans to announce his reasons publicly. Aiken was even persuaded to keep quiet when Honest Jack Lynch lied to the nation.
He said that Aiken was stepping down on doctor’s orders, which was patently dishonest. Erskine Childers replaced de Valera in 1973 but died the following year. Cearbhall O Dálaigh was elected unanimously in 1974. For the first time in almost 40 years, he did something meaningful, relating to his office. In the aftermath of the murder of the British Ambassador in Dublin, he referred a bill declaring a state of emergency to the Supreme Court. This was part of his job, and as a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he was eminently qualified to do what he did.
Although the court eventually held that the legislation was constitutional, Defence Minister Paddy Donegan denounced the President a "thundering disgrace" at an Army function. O Dalaigh quit when the Taoiseach was unwilling to remove Donegan for insulting the Commander-in-chief in front of his men.
Paddy Hillery then became President and played golf for the next 14 years. His most memorable contribution to the office was refusing to take a telephone call one night in 1982 from Charlie Haughey, who was trying to tell him his business.
Mary Robinson was elected in 1990. She did try to take some initiatives, but she was roped in by the politicians, who were not about to be upstaged. Her most significant contribution as President was shaking hands with Gerry Adams in Belfast. Of course, she was not too happy later when she had to shake hands with the infamous Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. She could hardly get out of the office fast enough.
Before the end of her term as President, so bolted to take up a job at the UN. But she still got a full pension. In the 12 years since then she had been paid over €1m for doing SFA. After taking a voluntary 10% cut to her €146,00 pension this year, she is still getting €131,400 annually. This is still over €2,500 a year more than the US president gets after his two terms in the White House.
Our plundering politicians may say the Yanks are stingy, but the truth is that we have lost the run of ourselves. Can anyone name any other job where someone can get that much after less than seven years doing precious little? No wonder we are in such a mess.
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