Alison O'Connor on the Canvass: Voters in Cork quiz Tánaiste on pensions, homelessness and crime
joined Simon Coveney as he canvassed at Douglas Court shopping centre in Cork over the weekend.
Simon Coveney has a good laugh when asked if he might now legitimately be viewed as an “emotional support Tánaiste” to the self-confessed poor expresser of emotions that is his boss the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
That question followed a query as to how it feels on a human level to find himself promoted to almost equal billing in the campaign as the Taoiseach, not least because of his high approval ratings on Brexit handling, and probably because of him being a half decent expresser of feelings. All of this after he lost the Fine Gael crown to the same Leo. At the time many party colleagues said they were voting for Leo rather than Simon because he would be a huge asset in the next general election. Surely last thing at night, after a hard day on the campaign trail, Simon must be struck by the irony of his now hugely elevated position.
“That’s a bit of a leading question,” he answers, laughing again. He doesn’t really bite on it, saying it doesn’t upset him; that he asked for the Foreign Affairs brief and concentrates on that. “For me politics is less about personalities and more about outcome and delivery.”
Still though he’s interesting on Leo’s lack of ability on the empathy front and his more diagnostic rather than emotionally intelligent approach to politics.
“It is true. Leo is not good at expressing empathy. He accepts that. We have spoken about it many times. I think he tries to do more in that space, to reach out to people on an emotional level. But you know he’s an incredibly intelligent man. He’s a doctor. His approach to politics is that he diagnoses the problem and he tries to construct a solution. That is what he has tried to do on Brexit and what he has tried to do in terms of the economic model that he is looking to implement…. I think that means he does not connect emotionally with people in the way other politicians do. But I’d rather be working with somebody like that than somebody who is trying to be empathetic every week but not actually delivering any solutions or outcomes.”
It’s Saturday afternoon in Cork city. On Friday at the Fine Gael manifesto launch Simon said he knew his Cork South Central constituency colleague, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin “better than most” and “he is not the person” to lead Ireland into the next phase of the Brexit challenge. Ouch. Any concerns since that he came across as a bit of an arrogant Blueshirt git? He looks taken aback at this interpretation. “I don’t think so at all. I haven’t insulted Micheal Martin.” This begs the response as to what exactly would constitute a Simon Coveney insult.
“What I’ve said is right, I know Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar well. I’ve worked with both of them. I want Leo Varadkar to lead the Brexit negotiations because I think he will do a better job and he has shown the capacity to do that…. What I am trying to do is to get to the heart of the issue – who do you want as Taoiseach of this country when we have huge challenges to overcome in these negotiations over the next 8 to 12 months. In my view Leo has shown a calmness and steeliness and a firmness around Brexit that we need for the next half of this race. I’m passionate about that and that is why I said it bluntly. I know Micheal Martin well and I have no personal animosity against him.”
Back to the general election campaign. Leo Varadkar “will have to be very strong” in the last ten days. “I’d say he needs to be, quite honestly, because it has been an election that didn’t start well for us. It’s important to be honest about that. What it comes down to is who do you trust in terms of political party and in terms of Taoiseach. Who do you trust to take Ireland forward.”
The poor start is something he talks about later to shoppers that he meets outside Dunne Stores in the Douglas Court shopping centre. Simon tells them it was difficult for the Government having to answer tough questions around homelessness and crime. “It is a spiky enough canvas out there and that’s because people have had bad experiences in hospitals particularly, and people expect more from government. They want solutions quickly. I think people have made a lot of sacrifices particularly middle income earners, business owners. They’ve worked with government policies, because they know it was needed and now they want something back.”
He speculates that voters haven’t been wanting to listen to data because there is a lot of emotion involved, but clearly Fine Gael is hoping some of their facts will start to sink in for the remainder of the campaign. A fact that he has also stresses to shoppers – and at one point there is a queue of people waiting to talk to him - is how other parties are “talking about ways to spend money that Fine Gael has created.”
His canvas team includes his older brother Patrick and his daughter eighteen-year-old Tara, both down from Dublin. Tara is canvassing for the first time ever but has clearly been bitten by the bug as she is in her first year of studying politics. The issues of health, housing and, of course, pensions are raised. One shopper raised the National Children’s Hospital, another the Dara Murphy controversy. It is almost exclusively middle class.
He listens and sometimes takes notes and respectfully but firmly argues the Fine Gael position.
At one point a woman he is talking to points towards Patrick Coveney, standing a little bit away, and asks: “Is that your son?”
“My son?” asks a clearly taken aback candidate and younger sibling. “That’s my older brother Patrick.”
Patrick brings over Keith Martin for a chat. Keith recently moved to Cork from Zimbabwe, being able to do so “through ancestry”. It will be the first time in his adult life voting “in a free and fair election” so he’s devoting considerable time to his decision. Simon once visited Zimbabwe on a rugby tour and they both chat about how tragic it is what happened to the country under the late Robert Mugabe. Keith had a funeral home there, with a state contract. He said he buried all of Mugabe’s supporters and relatives, including his first wife. “But it was snatched by a Government minister and taken.” Keith said it was difficult to get somewhere to live in Cork and his partner had a bad experience in hospital.
Rachel Quigley is a GP in Blackrock and clearly frustrated at the situation in primary care. She tells the Tanaiste of a GP friend in the city who has pneumonia and despite needing five antibiotics does not have the cover to take any time off. Another GP friend is pregnant and can’t get a locum for her maternity leave. “I wouldn’t be a typical Fine Gael voter but last time I voted Fine Gael. However things are so difficult on the ground for GPs. We’re very demoralised…. I come home after talking to 30 people all day and I can’t speak for two hours after the stress.”
The hot topic of pensions and retirement is raised by a woman who is due to retire next November. She is really annoyed at the prospect of having to sign on. Simon tells her this will not be the case, that Fine Gael did listen to what people had to say. He explains the party’s changed proposals which he said will cost €150 million a year. The woman mentions that she wouldn’t ever think of voting Sinn Fein but “Mary Lou has said she would keep it at 65”.
“Mary Lou is planning to spend the divil and all,” responded Simon.
“I am so upset by all of this,” the woman tells him. “I’ve worked for 41 years. You’re better off in this country not working at all. The humiliation of having to go and sign on alongside people who have done nothing all their lives. I worked since I was 15 years of age."
Another woman waits patiently to say she is not a supporter of any party but wanted to acknowledge “all the work and effort you put in and the media don’t usually write about it.” Interestingly in an earlier chat about the media – brought about by a question on how the Tanaiste can often seems not to be overly keen on journalists he has a lot to say.
Following the general election he believes there is an acute need for an “honest and blunt” discussion on this subject. “The media today is a changing place. I think it is a very tough place for journalists because you are competing with anonymous opinion formers on social media who don’t have any cost base, who don’t have any regulation, who don’t have any fact checkers, who can’t be taken to court.”
He wants the discussion to centre around how media is funded, how it is regulated, how it interacts with the court and court actions. “We don’t want to be muzzling the media, threatening them financially with legal cases, but at the same time how do we deal with a largely unregulated online conversation? From my perspective as a senior politician there is a need for an honest and blunt discussion between policy makers and media leaders around how do we have a vibrant, viable media in Ireland that can do its job in a democracy, but at the same time ensuring we do not have the demonisation of politics, of all parties. This has been happening and has been a driving politics in a dangerous direction, moving people to the extremes, moving people to populism. Politicians actually take on the media to try to undermine their credibility in order to be able to win votes.”
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