Cormac MacConnell: The kind of economic boom I can’t wait for
The Government can achieve all this alchemy with one stroke of a pen — by instantly calling a general election, to be decided before the end of May. The purest of truths, yet again.
I am well aware that the current Government, which has served us honourably through hard times, can hang on until next year, if they wish.
It is also true that there is an upcoming by-election around Carlow and Kilkenny, and there are even a couple of referenda upcoming.
One would give Tom full legal permission to marry Dick or Harry or whoever, with similar rights on the distaff side (God bless them all).
The other one has to do with the potential election to the Presidency of somebody of any gender whatever, of a younger age than any previous occupant of the Aras. All of these are worthy and maybe even necessary constitutional exercises. But, let’s face it, they don’t generate the same craic and economic boost across the nation that a good rousing general election will.
Economic boost? It goes right across the domestic scale and beyond.
The printers who print the tens of thousands of garish posters and the attendant flyers and election literature will benefit hugely. The hard-pressed country pubs will be packed to the doors for weeks with the clinics of candidates, and coping with the thirsts of canvassing parties.
Hardware stores will sell thousands of ladders for putting those posters up on every pole between here and Hell. Sound system engineers will be working around the clock providing loudspeakers and sound systems.
Newspapers and other media outlets will earn extra millions in election advertising. Outgoing TDs of all parties everywhere will be seen sweating on every side-road, as they try to prove they are worth their large salaries and related perks. Doorstep promises will enliven all our days and evenings.
The cunning ploys and “strokes” of at least one candidate in every county will provide us all with mighty craic. The excitement surrounding the final election rallies at all levels is as electric and thrilling as any All Ireland Final.
And the beauty of it is that this is not a political battle at all, at the fundamental level.
We all know by now that the nation’s true rulers are the men and women at the top of the Civil Services in Dublin and Brussels. We all have our political allegiances and opinions but, at the end of the day, the arrival of the dapper Troika led by the European Commission some years ago showed us exactly who is buttering our bread.
It does not really matter nowadays to Sean and Mary Ellen Citizen which party, or combination of parties, seems to be exercising the powers of the State. On a national scale, it is akin to the system in all our counties where the canny, non-elected County Managers have always subtly held the reins, despite the best efforts of the elected Councillors. Again, the pure truth.
The glorious prospect arising from a snap general election this summer is that, when the counting is done, there is quite likely to be all the tasty ingredients of a hung Dáil, with nobody able to put together a majority Government, and weeks of highly entertaining post-ballot skirmishing, involving both the old parties and new outfits like the tongue-tied Renua, and a passel of lads and lassies with the steam of hot water issuing from both ears.
I can’t wait for that. And don’t worry that the currently fastest growing economy in Europe will come to any grief, when it is in the seasoned bureaucratic hands in the background.
Not at all. It will thrive away.
And we might have the real excitement of a second general election before September, as the year heats up.
All in all, when you consider the situation in any depth, we are well overdue the good rousing and rattling excitement and social and economic boom that come attached to a general election.
I can hear thousands of you loudly agreeing with me already.
