Radical changes but still no Utopia

Edited transcript of exchanges between Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dáil Éireann yesterday:

Joe Higgins: Many of today’s newspapers were kind enough to point out that I was not in the House yesterday when the Labour Party leader asked the Taoiseach about his newfound commitment to socialism. Ironically, I was abroad for several days on political work to advance the cause of socialism.

Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte: Did the Deputy have the Government jet?

Joe Higgins: You can imagine, A Cheann Comhairle, how perplexed I was when I returned to find my wardrobe almost empty. The Taoiseach had been busy robbing my clothes. Up to recently the Progressive Democrats did not have a stitch left due to the same Taoiseach but we never expected him to take a walk on the left side of the street.

Bertie Ahern: Extreme left.

Joe Higgins: He said: “I am one of the few socialists left in Irish politics.” Immediately, Tomás Ó Criomhthaín came to mind, as he lamented the last of the Blasket Islanders: “Ní bheidh ár leithéidí arís ann.” I then thought: “Good, Taoiseach. There are two of us in it and we will go down together.”

Sadly, I had to take a reality check. If this conversion was genuine, one must go back 2,000 years to find another as rapid and as radical.

Saul’s embrace of Christianity on the road to Damascus stood the test of time but the Taoiseach’s embrace of socialism on the banks of the Tolka hardly will.

I was not impressed with the Taoiseach’s answers yesterday so I will set him a test on three brief points to check if he is a socialist ... public ownership ... never support imperialist invasions ... equality.

The Taoiseach has three minutes in which to reply. I suggest that he devote one minute to each of the three tests and I will judge his replies at the end.

Bertie Ahern: I have watched and listened to Deputy Joe Higgins with interest for three decades but I have never heard him say anything positive.

He displays what I believe to be a far left or “commie” resistance to everything. He does so in the hope that some day the world will discover oil wells off our coast, which will fall into the ownership of the State, thereby allowing us to run a great market economy with the State at its centre. That Utopia does not exist.

What I said yesterday, when the deputy was not present, is that at the core of left-centre political ideology is the desire to spread the wealth more evenly. That means that people must be encouraged to create the wealth. When this is done, they are taxed and the money collected is used to resource them.

Deputy Joe Higgins is against wealth creation and, as a result, he favours high unemployment, high expenditure and high borrowing.

Any of the tests the deputy would set me fail on the grounds that he does not believe in them.

That is the issue. The deputy’s brand of socialism has changed so much in recent years.

As he is aware, one of the reasons for this, and for the rise in oil prices, is because his friends in Russia have decided that the market economy can afford $50 a barrel.

Independent Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley: We had oil wells off the coast and the Taoiseach gave them away.

Bertie Ahern: The deputy is a right-wing doctor.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern: And a well-paid one.

Bertie Ahern: That is what is wrong with Deputy Joe Higgins’s policies. I would be delighted to discuss the matter with him on the Blaskets or elsewhere whenever he so desires.

Joe Higgins: The basic advice a teacher gives to a pupil who is going in to do an examination is not to spend the entire time on one question.

An Ceann Comhairle, Dr Rory O’Hanlon: Unfortunately, under Leaders’ Questions the Taoiseach must focus on one question and not on three.

Joe Higgins: It was one question, divided into parts (a), (b) and (c).

The Taoiseach, not being able to answer parts (a) or (b), spent all of his time trying to answer (c). On that alone, he has flunked the test.

He has also flunked his history test by putting my type of socialism in the same gallery as that of the Russian Stalinists. I do not have time - unless the Ceann Comhairle will provide it - to educate the Taoiseach about that matter. He referred to my friends in Russia.

Bertie Ahern: They are not communists any longer, they joined the WTO.

Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea: Trotsky was the same.

Joe Higgins: My friends were murdered by the Stalinists. Trotsky and other fine socialists were killed because they stood for democratic socialism. The Taoiseach should do the honest thing and withdraw the ludicrous claims he made at the weekend.

Let us return to normal. Socialism is not a flag of convenience to be used after one’s party has been battered in the local and European elections in order to pretend that one is a friend of working people.

Dr Jerry Cowley: I would like the Taoiseach to withdraw the remark that I am a right-wing doctor.

Independent Dublin North-Central TD Finian McGrath: The Taoiseach should withdraw the remark he made.

Bertie Ahern: What remark?

Finian McGrath: The remark about the deputy being a right-wing doctor.

Bertie Ahern: The deputy is a doctor. If he gets that upset, the House can imagine what I feel every day.

Sinn Féin Cavan-Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin: The deputy is a medical doctor, not a spin doctor.

Bertie Ahern: In reply to Deputy Joe Higgins, my point is that one cannot distribute resources to education, health and social welfare unless wealth is generated. That is how we can have more doctors, more nurses, more therapists, more teachers.

Dermot Ahern: QED.

Bertie Ahern: By having lower taxes, we were able to spend more.

This shows the success of what we do. I know that the deputy is actually an admirer of that also.

Dermot Ahern: That is our legacy.

Compiled by Fionnán Sheahan.