Politicians giving out worrying smoke signals

POWERFUL unelected, unrepresentative lobbies cannot be allowed to dictate government policy.

When Fianna Fáil politicians start talking about self-policing, as they did last Tuesday with respect to the smoking ban, we know that the inmates have well and truly taken over the asylum. Is some gene running though the body politic that convinces them that we, the great unwashed their electorate are all idiots? Over the past decade or so we've been blighted with one sort of tribunal or other looking into the possibly nefarious affairs of one group or another. In many cases those tribunals resulted from the exaggerated power of minority vested interests despite that fact that they represented nobody but themselves. It spoke volumes about the capability and indeed the integrity of our elected politicians and government.

The net result has meant that the regard we hold for our politicians has never been lower. It is not sustainable if this democracy is to mean anything. One would imagine that our politicians would be doing everything to change our minds.