A parliament divided: Elections are needed to restore hope

Last week’s census recorded that one-in-10 people in this Republic had turned their back on any religious alliance or belief. 

Such a figure, one that may grow, was inevitable once the scale of the paedophile and mother-and-baby home scandals was fully understood. Even if this ratio is low by European standards it shows a significant shift from accepted norms in what is a steadfastly conservative society.

Another matrix, albeit one merely concerned with the possibilities of our temporal world, shows an even higher level of rejection and disengagement. Barely two-in-three people — 65.2% — entitled to vote in last year’s general election did so.

In the previous election in 2011 70.1% exercised their franchise but on the last polling day 35% of us felt we had better things to do with our time than vote.

Even the most irrepressibly upbeat politician might struggle to summon the chutzpah to suggest that the recent performance of our political class might reverse that dangerous trend.

The frisson of possibility represented by the promise that a new kind of politics would define this Dáíl was, sadly, as impressive as Vicente or Cocktails At Dawn in Saturday’s Grand National — both fell at the first fence.

The water charges fiasco, the farce that keeps on giving, is the headline issue in this disenchantment but many others feed into it too. Fianna Fáil’s deep cynicism — spectacular even by their standards — and their shameless, unprincipled self-interest on water charges drives that disenchantment.

So too does Fine Gael’s prevarication on water charges and Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s continued leadership. Both issues are pushing the party towards a timorous irrelevance.

If Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s accusation yesterday that Housing Minister Simon Coveney’s tactics on water charges are being defined by his ambition to succeed Enda Kenny are to have any value beyond a three-second, tribal sound bite then it is essential to completely forget that Fianna Fáil’s water policy is now defined by Sinn Féin as surely as water flows downhill.

Mr Martin is not to the only leader with questions to answer. Mr Kenny’s determination to stay centre stage long after the audience has gone and the applause has died away is undermining faith in our politics too.

The sobering thing about all of this is that water charges are almost a sideshow compared to the other challenges facing our fractured and fractious parliament.

Growing demands for public sector pay increases, an imploding police force, an untrustworthy health service, falling tax returns, a housing crisis and something that looks very like a housing bubble and what looks like a slowing European economy are more than enough to challenge any government.

Add to that litany the unprecedented challenge of Brexit and having such an unpredictable tenant in the White House and even the most apolitical sit-on-the-ditch would acknowledge the scale of the challenge.

Trust has broken down in the Dáil, the supply-and-demand mask has slipped. It is time to have two, if not three, elections so there might be a prospect the governance of this country might serve the country rather than the rancid culture of enmity all too obvious in recent days.