Alison O’Connor: Tweedledum and Tweedledee-like campaign lacklustre and uninspiring

The simple combination of Fianna Fáil and SSIA is enough to send shivers down the spine of anyone, writes Alison O’Connor

HOW is it for you? Exciting, inspirational, thoughtful, lashings of food for thought? Thought not. What a ding-dong general election campaign we are being served up. The hurling has remained firmly on the ground and the rhetoric has failed to soar above the knee.

Is it wrong to want to be inspired, to have tired so quickly of the Tweedledum and Tweedledee element of it all. Just now it feels like a choice between two supermarkets where, despite the loud advertising, you have to concentrate really hard to work out — bearing in mind how many grams is in each packet — who really does have the best deals.

With the two main parties going into this general election almost neck and neck surely someone might have thought it was an idea to try a soupçon of the vision thing, something that would set them apart.

Following the Virgin Media Television debate on Wednesday night the discussion, understandably, surrounded which of the two won. Afterwards I simply felt a little nonplussed by it all, feeling uncomfortable at Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar apparently connecting with hitherto unexplored and unexposed depths on the empathy front. As one Fianna Fáil texter succinctly described it, “robo emoting”. I’m not saying I agree with that, just that this turn was a high point of interest. The humility and empathy may well lurk deep beneath the Varadkar surface but can you trust something “turned on” for the purposes of an election campaign.

The other point of interest was his fascinating response on the drugs front. The TV make-up was heavy but it really did look as if the question resulted in a blush and it was one of the longest pauses on live TV ever witnessed in Irish politics. Watch this space?

At least Leo did try and change it up a bit in his approach. Micheál Martin went for his traditional pugilistic approach seeming not to have prepared, or been able to respond to, the more-in-touch-with-his-feeling-and-now-able-to-express-them-too Leo. But how much did any of it matter? In a house where general election debates are (almost) the equivalent of an All-Ireland final it felt like an hour-and-a-quarter which could have been better spent throwing in a wash, sorting the school uniforms and getting a relatively early night.

The best news line came early when Leo threw open the grand coalition option — Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil together, a prospect first raised by former taoiseach Enda Kenny after the 2016 election. Interesting admittedly, but actually just serving to further deflate the ballon that has so far been election campaign 2020. If it ever happened it wouldn’t be policy issues that would keep these two apart, but personality, and both parties precious sense of political self.

On any policy we have heard so far, be it housing, health, crime, there isn’t an individual proposal where you might turn to someone and say, with optimism: “Have you heard what they’ve proposed on x, it’s interesting and might just work?” The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll this week showed that health and housing are by far the most important issues to voters in the campaign. Asked which issues would have the most influence on their vote, 40% of voters said health was their most important issue, while 32% said housing. There are people all over Ireland in despair at the state of both.

On health Fine Gael has said it would implement in full the policies outlined in the Sláintecare document which gives a blueprint for how we might sort out the massive inequality in the health service as well as the trolley-crises and waiting lists. It has been rather niggardly on the detail of just how it will do this. Quite amazingly Fianna Fáil looks as if it might even be doing health on the hoof with a surprisingly poor performance from the party’s health spokesman Stephen Donnelly on the Claire Byrne Live health debate on Monday night.

Earlier that day the party had its press briefing on health. Donnelly was similarly poor. No document was handed out to the media detailing the party’s plans. Interesting to look at the Fianna Fáil website and see a full PDF FF Housing Policy document “Owning Your Own Home” that you can click into. No such thing on health, except a “Summary of health Measures from Press Briefing”. Nothing set in stone, then. Perhaps that’s just the way they want it.

In the second key area of concern to the electorate: housing, Fianna Fáil ends up backtracking on the idea of a rent freeze, saying it now has legal advice to say it can’t be done. It’s comforting, isn’t it, to think of the preparation and research that’s been so thoroughly done. Then there is the SSIA proposal for first-time [home] buyers. The simple combination of Fianna Fáil and SSIA is enough to send shivers down the spine of anyone observing politics for any length of time. Not to mention the fact that Fine Gael’s charge that it is a distinctly bad idea rings very true.

During the TV debate health was of course discussed. Sláintecare (the blueprint document, which all parties agreed is the way forward) was mentioned almost in passing. There was the usual tit for tat over trolleys and beds. It’s not that these are not important, or that they don’t matter to people it’s just that we are desperately hoping to hear how either party might actually make the long-term commitment to finally sort out our health service.

FIANNA FÁIL’s poor performance on this so far is highlighted by the fact that Fine Gael, who have been in charge of it for almost a decade and done a poor job, sound right now like the marginally better option. But that’s nothing for them to be boasting about given that the baseline is so low.

Then we come to the issue that the entire world — literally — is concerned about — climate change. It’s been mentioned only in passing by politicians in this campaign apart from the Green Party. Only a tiny 7% said in The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll that it was an issue that would decide their vote. What the hell would Greta Thunberg have to say about this? What is the point in painstakingly sorting out rubbish at home, cutting down on our use of plastic, and worrying about microbeads, if we don’t drive home the message to those who are going to be in power that the dangerous overheating of the planet is an issue that matters to voters.

Look at how poor the collective efforts on health and housing have been, and that’s with the parties having research and hearing it on the doors, that people care deeply about those issues. How far, at this rate, might climate slip down the priority list.

Anyway, let’s hope it all picks up a bit from here.