Getting more difficult to figure out who is really running the country

A LONG time ago, a senior Irish politician went to see President Reagan in the White House. It was something of a breakthrough at the time in Irish-American relations which, up to then, had played second fiddle to Anglo-American relations.

The Irish politician, determined to make the most of his time with the President, gave him a quick, intense dissertation on the current state of play.

Imagine his surprise when, by way of answer, the President produced some six-inch by four-inch cards from his pocket, and read the first one aloud (it contained only some very bland pleasantries). When he was finished he looked expectantly at his Irish visitor, who realised that he was now supposed to talk again. This continued until the President had read all of the cards aloud, one by one. When the last one was finished he stood up and offered a hand-shake.

Over the course of a half-hour meeting, the President hadn't uttered a single word that wasn't written down for him. As his Irish visitor was ushered out of the White House, he found himself wondering who was really running the USA because the elected President surely wasn't.

Three issues have come up this week that really would have to make you wonder who is running our little country because sure as eggs, our elected Government isn't.

I'll deal with the issues in the order in which they arose: fluoridation, education cuts, and the National Stadium.

At first glance it mightn't seem important that there is some controversy over the issue of whether or not the State should be putting fluoride into our drinking water. Well, it is. I don't have time or space to go into the issue in detail this week, and I will return to it. But what is truly alarming about the issue is that we, the citizens of Ireland, were presented with a report this week that quite clearly hides more than it reveals.

Fluoridation is an important health issue, and we are entitled to a straight answer to the question is it good for us or not? This week we were fed a report which says fluoride is good for us but we shouldn't let children swallow it, and they're going to give us less in future! We were told on television that over 300 million people in the world drink fluoridated water but nobody mentioned that we are the only ones in Europe. And we watched the Minister for Health denying that the only reason he was sticking to the position that fluoride was good for us was because to admit any concern might encourage people to sue him.

We are not being told the whole truth about this. It was impossible to read and watch the coverage of the fluoridation issue without realising that there are interests at play behind the scenes and they're not our interests.

And our interests were certainly ignored when it came to the need to make savings in education. First of all, I have argued here before as strenuously as I can that there is no need to make such savings in fact, I think they are a perfect example of a false economy. But I've warned you about this crowd before. I told you three days after the election that "traditionally, whenever they have wanted to cut back, they look around first (and only) at the programmes that can be cut at the stroke of a pen.

"And we all know what they are health, environment, disability services, education. The old reliables in spending terms, the areas where cuts can be effected overnight."

You can be absolutely certain that they, or (more likely) their civil servants will always make the easy cuts. In the case of education, most of the savings they have identified are in little programmes that operate at the margins. These programmes are generally intended to help people who are coping with disadvantages of one sort or another. They are vulnerable people but who are they? Where do they live? Who do they vote for? What union are they in? Who speaks for them? How can the media find them?

It's because the answers to those questions aren't easy to find that the programmes are easy to chop. Essentially, the people affected have no-one to speak up for them. There are strong and powerful interest groups in the education sector but one of the cuts announced by Minister Dempsey will offend any of their interests. It's another example of string-pulling and, as usual, the tightening will only hurt people who are already vulnerable.

Finally, the National Stadium. I've declared my interest in this before, and I've been in trouble about it. So, you know where I stand. Yes, if a choice has to be made between health care and a stadium, health care should win that argument. But have you noticed how easy it is to speak piously about health care while it is being slashed on a daily basis?

The truth is that Ireland can well afford the tiny investment (as a proportion of overall spending) that sporting infrastructure needs just as we can afford not to pour so much hype into the "spending out of control" propaganda. And a country that is prepared to spend public money (as it should) on a national theatre or a national concert hall should be ready to invest in a national stadium too. This could turn out to be a terrible lost opportunity for Ireland, thanks to the PDs. For that reason, even though I would rather see a public project, I hope private investors are encouraged openly, fairly, and transparently.

But of more consequence in some ways than the decision to abandon a publicly-owned stadium was the way it was made. Clearly, the Tánaiste and the Finance Minister ganged up on the Taoiseach, and he was forced to capitulate. I can only ask again, a couple of months after a general election which was supposed to answer the question: who is running Ireland?

Against this increasingly tattered and disreputable background, the fact that there are four candidates in the running for the Labour leadership is good news for political discourse. And desperately needed. I have committed my support to Brendan Howlin, who has been a friend of mine for a long time and I was very proud of him this past week when he moved to nip the whispering campaign about him in the bud. It wasn't easy for Brendan, who is essentially a private person, to be as open as he was, but I reckon he will gain strength from it.

Apart from Brendan, however, at least two of the other candidates, Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore, have the talent to make a mighty contribution to public life in Ireland. Nobody can be in any doubt about what side of an argument they stand on, and they articulate their positions trenchantly and well.

We never needed talent and commitment like this more than we do at the moment, as our elected Government breaks more and more of its promises.

And as it gets harder and harder to figure out who is really running the country.