Politicians are desperate for celebrity makeover

Martin Cullen or Beverly Flynn? Both had a dismal week of it. But they needn't worry. There is one powerful consolation.

Most 16 year-olds in the country don't know who the hell they are in the first place.

Charlie Haughey was wont to say that the only opinion polls he put any store in were general elections. He had a point. Mid-term polls ask people (other than the crowd who already have FF, FG, or whatever stamped into their DNA) questions about allegiances they haven't given a moment's thought to. Others confirm the blatantly obvious. Like the one which came out during the week telling us that for most teenagers, domestic politics ranks up there in importance with elevator muzak. About 5% could name all the TDs in their constituency. And poor old Pat Cox. There he has been modestly saving the world over the past couple of years, yet the only Cox they recognise is the control-freak in Friends.

Ok, you may be shocked by the findings. What can so many teenagers find to do with their lives that is more important than knowing the names of their local TDs? In fact, if you asked a cohort of 36-year-olds the same questions, you wouldn't get much of a raise in the percentage. Voter apathy is the grand old cliché for this phenomenon. It suggests politicians, in the way they go about their job, have disconnected themselves from the plain people.

They shouldn't beat themselves up about it too much. When democracies are mature and settled and when the economy is trundling along nicely you will always get complacency creeping in. If we had the most exciting parliament in the world, peopled by the most interesting TDs, all of them brimming with brilliant ideas, most people would still zap the remote within nanoseconds of Oireachtas Report starting on RTÉ.

Strange that the findings were presented on the same day as Fianna Fail euro candidate Seamus Kirk issued a press release calling on the voting age to be reduced from 18 to 16. Kirk, one assumes, was latching onto analogous moves in Britain where it forms part of Tony Blair's populist 'Big Idea' agenda.

There are two ways of broaching the question of giving 16 year olds the vote: constructively or cynically. In the best journalistic traditions, I will opt for the latter. In the context of the European elections, extending the franchise will make little difference other than increasing the electorate. Bluntly put, 16-year olds are too young to vote. Allowing them to do so won't do anything to foster any interest in politics. The idea, frankly, is ridiculous.

European elections are just about the most remote experience the electorate confronts in Irish politics; the normal rules just do not apply.

In that vein, the glorious irony is the strategy candidates have pursued for the European elections is stolen straight out of the only voting experiences teenagers take any interest in Eurostar, Big Brother and I'm a Sad Has-Been.

In other words, it has been reduced to a beauty contest where prospective MEPs sell themselves on the basis of image, and image alone. You can't open a magazine or weekend supplement without coming across a Euro candidate going on about how they entertain at home (Eoin Ryan), or doing personality questionnaires (Royston Brady), or showing us her beautiful home and introducing us to her family. (That was Avril Doyle in VIP; she's the first but will certainly not be the last).

The message becomes subservient. A couple of candidates (especially the Greens) will make an honest effort to get their policies on Europe across. But most of that will be lost on the electorate. Tactically, the only way to gain is to select someone who looks the part of an MEP and then crank up the party machine. Thus we have the Fine Gael jeeps and the razzmatazz and the clever eye-catching publicity stunts. If there is a message, it is this: Be visible. Be busy. Be ubiquitous. But most of all be visible.

The paradox is that the influence of the EU in Irish society is pervasive yet people's relationship to it is expressed in almost inverse proportions.

Parties are onto a loser here unless they market their candidates like B-list celebs. When so many people don't even know who their TD is, how can you begin to explain how important Europe is?