Here’s a vote-catcher: give decent tax breaks to encourage marriage

THE silly season nears its end. Soon, Government ministers and opposition spokespersons will be scurrying back from their holidays for the beginning of a new Dáil term.

The stakes are high, with little over 18 months before Bertie is compelled to go to the country.

The results of internal Fianna Fáil polls suggest that Bertie won’t want an election any earlier. They show Fianna Fáil performing very poorly.

Fine Gael, however, does not seem able to capitalise on this state of affairs. The idea of coalition with Labour and the Greens has not set the political heather blazing.

Sinn Féin is the most likely beneficiary of this stalemate. With the IRA’s recent statement taking the issue of criminality out of the headlines for the moment, Gerry Adams and Co have reaped some positive PR, despite the Colombia Three issue. Sinn Féin has a number of qualities which enable it to grow in political strength. The party is well organised and well-funded, and it has very articulate spokespersons.

But perhaps its most important quality is that it is seen by many as idealistic. Sinn Féin stands for something.

Scandals and corruption may be the main reasons for public cynicism about politics. But there is also the sense that there is little difference between the main parties, that policy differences are more the result of focus group findings than of old fashioned conviction.

Politicians have been using focus groups ever since Napoleon Bonaparte, as emperor of France, walked the streets of Paris in disguise to find out what the citizens really thought. But considerations of image and popularity seem never to have dominated the policy agenda the way they do today.

Fianna Fáil, who will have been in power for 18 out of the last 20 years by the time of the 2007 election, has always benefited from having a rather fluid position on the political spectrum - sometimes they’re a little bit left-wing, sometimes they veer to the right - according to the public mood.

FF got away with this for so long because its policies were populist and it had a track record for delivering on the economy. But where does it go now, after two terms in office, and with the Irish people increasingly prone to seduction by those who represent a break from ‘politics as usual?’ Fine Gael’s need for a political narrative could be said to be even more acute than Fianna Fail’s because if Enda Kenny doesn’t take power after the next election, people might forget that his party exists.

“Without a vision,” the Good Book says, “the people perish.” James Carville, the brilliant political strategist behind Bill Clinton’s presidency, identified just such a problem in the Democrats’ failed presidential campaign in 2004. “The Republicans,” he said, “have a narrative. We have a litany.” The Democrats may have had a raft of policy initiatives but they had no overall vision. Bertie Ahern appears to think that Ireland, and his party, has a similar problem. Reportedly, he plans to bring his TDs on a retreat in Cavan. There they will listen to the US author Robert Putnam discuss his book, Bowling Alone - a book which, at the last count, Bertie had read twice.

The book’s thesis is that US society has become ever more fragmented, and that ‘social capital’- the bonds fostered by volunteerism, whether for charity, sport or political activities - has dwindled dangerously. In Ireland, too, many charities say that finding volunteers, not money, is now their biggest challenge.

A call to community activism could be part of a new agenda to appeal to people’s idealism. This should be distinguished from the sort of activism, such as the bin tax protests, practised by Sinn Féin and Joe Higgins’ Socialist Party, which only disrupts civil society and fosters a culture of dependency.

Ahern’s critics, of course, will say he has implemented the very kind of ‘I’m alright, Jack’ policies (for example, tax individualisation and the failure to keep down house prices) which have led to our current problems.

For thousands of families living in Dublin’s commuter belt, community activism isn’t an option when quality time with your own children is a luxury you can barely afford due to pressures of work, traffic and paying a mortgage.

But perhaps it is these voters who could now provide the way for either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to espouse a radical and challenging agenda.

THIS would involve policies that recognise, without seeking to stigmatise or penalise other family arrangements, that people who make the choice to get married are taking the socially responsible route.

At the moment, there is very little incentive for couples to get married. Vastly more generous tax allowances for people who opt for marriage would change this, and such measures would greatly appeal to hard-pressed families.

Significantly increased child benefit matters, too. Last Monday, Green Party TD Eamon Ryan argued that there was a need for more generous child benefit, precisely because it would give parents more choice as to whether to stay at home or pay for childcare.

Some party needs to argue the case that slightly larger families and having one parent in the home is better for children’s development.

Somebody needs to recognise publicly what people know instinctively: that heterosexual marriage provides the best environment for children and, as such, is beneficial to society as a whole.

All of these positions are harmonious with people’s instincts and with research findings, yet few politicians will express them. They fear being attacked by militant feminists and ‘liberals.’

Of course, some married couples might not share the traditional family philosophy either. But these would derive huge practical benefits from family-oriented policies, and would most likely support them out of simple self-interest.

Married people make up a disproportionately high percentage of the voting population, and the vast majority of single people are below 30, an age group that makes up a disproportionately low percentage of the voting public.

Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael could also listen to parents’ fears about the early sexualisation of children. They could look at the fact that many teen magazines aimed at 16-year-olds have a very high sexual content, and ask if that is a state of affairs we’re happy with.

Recent Sunday World reports which suggested that girls as young as 12 are engaging in sex illustrate the fact that we have a problem. Parents are worried. A politician or party with a solution to offer will find them ready to listen.

No matter how sensible the policy, however, standing on a point of principle always involves an element of risk. But with Sinn Féin on the march, even the most pragmatic of politicians must now ask whether ‘politics as usual’ constitutes a more dangerous gamble.