Bertie stumbles into a land bank as he searches for the common good
He has shown the symptoms on previous occasions, and indeed he has lost the plot periodically to the extent that one could imagine Mel Brooks was personating him. Now, when Bertie Ahern comes out with a suggestion that vaguely intimates he has the common good at heart, we should get worried, especially since he won the general election. The common good hasn't crossed his mind since, and there's no need for him to rediscover it for the best part of the next four years. Presuming, of course, he knows they won the election. Possibly, somebody in his local in Drumcondra who is on a housing list for the past 40 years came up with the hare-brained idea, or maybe he was just winding-up our Taoiseach. Anyway, instead of enlightening us about where we stand in relation to Iraq and Dubya's policy, based largely on old John Wayne movies, Bertie Ahern imagined the Drumcondra principle on house prices was more important and left Saddam Hussein to the tender mercies of Brian Cowen. We'll get rid of one malicious innuendo emanating from the opposition benches in relation to this notion of a land referendum to cap prices: Fianna Fáil is not beholden to speculators who hold ordinary people to ransom for homes. That is a categorical, unequivocal assurance from the Taoiseach, who added that very few of his party members are landowners. The reason why he seemed so anxious to clear that one up may have something to do with what Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte told the Dail: "Before Christmas, a minister was able to push legislation through the Dáil which gave 16,000 sites to builders who were in tow with this Government. Six developers now control all the land in North County Dublin because they have bought up the options on it." There's one major problem when it comes to tinkering with the price of land and its known as Article 40.3.2. of our Constitution, which says: "The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name and property rights of every citizen." Far be it from me to give free advice on the Constitution and interpretations arising therefrom, but that would appear to be a constitutional stumbling block to Bertie's Concise Theory on Cheaper Houses. A page or two later, Bunreacht na hÉireann, Article 43.2.2, declares: "The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights (private property) with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good." Given that the Fianna Fáil - Progressive Democrats' coalition is totally clueless about what constitutes the common good, never mind the exigencies attaching to it, trying to cap the price of housing land would present an incredibly entertaining spectator sport for those of us who don't have any. Invoking the second Article to do so should provide a battery of constitutional lawyers with a very handy earner as if they needed another one. But if Bertie Ahern goes ahead with his land referendum notion, he might be persuaded to broaden it to include proposals once and for all to restore to the Irish people all those acres, mountains, rivers and lakes owned by the likes of the Duke of Devonshire. That would certainly be in the common good. However, given his track record in sponsoring referenda, this latest one is undoubtedly doomed to failure. While Bertie Ahern had some aberration about starting another land war, this was overshadowed by a mind-boggling, preposterous, off-the-wall suggestion from one Mr Mark Fitzgerald. He is the chief executive of Sherry FitzGerald, reputed to be one of the country's leading estate agents. Basically, he wants to round up elderly home-owners in our cities and despatch them to the four corners of rural Ireland in order to make available thousands of second-hand homes for young families and thus dramatically ease inflation in the housing market. In the property gospel according to Mark, old Culchies never settle and they would be given financial inducements to go back to where they came from originally. He specifically mentioned Dublin where, as availability of second-hand homes dwindles towards an historic low, it is clear the Government must explore "creative solutions". For instance, he suggests, that people in their 50s and 60s who moved to Dublin from the regions, and had maintained ties with their native counties, might be persuaded to re-locate if financial inducements were offered. Somebody with a second-hand house worth 450,000 could be given about 40,000 to do a runner. This sweetener would come out of the stamp duty levy due to the State which, at that stage, would have been swollen by the greater activity generated in the second-hand market. I don't know if Mr FitzGerald drinks in the same pub in Drumcondra as Bertie Ahern because this notion could well have been a spin-off from the same brainstorm as that from which the land referendum escaped. Although, seeing that he's a son of former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, maybe there was no meeting of minds, at least not in Drumcondra. This suggested scheme is rather akin to the brainwave dreamed up by the EBS whereby ageing parents entitled to look forward to a little bit of comfort are being pressured into providing deposits for their kids. Even the Department of the Environment, which has come up with its own little beauties from time to time, was rather perplexed by the idea. A spokesman said the idea had never been mooted and he wasn't aware either that such an experiment was being attempted abroad. I think he might be wrong there. The experiment has been attempted abroad, except they call them settlements. Incidentally, if Bertie Ahern ever decides to go ahead with this referendum, he should consider including another issue which needs to be sorted. That is Seanad Éireann, and giving to very member of the electorate the right to vote on who gets elected to it is long overdue. It is composed of 60 members, 49 of whom are elected and 11 are nominated. To be eligible, a person must be eligible also to become a member of the Dáil. The problem is that most people who might be eligible to stand for the Dáil might not be eligible to vote in the Seanad elections. Six are elected by graduates of higher education institutions; 43 are elected from a complex system of panels, about which the Constitution is a little bit hazy. It's about time this cosy system was changed to give all the electorate a voice in the composition of the Seanad, which should be taken a lot more seriously than it is at present.
