Fianna Fáil looks forward to 1984

AT the start of George Orwell’s magnificent novel 1984, its anti-hero Winston Smith hears the loudspeakers drone that Oceania is at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia.

Later on in the novel, the speakers blare out that Oceania is at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia.

And at the end, just before Smith is carted off to Room 101, he hears that Oceania is at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia.

Just a little over a year ago (November 2003, in fact) Bertie Ahern told the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis that the two biggest and most urgent issues facing the country were the need to push through major infrastructure projects and to make it easier for FF voters to build one-off rural houses.

He compared us unfavourably to Madrid. There they built a metro in three years for a bit of loose change. Here you would have to face waves of planning that would cost years and cost billions.

It was searing stuff that went down like a creamy pint of you-know-what. There was an inescapable sense of urgency. FF would go through the hobs of hell to get houses for people, to build roads, to sort out the country’s waste problem.

Then Environment Minister Martin Cullen was passed the baton, and boy did he run with it. Within nanoseconds of Ahern’s announcement Cullen was beavering away on the Critical Infrastructure Bill and reviewing planning regulations that denied people the right to build a house just about anywhere they wanted.

In the new year, every time you phoned up the Department of Environment they told you that they were drafting feverishly. It was imminent, or almost imminent.

And, hey presto, last spring the enterprising minister produced draft regulations for once-off housing. By a massive coincidence, they appeared just days before the following Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, the one to rally the troops for the local elections. Cullen got the kind of reception in City West that George W Bush gets in Utah. There was no doubt who the star of the show was that weekend. Venturing into Parlon country for a second, it was clear the Minister had “delivered” the local elections for FF.

The local elections came and went. And we all know what happened.

Time went on and you heard less and less about the two most pressing issues facing the country. They were still working on the Critical Infrastructure Bill. The full regulations and guidelines on housing would be appearing sometime later in the year.

You’d ring up the Department of the Environment from time to time and they’d tell you that they were still working on them.

Summer passed into autumn and a new minister arrived into the Custom House. As the first anniversary of the two most pressing issues facing the country came and passed, there was still no sign of either of them.

As it happened, we rang up the Department of Environment last week to inquire about one of these two most pressing issues and when would we be seeing the fruits of all that work?

So worried were we that we rang up again earlier this week. It was still a priority, we were told. Dick Roche was taking a huge interest in it. He had spoken at length (that we can certainly believe) about the Critical Infrastructure Bill at various meetings. When would we see the Holy Grail? Imminently. Well, within months. But it was still ploughing ahead.

Imagine our mild surprise to open up another newspaper yesterday to find out that the Critical Infrastructure Bill had bitten the dust. Dick Roche was saying that he had withdrawn the Bill from Cabinet because he was not sure An Bord Pleanála and the Environmental Protection Agency weren’t doing a “superb job” anyway.

As for the stuff on once-off housing, the last time we checked it was due at Christmas but we will believe that when we see it.

All that stuff about needless bureaucracy and fussy planning laws holding up major projects like roads, the metro and incinerators is redundant. That was local election stuff. Now the pressing issues are the altruistic side that is needed to win the next General Election.

As Roche was confirming this extraordinary U-turn, the loudspeakers in the background were announcing that we were at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia.