State of the Nation - Politics does not have all the answers

If you can keep your head when all about you

WHICH of us, apart from Enda Kenny, would swap the prospect of a sleepy weekend scratching around in the wellies for the kind of day Taoiseach Brian Cowen can expect this November Saturday?

He will wake up faced with unemployment figures not seen since before he succeeded his father Ber in the Dáil in 1984. He will be aware of the renewed possibility of a stake-through-the-heart announcement from Dell. He will also be conscious of the job losses that would follow the bank mergers under discussion.

He has to deal with domestic and international economies spiralling towards a once-in-a-century crisis.

He is involved in a power struggle with banks whose objectives may not be his or constrained by anything a fair-minded citizen would recognise as social conscience. He must deal with a society grown used to getting most of what it wants more or less when it wants it, despite imploding public finances. He must still deal with public sector pay demands as if nothing had changed in our world.

If he reads this morning’s papers he will see that the patients-on-trolleys crisis that made his Health Minister Mary Harney declare a national emergency in March 2006, were the good old days. Today, the Irish Nurses Organisation tells us that on Tuesday the number of people left on trolleys was 406, 40% higher than the number that provoked the “national emergency” admission from Ms Harney.

If that list is not dispiriting enough he finds himself confronted by a population edging towards a poisonous rift over the contrast between the realities of life in the public and private sectors.

And then there’s the bothersome mess over Lisbon. And, before this extract from the charge sheet is closed, it would be remiss not to tug a forelock at climate change, energy dependence and all the great problems those issues have in store for us. Mr Cowen, however, may take some little comfort in the fact that he does not have to find a solution to the Cork hurlers’ strike.

He may also find it comforting that, unlike Barack Obama, he does not have two wars to fight, the probability of terrorists getting nuclear weapons on his watch and 20 million illegal immigrants to deal with as well.

But, just as the yes-we-can euphoria that followed Obama’s inspiring victory has been diluted by the realisation of the enormity of the challenges facing him, maybe it’s time that we gave some thought to what we expect of our political system. Maybe we should ask ourselves if those expectations are realistic, especially if we do not participate, other than by voting.

These are difficult times to be in opposition too. Government popularity ratings topple as your own soar. This achievement is tainted by the knowledge that there are times — like these — when it is right for an opposition to support good governance.

The Victorian imperialist Kipling’s world view has been superseded but his recognition of how events challenge us is as accurate as the day it was written.

These are the most challenging times many of us will live through and unless we are prepared to confront our difficulties in new and unselfish ways, we are in for a hard time. It is still possible to believe that Mr Cowen can answer Kipling’s challenges in the affirmative.

The question is can the rest of us?