Incompetent government must go

CONGRATULATIONS to Ryle Dwyer, (October 3) on a powerful article.

But speculating on the number of TDs who can play croquet on Leinster Lawn is not the answer to a crisis which is hurting, if not destroying, ordinary people beyond those railings.

The Greens and the more insightful of Fianna Fáil backbenchers, (and even frontbenchers), need to reflect very carefully on the Lisbon 2 result.

They cannot simply laud that “mature” result — and ignore what the voters said unambiguously on June 5, 2008. The clear perception by these very same voters is that this government is incompetent and must be replaced — ASAP.

John Gormley can ask for almost anything from Fianna Fáil this week — and get it. But any Faustian pact which he brings back to his Party’s convention will be written on crumbling paper and signed with fading ink. This has nothing to do with Brian Cowen’s integrity. Simply, this coalition is electorally doomed. Almost certainly historically so.

The Taoiseach himself has pushed tax reform into the vague future. Ministers, led by the Tánaiste, are doing solo runs on An Bord Snip.

NAMA, whatever its intrinsic merits, has been tainted with the smell of cronyism and may simply just be unworkable. Social partners, and particularly union leaders, (almost all of whom have gone on record with their clear understanding of the gravity of the economic crisis), are being pushed by the anger and fear of their members towards “protests” and “action”. Into a cul-de-sac of habitual negativism.

Anybody who listened to the voices from the taxi drivers’ “protest” has to be convinced, (and alarmed), that we are drifting towards an irreversible state of uncontrolled and uncontrollable social confrontation. Against this backdrop, any Government, let alone this current failed entity, would have huge difficulty in forging national solidarity.

A general election might clear the air, but the political and psychological reality is that such an election will not happen in this calendar year, maybe not until well into 2010.

The one absolutely clear message from October 2 is that the “plain people of Ireland” are capable of thinking outside the box. Is the same true of the elected TD’s who make up the current government majority?

Maurice O’Connell

Fenit Without

Fenit

Tralee

Co Kerry