We’re angry and we have lost hope — we desperately need a new start

SO, next business.

We voted yes to Lisbon — our way of saying thank God for the eurozone and any help we can get in our hour of need.

The NAMA legislation is going to wind its way though Dáil Éireann with a weary air of inevitability about it. We’re all bracing ourselves for the toughest peace-time budget in our history. Actually, forget peace-time — this will be the harshest set of measures we’re ever likely to see in our lifetimes.

Is anything going to change? Is there any possibility of a new beginning?

Will the Greens, for example, find the courage of their convictions and take a stand on all the items in their shopping list? Don’t hold your breath on that one.

We’re already seeing all sorts of commentary about how impossible it is to reconcile the Greens’ demands with the economic realities, or with Fianna Fáil core values. In the current climate, how can the Government agree to reverse education cuts — when it is already considering further education cuts?

How can they agree to outlaw hare coursing without provoking a revolt among rural backbenchers?

Well, nothing is impossible. Don’t forget the old adage that I’ve repeated here over the years (and it’s never let me down) — no government is ever as stable as it looks on the outside, nor as unstable either.

The bottom line in the current “negotiations” is that the leadership of the Green party doesn’t want to leave government, and so they are beavering away to find solutions. They’re not in the business of creating insurmountable hurdles.

So don’t be surprised if you see an independent commission to enquire into blood sports — their contribution to local culture and local economies, as well as the cruelty involved.

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of crocodile tears being shed over the importance of education, and a fundamental statement about its priority (as soon as we clean up the economic mess, of course).

In other words, don’t be surprised if you see enough language to get the Greens through their weekend conference, but not an awful lot of hard action.

There’s another crisis looming, and perhaps it’s a timely one.

The Ceann Chomhairle is heading into the heart of a storm, and it could really rock the ship of state. There is huge anger throughout the community at what looks like a really over-weening sense of entitlement.

More to the point, that anger is not directed at just one person, but at the whole body politic. If the chairman of the parliament has no regard — or appears to have no regard — for the fact that people are really suffering, then what does that say about the rest of the parliament?

Everyone, as usual in Ireland, gets tarred with the same brush.

There are no easy options for the political system here, as the position of the Ceann Comhairle looks more and more untenable.

That may seem odd to outsiders — and the millions of us who aren’t elected to parliament are all outsiders. But here, just as in Britain, the office of speaker carries enormous clout.

That clout was designed into the office, to reflect its central position as a bulwark of parliamentary democracy, but it owes its influence just as much to the fact that parliament is governed very much like an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club.

You need 6,000 votes or more to join the club — and if you get in, you’re a class apart from the rest of us.

So naturally, the chair of the club is a class apart again, and the increasingly brittle hold that John O’Donoghue has on his office represents a real crisis for the body politic.

What does he do if called on to resign?

Does he stay and fight (“I must defend the integrity of this office…”) and thus provoke a real tribal war on the floor of the Dáil? Or does he go quietly (“I will not allow this office to be drawn into controversy…”) and thus become the first speaker we have ever had to be seen to have resigned in disgrace?

Either option, of course, will be destabilising to government, and it’s yet another controversy they could do without.

But that’s what happens when a government becomes accident-prone. In all probability, they wouldn’t have got Lisbon passed without the unstinting, and very generous support, of talented and able people, inside and outside the political system, who owe nothing to the Government.

But here’s the harsh truth.

The sooner all this is brought to a head the better.

It would be better for Irish politics if the government decided to resolve its dilemmas, including the O’Donoghue affair, by dissolving the Dáil and calling a general election.

We’d all welcome that — we’d even get over the irony that if the Government were to take that course of action, the very first person to be declared elected to the new Dáil would be John O’Donoghue himself.

Because with every passing scandal, no matter how little or large, trust is further eroded in politics in Ireland.

There’s all sorts of reasons for that, but the most corrosive by far is the perception that politics itself — and virtually all forms of public service — has become fattened and coarsened to the point where it is not taken seriously as a vehicle for public discourse.

Enormous salaries, unlimited and untouched expenses, a regal sense of self-worth, and infrequent electoral contests have all conspired to lower the esteem in which politics is held.

The government suffers more from this dangerous malaise than anyone else does.

It is widely seen as the author of irresponsible “low-tax, high spend” policies that wasted the years of economic growth, and as being unable to respond meaningfully to the crisis when it erupted.

It is also seen as failing to provide leadership, even in the sense of being willing to share in the sacrifices that are being made throughout the community.

As a result its capacity to deliver change in the scale needed is fatally compromised.

And it has to be said too that the conduct of public affairs in Ireland, and even the management of public services, has been tarnished.

Report after report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reveal a litany of waste and mismanagement across the public sector.

Such reports attract enormous publicity and commentary, and add further to the air of cynicism.

It is now widely believed that in the good times, our public services were characterised by a culture of waste, feather-bedding, and occasional corruption.

What are we left with? Nothing, it seems, except celebrity economists.

They are the only oracle still standing, and they all seem to speak with one cold voice, urging solutions that will inevitably have their sharpest effects on people who depend on the public service.

The “short-termism” that characterises all political responses, and the lack of vision about what needs to be preserved and protected, will compound that problem.

What’s wrong with our economy, whatever its cause, cannot be fixed without pain. We all know that. But the pain is compounded by the breakdown of trust and the absence of hope.

We desperately need a new beginning.