Gormley’s proposal - An idea that cannot be dismissed

OUR political leaders’ response to John Gormley’s initiative, to try to establish “a national consensus on the economic situation”, was as dispiriting as it was entirely predictable.

Absolute self-regard and something bordering on collective insanity instinctively dismissed what is an entirely rational and overdue response to our national crisis.

Not one party leader had the grace or the natural feeling for leadership needed to acknowledge that this project might be far more important than their own or their party’s ambitions. Not one of them had the selflessness to see that this might be about saving the country rather than throwing a lifeline to Fianna Fáil.

Despite the fact that we are careering towards the abyss each and every party – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin too – responded in the same pathetic, self-serving cliches. They spoke as one, indifferent to the reality that the great majority of Irish people crave a new beginning.

This majority is far less concerned with who presents a rescue plan than our politicians, in their flights of fancy, imagine. They just want to see proposals that might restore some sanity and hope to our affairs.

Just as people are losing jobs, families struggle to keep their homes, just as pay packets are being decimated and pensions disappear, just as businesses are struggling to stay in business, politicians seem more interested in retaining or achieving power than working together to save this country.

Speaking in Laois, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, true to character, rejected the idea out of hand.

“I don’t see this (a national government) as being relevant. We have a job to do in the coming weeks, we need to get on with that job, and the last thing we need to be doing, in my opinion, is creating any further degree of political uncertainty about that,” he assured us.

It is hard to believe that this is the man whose failures did so much to get us into this mess. It is hard to imagine that this is the man whose ratings, and his party’s too, confirm that he has lost whatever mandate he inherited. It is hard to imagine that this is the man who, unless he outdoes Lazarus, will spend the majority of the period covered by the four-year rescue plan in peace, slumbering on the opposition back benches.

He did concede however that “he would welcome a political consensus ... but that it was up to the opposition to put forward suggestions ... and the Government would then consider them”.

Does he really think parties with nearly double his ratings in the polls should come to him as supplicants to be indulged or dismissed as he and his cabal see fit?

Coming from the leader of an administration that has destroyed this country, that arrogance beggars belief. It’s not quite let-them-eat-cake but it’s getting there.

Eamon Gilmore said his party would be prepared to talk to anybody in the national interest but argued that this was an attempt to keep Fianna Fáil in power and he called for an election.

That may be understandable if you’re a politician who has spent the majority of your career in opposition and you can almost feel the levers of power in your hands but it is not an appropriate response to an idea that, in this moment of crisis, has the potential to show the world that this country has united as never before to accept its responsibilities and face its difficulties.

If Mr Gilmore is the statesman we all hope he is he should have at least acknowledged that possibility and maybe even endorsed it giving it a momentum that might become irresistible. At least if he did that he would have put the national interest first and if, in time, the project failed an election would be unavoidable and immediate.

Fine Gael were equally unenthusiastic. Communications spokesman Leo Varadkar said his party was “not inclined to engage in co-operation with the parties that helped to create this crisis. They should be out of power”. The subtext is obvious enough – they should be out of power so we can be in power.

However, all may not be lost. The man who made the proposal is uniquely placed to get Mr Cowen and his party to concentrate on what he is saying. Whether Mr Cowen – or Fine Gael or Labour – likes it or not the Greens are in a position to insist that this proposal be tested and then rejected or implemented.

The genie is out of the bottle and cannot be ignored. Mr Gormley may have caught the mood of the country more accurately than any of his more experienced colleagues. By so doing he may help save the country, and ironically enough, his party.