Farewell 2010 - Election will turn focus to the future
The news has been unrelentingly grim and very many people have had to turn a deaf ear to the events of the day. However, it is essential that detachment, that sense of not being involved, does not extend to the general election now anticipated in March.
Its importance is in direct proportion to the great difficulties facing us and unless politicians are certain about what is expected of them in the next government we can expect little other than more of the same.
Allowing frustration with our politics to alienate us from the process would be the ultimate victory for the cynicism, nihilism and disdain so loudly trumpeted by insolvent developers in helicopters, retired bankers enjoying South African fairways and Bertie Ahern making a fool of himself in a kitchen cupboard.
That 2010 culminated with the loss of what remained of our economic independence was, tragically, symbolically appropriate too.
It was equally symbolic and revealing that two senior ministers — Noel Dempsey and Dermot Ahern — denied that anything was afoot as a deal was being finalised. Both insist that they told the truth as they understood it and it must be significant that neither will contest the coming election. That they were so exposed and humiliated by a leadership they had served with loyalty and some force only added to the sense of chaos and fear that gripped the country in those frightening days.
The pathetic buffoonery of Ivor Callely, Willie O’Dea, Jackie Healy Rae and a few others in the Oireachtas would have been laughable if they had not such a seemingly unshakeable sense of their own importance and our obligations to them. Once again it is essential to emphasise that the opportunity to rid ourselves of these people is at hand and we must take it.
The second half of the year was overshadowed by the worries about what the budget from hell might bring.
Almost inevitably cuts aimed at the weakest and most vulnerable were immediate but measures designed to bring the incomes enjoyed at the top tier of the public service back closer to EU norms have been deferred.
As has become the refuge of convenience, the long finger has been used instead of the big stick. Where there should have been decisive action prevarication and privilege prevailed and a real opportunity to show that, as we are regularly assured, we are all in this together, was missed. This evasion served to underline the great social inequity at the core to the response to the crisis facing us all. It is inevitable that we will all eventually pay a price for this display moral cowardice by Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his government.
So great were the failures uncovered, so great were the debts agreed in our name, that the focus in 2010 was skewed to the past but the election will change that focus to the future.
The task ahead is immense and will require courage and ruthlessness in equal measure. Now is the time to sift through the blather and waffle to try to see who cares enough for this country to do what we all know needs to be done. Put a price on your vote and make them earn it. If you don’t, don’t expect any change.
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