Rebuilding Ireland - Contrast shows why we’re in crisis

ANYONE who believes this country has a future, maybe even a bright one, has had their optimism and sense of patriotism rattled this week.

That that optimism and commitment remain powerful enduring forces in our psyche are two of the reasons we will overcome the challenges shaking this society to its core. But there are lessons we must learn and, even more importantly, lessons we must implement with determination.

Our absolute aversion to the idea of being responsible for our actions must change dramatically if we are not to condemn our children to an even grimmer future than the one we have already consigned them to.

Most importantly, we must build a culture of performance and expectation. The “ah-shure-it’ll-do” cancer that has made us the laughing stock of Europe must end. We cannot continue to automatically, blindly reward failure as if it was some sort of victory.

We cannot continue to pretend that time-serving is performance. We must become what we seem to find most difficult to be — we must be honest with ourselves about what we expect of each other.

The water crisis of recent weeks showed, on this small island, two hugely contrasting responses. One recognised that responsibility comes with position. The other, well, it showed why so much of our world is in disarray and tottering towards collapse.

Two official investigations are under way in Northern Ireland to establish why their water infrastructure failed tens of thousands of people. Northern Ireland Water chief Laurence Mackenzie has resigned and Stormont minister Conor Murphy will have his performance rigorously examined. The conclusions of that investigation may be a defining moment in his career.

An even greater contrast was provided yesterday afternoon when former British Labour MP David Chaytor was sent to jail for 18 months for fiddling his expenses. What chance of that happening here?

Such immediate and decisive action is unheard of south of the border and we, as we see around us every day, pay far too high a price for this dishonesty. No one will lose their job, or even their toehold on the gravy train, because of the water shortages in the Republic. The same applies for those responsible for the hundreds of people on hospital trollies this week or the incomprehensible rise in health insurance costs.

We will, institutionalised and deferential as we are, swallow the same palaver we always swallow — the water crisis is as a result of decades of neglect and under funding as if that situation came about all by itself.

We will not even remark on the terrible irony of senior politicians, the very ones responsible for impoverishing local authorities and ignoring our collapsing water infrastructure, announcing one after the other that they are retiring and will have to get by on pensions and golden handshakes light years beyond anything the great majority of people they were purportedly elected to serve can expect.

Of course politicians — especially the retiring ones — will dismiss these arguments as being churlish and mean-spirited but we all know they are not. We all know that reward must be linked to performance.

We all know too that until this relationship is re-established, and honoured in spirit and deed, we will be unable to build a society we can be proud of.