From empty chairs to empty promises, expect the unexpected

HERE are some of my random thoughts about the general election campaign to date. Significance is not indicated by their order:

1. Individual parties and candidates can offer little that involves the substantial spending of money. Whoever is in government is going to have its hands tied by the terms of the deal the outgoing government agreed with the IMF and EU. It means that so-called auction politics is out of the question. It has also meant that many of the financial promises being made by parties are being ignored by a wise electorate. That said, it hasn’t stopped some of them trying.

2. Fine Gael seems to have written off the public sector as a likely source of votes. It has spoken, for example, of 30,000 job cuts in the sector, not far short of 10% of the existing workforce. Not surprisingly there has been a furious reaction among those likely to be affected. But how many of those opponents to the loosely constructed Fine Gael plan — that Labour in coalition would likely neuter — had actually intended to vote for Fine Gael anyway? Whatever losses may be incurred among the ranks of the public sector may be compensated for through additional votes in the private sector. It is a gamble though.