Political structures - Ignoring the obvious lessons

A line from a Green Party activist during the EU referendum campaign was as revelatory as it was an unfortunate indication of how the engineering of our political structures is so very difficult for small parties and the diverse and important views they represent.

This quirk has made it easier for Ireland’s monoliths — Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil — to ignore what are incorrectly perceived as sideline issues and dodge hard, divisive realities. Avoiding for so long a property tax and water charges were, until penury and the troika forced a reality check, just two examples of this wishful thinking-as-policy failing.

The Green spokesman declined to offer any position on the fiscal treaty, believing that the party was regarded as so very toxic that expressing any view would damage whichever position they supported.

At least the Greens’ spokesman was still around to decline to comment. Their predecessors as support players in coalition — the Progressive Democrats, who made a destructive cameo alongside Fianna Fáil’s star turn — are extinct and largely unlamented.

The Greens may have been the architects of their own downfall, but that does not mean their primary concerns are no longer urgent. As far too many indicators confirm — water shortages, soaring carbon fuel costs, a snowballing rate of species extinction, and a doubling of the human population since the American presidency of John F Kennedy — we need to make fundamental changes in our relationship with the world around us. Unfortunately, neither Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, nor indeed Labour or Sinn Féin, treat these issues with the importance they confer on politicians’ eternal project — getting power and holding on to it. It is as if the future of humanity does not depend on us quickly resolving or at least confronting these huge issues.

Unless there is some unforeseen calamity — and amid economic uncertainty and looming chaos when was one more likely? — the Government will last for another three-and-a-half years. Labour will need great good fortune if it is to repel Sinn Féin and not go the way of all junior coalition partners. Just as the party marked its centenary, two constituencies with a strong Labour tradition ignored the party’s advice and voted against the EU amendment. Indeed, it was the first time a referendum divided this society along class lines, and Sinn Féin will be happy to exploit and deepen this disunity if it serves their purpose. After all, Sinn Féin destroyed the moderate SDLP in the North to secure power there. Labour cannot expect anything else here.

In an extract from former Green senator Dan Boyle’s book, he writes about how ignored his party was, and most Fianna Fáil TDs were, during the critical days surrounding the Sept 2008 bank guarantee. That decision was taken by a handful of people and it will hang over this society for generations. It is a perfect example of how concentrated, unchecked power can be so wrong. Ironically, the referendum that decision made inevitable was a perfect example of the two main parties working together to realise a common goal.

The lessons from all of this seem obvious, but it is equally obvious that nobody in any of the main parties will cede power to put them in action.