Admission fee to the moral high ground

LET’S talk about our leaders and their moral authority.

A common feature of all that ails the country at the moment is that those at the top are telling the populace to do as they say, not as they do. Savage austerity is being imposed, much of it on those who can least afford it, while our betters continue to exist in a bubble. Precious little in the way of example has been offered by our political leaders. Instead, they have shown a capacity to speak out of both sides of their mouths.

From the top down, the lack of leadership has been depressing. Take the titular head of the State, President Michael D Higgins. Here is a man who, through his long career, had a reputation for passionately representing the marginalised at home and abroad. He is a self-proclaimed socialist who was sometimes regarded as being too left-wing for Labour.

On assuming the highest office in the land, Higgins issued a statement designed to demonstrate how he saw himself contributing in a meaningful way to leadership. He announced that he was going to waive 23.5% of his salary, which would reduce his annual income to €249,014. “During his term in office, President Higgins will not draw down any pension entitlements arising from his previous service as a member of the Dáil or Seanad,” the statement continued.

Wow. The incoming president, whose living expenses are paid for, was offering to reduce his salary to a quarter of a million ahead of legislation that would bring it down to that figure.

What does this socialist want all the money for? His family are reared, he didn’t shell out on a property portfolio, he regularly strikes out at what he describes as the greed among certain sections of society.

Could he not have, for instance, announced that, in light of the current situation, and his own long-held political beliefs, he would just draw down the salary of a TD as a gesture of solidarity with the citizenry? Instead, he makes a song and dance about a cut that was little more than spin.

These days, the socialist President travels the State and further afield, lecturing in flowery language about how greed and self-interest under Fianna Fáil did for Irish society and solidarity. Right you are there, Michael D, ladle it out and look the other way.

Similarly, the executive appears incapable of grasping the times in which we live. On assuming office in Mar 2012, the members of the cabinet more or less doubled their salaries. Presumably, their finances were arranged in a manner to reflect the income of a TD, rather than a minister. So, at the height of an economic meltdown, these boys walk in and lap up the luxuries.

Sure, they aren’t taking what their out-of-control predecessors were, but the impression was given that a new day had dawned in Irish politics, that it was no longer about what can be plundered for personal gain.

Instead of the hairshirt, it was “as you were”, with a few morsels of spin thrown in for the great unwashed. Would it really have killed them to, for instance, announce they were taking something like a twenty grand allowance on top of their TD salary to properly reflect how leaders behave at a time of crisis? Think of the moral authority such as gesture might have yielded.

Whatever about politicians’ failure to lead from the front, they really covered themselves in glory in the manner in which they recruited their special advisers. A cap of €92,000 was supposed to be in place for these guys with the big brains who are apparently required to oil the wheels of government.

Brendan Howlin, the Minister for Public Expenditure, is the man holding the purse strings. Minister after minister wrote to him, pleading, begging, cajoling that the salary cap had to be broken or the country would fall apart. Jimmy Deenihan claimed of his proposed adviser “there is nobody like him”. Simon Coveney cited his adviser’s “patriotism”.

In the end, six advisers to cabinet ministers were given salaries well beyond the notional cap. Among them was Ronan O’Brien, who is on €114,000. He is adviser to… Brendan Howlin, the man charged with imposing the hair shirt on the country at large. Another adviser, Ed Brophy, is the highest paid at €127,796. He advises Social Protection Minister Joan Burton, who requires a lot of advice, as she is charged with making cutbacks which impact on the lives of those who most need assistance.

This is the kind of ethic that has emerged from the Coalition. Look at us, we are not Fianna Fáil. We’re just a little greedy, not a lot. We don’t pay ourselves or our buddies as if we were running an oil-rich sheikhdom, like Fianna Fáil did. We just pay ourselves more than politicians in any other state, even the states that are properly run and not shackled to money-lenders.

Shorn of moral authority, the Government has had to revert to the old way of doing things. Unable to direct operations from the high moral ground, they cower in the undergrowth. Special interests, rather than the national interest, is treated as paramount. Instead of looking after the most vulnerable, the priority is to look after Dáil seats. Decisions are taken on the basis of political impact rather than social justice.

Last week, there was a backlash against suggestions that even the cohort of pensioners who are relatively well-off should no longer be protected from cuts. Backbench TDs made noises. Opposition parties lambasted any “attack” on pensioners. The phrase “the most vulnerable” was trotted out by all and sundry.

Yet the reality is that this rush to the pensioners’ standard by politicians has nothing to do with vulnerability. It is entirely concerned with the power of the pensioners’ lobby to make their case heard.

Similarly, elements such as the well-off are protected from contributing more because they represent the heart of Fine Gael’s constituency. In another sphere, the Croke Park agreement retains the sanctity of a deified entity because Labour is increasingly reliant on the public sector vote.

Others carry the can. When a culture exists of responding to those who can shout loudest, the most vulnerable are thrown to the winds of fate.

Cutting the income of young people with disabilities, depriving severely disabled people of a personal assistant, cutting home help for people who require help to function; these are areas where savings are scrimped from. Elsewhere, new teachers and entrants to the public service are expected to do the same job as their older colleagues for much less money.

These are the people who must bear the burden when the moral authority of our leaders is compromised. And, as of now, there is nothing to suggest any change is on the way.