Where is the new political party that the country desperately needs?
If it successful and even if it is relatively unsuccessful, the phenomenon will rumble on. With the assistance of Government ineptitude it will gradually destroy the Coalition’s electoral strategy.
The protest phenomenon is understandable. Even justified. But it offers no possibility of an agreed constructive alternative programme outside the realms of fantasy.
So what happens? Particularly if, as you suggest (Irish Examiner, December 3), the current Coalition’s economic strategy goes pear-shaped in the context of European and global realities.
Like most of your readers I need an assurance for which I can vote: That the incoming Government and Oireachtas might have what was absent from Kennyism: commonsense, communication, proportionality of burden-carrying and 360 degree European and global vision.
We need to have in the next Dail and Seanad a cohesive group of voices who can have some influence on what increasingly looks like being a mad house of discordant fragments.
We have to change our political culture for once and for all. As Enda Kenny likes to call us: Paddy and Patricia can undoubtedly ‘act silly’ but Mother Ireland raised few really stupid children.
We need another political rising. The Ireland which emerged towards the end of the 20th century was one of which it was possible to be immensely proud. But then we decided to blow our newfound wealth and potential.
The current Coalition may still break out of its cocoon of denial, sack its failed generals, come back after Christmas with a new, credible programme – and real leadership. We will wait and see.
Waking up may not save its life but could save at least part of its skin. Alternatively, a new politics is still possible. Pioneered by a necessarily small but effective new grouping. Something for which we could vote? Maybe even campaign?
But where are the political entrepreneurs willing and able to think ‘start up’? Able to design and construct a new politics?
There will have to be some politically experienced personnel at the helm. It could have been Joan Burton once. Could still be some of her Labour flock? Those who have not blocked off their minds to the political realities.
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