Fine Gael fell out of favour as they promised reform and didn’t act

Fine Gael and Labour were given a mandate to radically reform the way Ireland is governed from top to bottom but they didn’t try to live up to the mandate they received.

The day he was elected the first thing Enda Kenny did was accept a doubling of his salary from that of a TD, while telling the rest of us that we’d have to pay more taxes for less services or emigrate because the country was bankrupt. At that exact moment he lost the 2016 election. Every extra cent he has taken in extra salary since 2011 was a cent borrowed or not spent on someone more deserving and there are plenty of people more deserving of that money than Enda Kenny or his government colleagues.

Then we had the adviser salary cap breaches, and given the advice they gave they weren’t even worth the money.

How come people who work in the White House give up huge private sector earning potential for a few years but the Irish advisers think working in the government is an opportunity to match and exceed what you might earn in the private sector? The notion of providing your talent to your country for a few years doesn’t seem to have occurred to them.

It wouldn’t have been so bad to bail out the banks if the government followed through and required the bank to verify what that bail out money was spent on.

Why is it the banks were bailed out but then allowed to pursue people for the debt the taxpayer has just paid off with its bail out?

The idea that each bank could not assess each customer on a case by case basis to wipe out or reduce debt in line with a person’s long term financial position is a myth. There was no effort made.

Apparently there has been corporate funding and FOI reforms. Yet all of the political parties refuse to publish accounts. When you live in a country with proper FOI structures in place you quickly realise the farcical position in Ireland with all its exemptions.

Let’s see how many new TDs publish their receipts given not one of the outgoing TDs did, not even the sanctimonious left wing ones.

We all know the economy won’t be fixed overnight, or even in five years. But why isn’t the same effort put into the SME sector as it is to attract a US firm?

Most likely, a Fine Gael minority government will take place and if Enda Kenny wants to leave a positive legacy and not be the man who brought Fine Gael to the top of the hill only to bring it back down again, then he has one last chance to show the country he can implement reform.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London