Irish electorate should protest - Teacher and garda strikes

THE docility of the Irish electorate is extraordinary and evidenced by the muted response to the prospect of classrooms empty of teachers and students and streets empty of gardaí as the ASTI, GRA, and AGSI strikes begin to bite.

When recession was followed by ferocious austerity, we barely complained. When the IMF/EU troika came calling and insisting on cutbacks, we were stoic in our response, comforted only by the fact that we were all in this together. There was hardly a murmur, despite the fact that most Irish people were feeling the pain.

We are now facing pain of a different kind. If prolonged, the teachers’ strike will discommode hundreds of thousands of families, forcing many parents to take unpaid leave from their work to look after their children.

Likewise, the prospect of police without the force is an appalling vista. Both teachers and gardaí are seeking to have their pay restored, propelling the rest of us to a restoration tragedy. We should be taking to the streets in response to this instead of exhibiting a quiet resignation.

Considering that 100 years ago, we were prepared to take on the world’s greatest military power to assert our individual and collective right to self-determination, one wonders where that spirit of rebellion has gone.

In the light of such acquiescence, it appears that we have, psychologically as a nation, entered a Great Depression.