Gareth O'Callaghan: Posters present us with new faces spinning same old yarns

Election posters — some defaced — on Boreenmanna Road in Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan

ELECTION posters are my nemesis. I could write a thesis on this lamppost litter, and why it serves no purpose other than to annoy motorists and confuse voters.

It’s probably a sign of a more deep-rooted attitude I’ve held for years, a belief our country is being run by the wrong people.

A slew of old and new faces top the poles — as distinct from the polls — in a choppy sea of election apathy, all of them competing for your vote as though it could be the one that gets them across the line. Election campaigns leave me feeling irritable. As polling day nears, my wife reminds me I’m morphing into Victor Meldrew.

Most of the newbies are no doubt half my age or younger — not even a twinkle in their mothers’ eyes when I voted for Charlie in 1982, or Bertie in 1997.

Their glossy brochures, coming in at a pricey €350 per 100, or €3.50 each, form a neat pile on my desk. The street posters would require a small mortgage deposit, €12 a pop, if you’re an independent candidate.

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But who are these smiley people, how did they get here. Why are they all calling to my front door bearing gifts of promises, and why do they believe they deserve my vote considering I’ve never met most of them in my life?

Most of the brochures that have come through my letterbox in recent days are no different in content — promises, platitudes, and pleas — to those that arrived five years ago. All that has changed on many of them is the candidate. A new face spinning old yarns: More affordable homes, safer communities, investment in new school buildings, enhanced public services in healthcare, transport, and education to improve the quality of life for everyone. 

But everyone is a dangerous word to use in politics, because it suggests we’re all in the same boat. We’re not.

Politics is one of the few careers where you don’t need any prior business experience or academic background. Charm and conviction are the tools of the trade, with an innate ability to bypass the lies the party’s forebearers were complicit in telling.

It’s bizarre to think just because you’re over 18 years of age and resident in the State that you could one day end up making policy decisions that will affect the entire population, or that you could be appointing the judges of the future who will preside over the courts.

Years ago, I was asked by a member of a political party if I would run as a candidate in the February 2011 general election. I considered the invitation and politely replied that I’d rather take my chances rowing across the Atlantic in a boat with one oar.

This campaign must so far be the most lacklustre in living memory, which is not surprising when you consider practically everything that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are promising is not much different to what they promised five years ago.

They made the cardinal error of merging, and now they want rid of each other.

Call it the five-year itch, this political bromance has crashed. Micheál Martin stated in January 2020 his party would not go into coalition with Fine Gael.

In March that year, Varadkar “let Micheál Martin sweat” for over four weeks, knowing Martin had had a change of heart.

Solidarity-People Before Profit TDs called it a “stitch-up”, a “slap in the face”.

If it hadn’t been for Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary’s comments about teachers last week, this election campaign might have remained about as contemporary and engaging as a Mrs Brown’s Boys repeat.

It’s difficult to maintain integrity when you behave imprudently. In the world of relationships, a therapist would have suggested a glaring incompatibility.

As for policies, you can make promises you can’t keep through no fault of your own — we’ve all been there; but to then come back with similar promises five years later when it’s obvious you failed first time round is nothing short of deceitful. No doubt they’re hoping we’re all suffering from political amnesia.

Who’s sweating now?

If it hadn’t been for Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary’s comments about teachers last week, this election campaign might have remained about as contemporary and engaging as a Mrs Brown’s Boys repeat. He was speaking at a Fine Gael event about the need for more diversity in the Dáil, and the need for involvement by more business professionals.

He said he wouldn’t hire teachers to “get things done”. His comments were taken out of context and criticised as a result. He later doubled down on his remarks stating there were “too many teachers in the Dáil” and they were not “the best people to deliver the kind of change and enterprise we need”. And he’s right, just as he would be if there were too many botanists, or psychologists, or mechanics, or pilots.

O’Leary doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He shoots from the hip. He has been accused of being cantankerous with his verbal agility. However, there’s no escaping his successful business model, whether or not your flight is delayed or on time. 

Whatever your view, you have to credit him for his wit in a world drowning in political correctness: “All flights are fuelled with leprechaun wee and my bullshit,” he once said. “I should get the Nobel peace prize — screw Bono.” 

And on why his wife arrived 35 minutes late for their wedding: “She’s coming here with Aer Lingus.”

Outgoing education minister Norma Foley, who is herself on a career break from teaching, said she was “disheartened and disappointed” by the “narrow view” expressed by O’Leary.

Despite the backlash, there was no mention of the elephant in the room: over 950 teacher posts in our primary and special schools are vacant, a number which is expected to treble in the coming months because of a serious teacher shortage. More than 1,100 registered teachers who are not qualified for primary level are now employed by schools.

The number of gardaí policing our roads is down 41% in 15 years, while the population has increased by three quarters of a million in that time.

As Michael O’Leary said following the British Airways/Iberia merger: “It reminds me of two drunks leaning on each other.” He might as well have been talking about the erstwhile government coalition.

No doubt the faces on the brochures that sit on my desk are well-intentioned and likeable people who genuinely want to make this country a better place for everyone — there’s that word again; but the reality is they have a better chance of rowing across the Atlantic with one oar.

Until the government is run like a business, one that has the ability and agility to manage a budget that runs to tens of billions, with a professional team of economists, strategists, logisticians, and legislators, then it will continue to fail to achieve. 

It’s all very well to say the civil service in each department provides expertise, but if the minister who heads up the department has no experience in any of these fields, then there’s a problem, and that’s where successive governments have found themselves.

Meanwhile, our young nurses and gardaí are emigrating to Australia, while our education system is suffering because our teachers can’t get mortgages or afford the extortionate rents in our cities. I keep hearing those annoying promises made year on year by politicians about increasing the numbers of nurses and gardaí.

Perhaps their recruitment exhibition should be held in Perth.

Those impressive manifesto brochures amount to nothing more than wish lists, just like the manifestos five years ago, with most of their unfulfilled promises lying in some dusty filing cabinet.

As Nikita Krushchev once said: “Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges, even when there are no rivers.”