Fergus Finlay: A terrible programme for government and same old lies from Trump
President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington on Monday. Picture: Kevin Lamarque/ AP
So, two big events in my life this week. Both anticipated with much relish. The programme for government and the Trump inauguration[/url[. That’s how sad I am.
Mind you, if I’m being exact, I was anticipating events from Washington with no small amount of trepidation. The other big event, I’m afraid to say, stirred an awful lot of déjà vu in my bosom. And I wasn’t wrong about either of them.
I’ve helped to write programmes for Government in my time. One, in 1992, was called the ‘Programme for a Partnership Government’ — the first time that term was ever used to describe a coalition in Ireland.
That programme was largely written by myself and Fianna Fáil’s Martin Mansergh. However, it was very heavily based on the Labour manifesto for the 1992 election — which was written by a team headed up by William Scally, Dick Spring’s economic adviser at the time. He essentially produced the core of the key policies.
Everyone involved in the writing of that programme reported daily to their political masters. And the document concentrated on policy, with a little bit about government structure. We invented the programme manager system to expedite delivery of our commitments. That system was sneered at by all and sundry, but has come to be seen as an essential component of any successful coalition.
I’m telling you all this because I believe a programme for government must be a political document, written by political people.
They have to be free to ask questions of the relevant civil servants, but the writing — the priorities, the emphasis, the commitments, and the language — must be political.
I take programmes for government seriously. When they’re published, I go to the trouble of printing them out, reading them, analysing them. When I can stay awake that is.
The worst thing about it is that there isn’t a serious political hand to be seen anywhere.
I can almost identify by name the civil servants from various government departments who wrote it.
What clearly happened was a couple of senior people offered a list of boxes to be ticked to the party leaders (both exhausted, no doubt) and once they got the green light, they ordered up a few paragraphs about every item.
The result — and I hope you’ll forgive the vulgarity — is a terrible heap of old shite. No inspiration, no imagination, no courage. Look at page 27, where they’re promising to keep the money flowing to the greyhound industry for another five years. Did nobody ask why?
Why more millions to support a dying industry? Why more millions for the kind of cruelty that has led to the sport being banned in most of the rest of the world?
Perhaps the most disappointing bit of the entire document is the section related to disability. I know you’ve heard me on this subject before — but I really thought this might be different. It featured hugely in the election campaign, with both Taoiseach and Tánaiste pledging to be champions this time.
Instead, they’re going to “prioritise the publication of a new National Disability Strategy”. God help us all. The last one withered on the vine several years ago, and years of futile work has already gone into trying to get a replacement — with no serious political input whatever.
Consider this solemn commitment for example: They will “work to reduce the 24-hour notice requirement for disabled users of rail services”.
At present, anyone with a disability who needs support to get on a train needs to give a full day’s
notice before that support will be guaranteed. The Government could reduce that requirement to an hour with one phone call — instead they will “work to reduce the requirement”.
Who writes this drivel, and who lets them get away with it? There’s no drive here, no hard-edged sense of purpose in any of it.
They’re going to “reform” the Disability Act (they know it’s an obscene joke); they’re going to “consider” multi-annual funding; they will “consider measures” to attract and retain staff (in the teeth of an existing crisis); they will “work through industrial relations mechanisms” to resolve the pay issues that are driving people out of the sector. And on and dreary on with no commitment that any of this will be driven at senior Cabinet level.
Maybe I’m completely misreading it. I really, really hope I am, because believe it or not I want this programme to make a huge difference. However, I can see nothing more than the same old same old in any of this. If this is all there is, across the span of our economic and social hopes and dreams, this Government is going to be mainly remembered for how dull it is.
As Lincoln might say, however, fervently do we pray that the next four years in the US might also be remembered as dull. On the evidence of yesterday’s inauguration in Washington, that’s not likely.
Abraham Lincoln's two inaugural addresses in the 1860s have gone down in history as among the greatest political speeches ever written.
Phrases such as “with malice toward none” and “the better angels of our nature” will last forever.
Donald Trump is not that man. His first inaugural address was described by one ex-president, George W Bush, as “weird shit”.
Yesterday’s was worse. His first inaugural was dark and menacing, this one was boastful and self-aggrandising — and also dark and menacing. This man, who believes in nothing, actually asserted that he was saved by God to make America great again.
He didn’t have the grace to thank his predecessor for his stewardship and, instead, launched into a series of lies about the state of the economy and crime rates. After his formal speech, he went to speak to his own Maga crowd. On and on he went, claiming that he was even cheated out of winning California, and endless rubbish about his famous wall. Watching Trump pandering to his own, airing all his grievances, you know that absolutely nothing has changed. The same lies, the same self-pity.
Meanwhile, two extraordinary things happened. First, the outgoing president felt obliged to issue pardons to a significant number of people whose only crimes were that they had pursued long careers of public service. He felt he had no choice because these were people who had been threatened by Trump for the crime of doing their duty.
Secondly, Trump made it explicitly clear that he will immediately issue a series of executive orders that will take America backwards. People whose gender and identity or skin colour place them in a minority, from this moment on, could be subject to discrimination that hasn’t been possible for 30 years or more.
I’ve always loved America, its landscape, and its people. After today, I fear for it more than ever. If Trump keeps his promises, there may be no way back.
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