Mick Clifford: Blaming Met Éireann for floods shows performative politics is all the rage
The blaming of Met Éireann for the floods by housing minister James Browne shows performative politics is all the rage these days, writes Mick Clifford
Fifteen tractors park along Kildare St in Dublin near Leinster House as part of the Irish Farmers' Association's call for Bord Bia's chairman to resign.
These events are unrelated yet share a commonality in showcasing performative politics, which is all the rage these days. If you can’t or won’t do anything to improve lives and society at large, then hop up on the stage and perform a routine that projects you as the Flash Gordon of politics, arriving just shy of midnight to save the planet with your integrity, truth and justice.
Gavin deserves praise and thanks for his role in the NEIC programme. The board was formed in 2016 after a series of shootings during gang feuds, including the murders of totally innocent people.
Then taoiseach Enda Kenny set up the board in recognition of the severe disadvantage that is experienced in the area. Local activists say it has at the very least made inroads in tackling the worst of the problems. Some suggest it is a model that could be used in other disadvantaged enclaves in places like Cork and Limerick.
The Dublin North East Inner City (NEIC) board
Gavin, who moved away from the role last autumn as he ran for the office of president, volunteered his service and time in May 2023, a few months after the previous chair, Michael Stone, had to resign.
This is where the performative politics comes in. Stone is a native northsider, who began his working life as an ESB apprentice and went on to become highly successful in business. He was appointed as the first chair of the NEIC board.
Local activists praised his input, the time he gave to the area and the various attributes he brought. But then, he just had to go. The political performance deigned that a villain was required and he fit the bill perfectly.
His transgression involved a failure to declare that he had de facto donated to Paschal Donohoe’s election campaigns in 2016 and 2020 through use of a company van and the erection of some posters. The sums at issue were in the hundreds of euro, but a major scandal was cooked up on the back of it.
Donohoe was the target, which was fair enough. Paschal was going nowhere but a head was required for the narrative of outrage. Stone stepped down and went off to dedicate his time and personal resources elsewhere, to the considerable loss of the people of the north east inner city.
Who benefited? Nobody, at least not in any way that matters. Opposition politicians got a smug few minutes in the Dáil canteen, delighting in the fleeting discomfort of the government, but beyond the bubble, beyond the cowboys and Indians routine, it was a zero sum game.
An Bord Bia
The routine is being replayed now with the chair of An Bord Bia, Larry Murrin. I know nothing of the man other than he appears to be highly successful and knowledgeable in argi food circles. I misheard his name initially and thought that maybe U2’s drummer was moonlighting as chairman of Bord Bia.
It emerged a few weeks ago that one of Mr Murrin’s companies had imported some Brazilian beef to service his reported €750m business. The amount at issue is 1% of the total beef used in the operation, around the same tiny level of Brazilian beef that would have come into the EU market under the stalled Mercosur trade deal.
Yet, farmers, led by the Irish Farmers Association, are outraged that anybody with a public role in promoting Irish food could import any food that is not Irish.
IFA members protest outside Bord Bia Offices in Dublin. Photo: Finbarr O'Rourke
The wellies were immediately replaced with pantomime costumes and a stage was set up at the entrance to the food agency’s HQ in Dublin. Beneath the greasepaint, this is a power play.
The farmers are fresh from holding the body politic to ransom over the Mercosur trade deal, in which the interests of beef farmers were placed way above those of society as a whole.
Their success in putting the fear of God into the body politic is a reflection of a firm grasp of the political lobbying. Now that they’re on a roll about the evils that can be wrought on health and pocket by 1% of Brazilian beef, they want a head. Just to let everybody know that they remain in the driving seat as far as political power goes.
Unlike their starring role in the Mercosur pantomime, the government is giving this one a miss. They are taking a break from performance, for one manufactured scandal only. Micheál Martin has said he won’t be sacking anyone this time around.
Maybe he and Simon Harris are experiencing guilt at their performance in Mercosur in which they opposed the deal, knowing it would go through, just to keep the farmers off their backs.
The ICSA protesting outside the Bord Bia offices in Dublin on Thursday as board members failed to remove Larry Mullin as chair of Bord Bia.
Sinn Féin are still at it though. During the week, Mary Lou ‘Mission Impossible’ McDonald worried about the approaching midnight when the world will end if Larry doesn’t go.
“Eight days on and you still ignore the calls for Larry Murrin to resign,” she beseeched Martin, searching deep for dramatic tones. “The more you dither, the more you delay, the more damage is done to the reputation of Bord Bia.”
And what benefit will accrue to Irish food, Irish business, Irish consumers, Irish society if the pantomime villain in this production loses his head? The IFA will have a celebratory cup of tea, move onto the next battle and muse that those Shinners are grand people alright, they know where their bread is buttered.
James Browne
Beyond all that the performance of the week has to go to James Browne. It was Bob Dylan, rather than the King of Soul James Brown who wrote the line: “You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
James Browne, as opposed to James Brown, thinks the weatherman is keeping us all in the dark following the savage rain and ruinous floods this week.
“We will be bringing Met Éireann in and say that, look, there needs to be an understanding here that information is not to be guarded, information is to be put out there, and we need to be doing a much better job of communications,” he said.
Met Éireann told us to expect a lot of rain. The government and its agencies failed to prepare and are about a decade behind in constructing proper flood resistance infrastructure where it is needed.
Mr Browne needs to come down off the stage and maybe move away from the performative politics to concentrate on something that can actually make a difference to people’s lives.
It would be no bad thing if such a move was also made by all of those in the body politic who now appear more obsessed with throwing shapes rather than dealing with the kind of issues that are important to the people who elected them to serve.
