Reform Alliance conference: A gathering in frustration

DANIEL O’CONNELL never had it this good. The original purveyor of the monster meeting would have been astounded as to the quality of debate among those in attendance at Saturday’s gathering of the Reform Alliance in the RDS in Dublin.

No more is Catholic emancipation top of the agenda — not even Conservative Catholicism — but issues like whether our water should run free of fluoride, and the quality of IT systems in the nation’s hospitals. Those were just two of the contributions from the packed floor among a gathering which had assembled in disillusion at politics.

They came from the four corners of the land, but demographically, they ran towards the grey brigade. Electorally, these people matter because they all vote. There was a serious gender imbalance, another echo from O’Connell’s time. Men outnumbered women by at least four or five to one. In so many ways the gathering resembled an annual conference of one of the main parties.