Irish Examiner view: We’ve done a lot but must do more

Even if we must remind ourselves of the old, learned-in-the-cradle meaning of the words ordinary, usual, normal, or everyday, and even if today’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations can be none of those steadfast things, this, in the grand scheme of life, is not at all a bad time to be Irish. 

Nevertheless, many, many things could be, should be, and must be made better. We could make a far better job of discharging age-old social obligations, especially around housing, and equitable, ready-when-needed health services. 

We need to make huge cultural changes around our head-in-the-sand attitude to climate change, even if that means challenging increasingly unsustainable core industries. 

Broadband disadvantage is, as the pandemic has underlined, too great an obstacle for too many people. We need to make huge changes around our silly see-no-evil indulgence of white-collar crime. 

Policing and regulatory supervision must move from tick-the-box tokenism to become an effective presence. 

Unfortunately, our must-do-better list is dog-eared. So much so that it might be best to try to celebrate our national day without dipping into it too deeply, it will be as valid tomorrow as it is today. Yet, those issues and others too will be a volatile presence today.

Lockdown protests

A number of anti-lockdown protests are planned for Dublin. The organisers of those events have not explained how they might be less threatening to public health security during a pandemic than traditional celebrations, but then, logic, like the snakes driven out by St Partick, may not be an obvious presence at these events. Because of that An Garda Síochána has appealed to the public to avoid visits to our capital’s centre today.

It would, however, especially for the established but waning political parties, be foolish to dismiss these protests as the unhinged in pursuit of the unattainable. Just as the water charges protests became a catch-all for justified discontent, today’s events, like the small demonstration in Cork some weekends ago, might be seen as a lid on a simmering pot, one that has boiled over in many settings.

The latest example came just last weekend when Germany’s state elections hinted at looming irrelevance for Angela Merkel’s CDU. Those polls suggest that once Merkel’s time as chancellor ends in the autumn, her party’s position and power will diminish greatly. They also suggest that Germany, a bulwark donor to the EU’s €60bn farm subsidies, has embraced the Greens as the most appropriate response to this world’s difficulties. It does not do Merkel’s Irish peers a disservice to suggest that they have yet to achieve her political status or authority. Yet, they seem incapable of learning the lessons offered by her party’s promised difficulties.

The essence of that may be that inaction or half-hearted action is no longer an acceptable response to the day’s needs. Anger may not be a policy but then, as so many issues have shown, neither is stoicism. More, much more, as today’s protests confirm, is needed. Should our older political parties find the gumption to be more demanding of themselves next St Patrick’s Day might be, in more ways than one, brighter and far more celebratory than today.