Closer to the next election than we think

You really got to wonder if there wasn’t a back drop of Brexit would there have been an election long ago and would Leo Varadkar still be Taoiseach? In Britain the right wing media lambast Varadkar for as they see it stalling their departure from Europe.

Many people in Ireland will give him a pass on this one as Britain is in disarray and Irish citizens are getting used  to playing the role of the parent in the room as departure date approaches. Many suspend their judgement personally on Dr V which is a mistake.

One way or another 2019 will see the Brexit question resolved.  Eventually we will get back to our domestic politics. And when you look a bit closer at Fine Gael, all is not as it seems.

5 years ago Labour got it on the neck during the 2014 local elections. Three ministers in particular wound up the electorate; Phil Hogan over the shambles in Irish Water, Alan Shatter for his handling of the Garda whistle blowers controversy and James Reilly for cutting back medical cards to child victims of cancer. There was a common thread that ran through the criticism, information was handled poorly making the electorate angry.

To plug the holes Dr Varadkar gave a large budget to his spin unit once elected Taoiseach in the hope of improving his image. Then the unit was scrapped and once more we’re back to obfuscation and deliberate confusion. Varadkar’s stock response on each occasion is to threaten a general election. At some stage that bluff will be called. It hasn’t yet. Firstly it was Frances Fitzgerald who jumped rather than see a general election one Christmas on account of information that was contested. Next it was Denis Naughten who was behind the doors about releasing information on the national broadband plan. The latest minister in trouble is Simon Harris and how the over runs on the National Childrens Hospital came about and who knew what. Lurking in the background are more questions about what the Department of Public Expenditure knew.

When there are question marks about transparency, political trust diminishes. That’s why we are slowly but surely heading towards a General Election. It may sooner than we think, once Brexit is out of the way.

Whether the outcome will give a clearer picture in terms of forming a new government is another question.

Let no man fix the boundary to a nation

It could only happen in Wexford. 3 months out from a local election and 5 months after the boundaries were set by a commission, some Wexford County Councillors are still not happy. They want the minister responsible to ignore his own commission and retain boundaries that have seen urban areas effectively managed by rural based councillors.

About 5 years ago Wexford Borough Council was abolished. We had about 6 months notice. Politics is a tough trade. Local politics is the toughest of the lot. Small margins here or there effectively decide the last seat and who wins. In rural areas it is parochial. Small communities like to have their local councillor. It really doesn’t matter which party they come from, if at all.

Rural communities understand county councils a lot better than urban areas. That’s what is behind this row. It has everything to do with prioritising small villages over large towns. When the borough council was abolished Wexford District was “compensated” by being allocate an extra council seat to ensure better representation. However when it came to the election in 2014, Wexford Town which had 4 outgoing county councillors ended up with the same number while candidates living in rural areas won 6 of the seats, doubling the rural representation in Wexford District.

Few would argue that it is in the interest of County Wexford that the urban areas are underrepresented. That precise number remains a secret because when the tricky matter of the new boundaries was put to councillors this week, they held their discussions in camera away from the media. Why they should do that remains a mystery. Were it not for Wexford Today, the goings on at the council would remain a secret.

By all accounts with the press out of the room, imaginations took off. It degenerated into Wexford’s own version of the Brexiteers. Magical thinking that the old days can come back if we hold out for a better deal. In fact councillors have already had submissions lodged and their amendments made to the proposals. This is apparently for some not enough

In the end they decided to ignore the entire report and its terms of reference which set out 5-7 seats per ward with small wards of 3-4 allowable on the basis of geography. Instead they asked that the status quo of 3 8 seaters and one 10 seater should remain! And if the minister doesn’t agree with that, they want to meet him to leave him in no doubt as to what he should do.

And to think that 5 years ago when the writing was on the wall for the Borough Council some of us were getting our political affairs in order before going before the electorate by putting down motions on local issues which would come up at the hustings. Weren’t we the fools?