There are hundreds — if not thousands — of men across the globe making a good living at impersonating Elvis Presley. They are the ‘Elvis lookalikes’ and ‘soundalikes’, an uncanny knack of nature that produces a shape and a voice something like Elvis. It won’t be as good as Elvis, but it will be good enough to draw a crowd… and keep drawing a crowd.
Labour leader and Moylough man Éamon Gilmore had quite a crowd in Kilkenny last weekend and he was looking for more. And there were enough straws in the wind to suggest that Éamon Gilmore was singing, to some degree, from the hymn sheet of another American icon. “Is féidir,” he said, and “is féidir,” he shouted. A sort of Irish version of “Yes, we can,” the mantra of Barack Obama. And there was more as Éamon Gilmore charted the road to the future. Labour, he said, is the party of the people and it’s the party that can give leadership. And by an extension of that claim, the man who would be leader of this country and lead it to a better place is Éamon Gilmore. The first Galway Taoiseach, maybe? They had the banner “Gilmore for Taoiseach” out in Kilkenny. When was the likes of that seen at a Labour Party conference before? The political numbers might make a Labour taoiseach seem unlikely now. But what if Labour could raise its number of TDs up to a level near Fine Gael or, indeed Fianna Fáil — if FF, the Republican Party, were to keep slipping in the polls? Could Labour not make a case that it would have the Taoiseach’s role for a period of time?
Stirring up the public
Yes, “Is féidir.” There could be “féidireachtaí” — ways of doing it — there. There are “féidireachtaí” that we could have a Moylough taoiseach. And like Barack Obama, the new American president elect, Éamon Gilmore also talked about his ordinary and humble background in north Galway. He went to college because he got scholarships… and because of sacrifices made by his family. He preached hope — hope that the unemployed would work again. He said that the banks should stop taking over houses that were behind on mortgages for a period of two years — one of the policies strongly favoured by Barack Obama in his election campaign in America. And then there was the “Is féidir, is féidir, is féidir.” Yes we can! You might say it’s the flavour of the month and the popular political mantra of the moment. Éamon Gilmore is a capable performer in the Dáil and, as far as I can read it, well liked by people across the political divide in Leinster House. But he does not seem to create a big stir out among the public. And like it or like it not, that is a vital part of the jigsaw in political leadership. Will his performance in Kilkenny and the borrowed phrases from across the Atlantic change the image? Will it bring the day when a Galway man that we lost to Dublin will become taoiseach… or possibly tánaiste. Only the fluctuating winds of politics will tell the tale. And these winds can turn rough too.
That other Éamon of Galway politics — who Dublin lost to Galway — got caught in a bad whirlwind just there at the crossroads in Maam Cross in Connemara on Monday night. Minister Éamon Ó Cuív was facing a “Baracking” from the farmers of Connemara, aided by a group from Mayo. The talk had no velvet lining like the voice of Elvis or the oratory of Barack Obama. Neither did you hear anybody talking about how they had to struggle to go to college. For most were the men and women from mountain country who have soldiered through thick and thin in Connemara and west Mayo. The talk was straight. They wanted the 25 per cent that was cut of their Area Based Compensatory Scheme in the Budget returned to them. In monetary terms, this scheme paid out about €4,400 per year to farmers in Connemara. It’s one of the farming grants. Farmers will now lose €1,100 from that. IFA president Pádraig Walshe was in Maam Cross alongside other heavyweights claiming that this cut was totally unfair in the way it hit people in disadvantaged areas. Questions came up about why there are so many civil servants in the Department of Agriculture and why they did not lose any money.
Yes we can… or can we?
Minister Ó Cuív explained that wage bills will be cut down in all departments because people will not be replaced. But he had no promise of money to replace the €1,100. However he told the hundreds of farmers present that the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith had told him (Minister Ó Cuív ) that he accepted that the hill farmers were “disproportionately affected” by the cut in the Area Based Scheme. Minister Smith also promised that the hill men and women would be the first to benefit if any extra money became available in 2009. You could sense people saying “live, horse, and you’ll get grass”.
Ó Cuív made the point again and again that everybody agrees that cutbacks are needed — only that they shouldn’t come near their own door. And there is a lot in what the Minister is saying. And, to be fair, getting cutbacks “right” is just about impossible. But when the case is argued out as happened in Maam Cross on Monday night it becomes clear — as Minister Smith has now accepted — that this hit at the Area Based Scheme brings savings in the Department out of the pockets of those less able to take the hit in disadvantaged areas. Can the money be put back in the mountain men/women’s pockets? Éamon Ó Cuív didn’t say “is féidir” or “bhféidir” in Maam Cross but he would fight for the hill men/women. It wasn’t a place for fine speeches in Maam Cross. That’s probably best left to future taoisigh in Kilkenny.
