For years Fianna Fáil has managed to brilliantly combine a lack of substance, being out of touch with reality, wastefulness, and a fondness for building the economy on a foundation for sand, to convince the Irish public to consistently vote them into office.
When you think of it that way you actually have to give ‘em a lot of credit. But then this latest budget came along and our Government’s frankly wacky decisions to target the elderly and the young got everyone all worked up enough to go outside protesting in the cold.
“You lot are just living in a dream world,” the Government wonderfully declared without a hint of irony, “There has to be cuts.”
No one listened. They just went on, protesting and organising further protests with more zest than your average unemployed Newcastle United fan.
Frankly we’ve seen all this before. Irregular outpouring of anger at Fianna Fáil has, for a while now, been a national sport. But then elections came along and we voted ‘em back in like a disgruntled spouse who readily accepted the promises of a constantly cheating husband that it’ll never happen again.
But this time is a little different. We can’t be bribed into acceptance by tax cuts or big fat infrastructural projects because there’s simply no money.
Over the last week all the usual noises have been made by the usual suspects as the army of ministers unleashed squirm and twist away on our airwaves. But right now there is a sense of hubris in our politics, one that I have never seen before. Fianna Fáil, given their historical roots and massive army of loyal voters, will, of course, be grand. But the Greens must be very very worried.
Despite neither constituencies offering up a TD Galway has a soft spot for the party and its politics as evident by the goodwill directed towards Niall Ó Brolcháin during his mayoral stint.
And what worries Fianna Fáil most is that the Greens are a party of idealists, not realists. Right now Gormley and co have changed their stripes, and their conditional un-conditional support of Brian Cowen and the gang can’t sit well with the party’s core support.
Or does it? I spoke to a senior party member in Galway over the weekend and despite concerns about the upcoming election the party remains quite upbeat about where it is.
“This may not be reported in the papers but there is a lot of support coming to us as well. A lot of people are supporting the Greens in difficult times and we do have more members now.”
“Sure education and class sizes were one of the key issues when we went into Government and now Batt O’Keeffe has decided to increase class sizes. We’d be of clear view that this is unacceptable but we’ve decided to stay in Government to work to change it.
“And you have to remember that the agendas we’re involved with are not fiscal and the results of a lot of things we’re working on will become more apparent next year.”
When next year though? We’ve a local election coming up that can go one of two ways for the Greens. It will either be seen as a party complicit with Fianna Fáil’s mess under Brian Cowen or it will be seen as a party that was mature enough to stay in Government at an extremely difficult time. If by election time it has offered proof of independent achievement in Government Niall Ó Brolcháin’s seat on the council should be quite safe.
If not, though, and if the following months see disaster after disaster what then? Would Galway, like autumn, lose its green tinge?
