Aer Lingus: It's the electorate, stupid

Fintan O’Toole annoys me as much as the next person, but when he gets it right does he ever get it right. His column in today’s Times (subs required) says exactly what I have been wanting to say since this Aer Lingus story first broke. Actually, it says exactly what I’ve been thinking since the election. Undoubtedly, it says what I’ll be thinking after the next election too, because in all likelihood the Irish voters will grumble and whinge for the next five years about what a shower of bastards we have in office and then on polling day they’ll go right back and put that shower in again. And then complain when they do the things that Irish politicians do. And so on, ad nauseum.

But we all know this; the question is what do we do about it. Usually the problem is identified as the peculiarly clientelist nature of (southern) Irish politics, and electoral reform is put forward as the solution: get rid of the dual mandate, for example, and TDs won’t have to focus so much on issues properly in the purview of councillors.

That hasn’t worked.

Increasingly the multi-seat constituency is coming under fire: TDs are competing with their party colleagues, the argument goes, and so there’s a great incentive for them to try to build up support from the voters through parish pump type stuff. I’m not convinced by this. For one thing, it doesn’t happen in the US, although the primary system there also means that candidates compete with party colleagues. Of course the party whip system doesn’t exist in the US so party colleagues can compete with each other on ideological grounds, something they can’t do here. But Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can’t really be said to be competing on ideological grounds, either, so a system under which their candidates are competing with each other (and other parties) rather than first and foremost amongst themselves is hardly likely to eliminate the incentive for them to boost their support through constituency work.

Some of my own party colleagues are in favour of introducing some sort of list system, in which, for example, half the Dáil is elected in the current manner, while the other half is selected by party officials according to the percentage of vote that each party receives. Presumably, the ‘appointed’ TDs would not be bound to do constituency work, not having any constituency to be bound to. There’s merit in that argument, but I can’t help thinking that there is something fundamentally undemocratic about allowing them to be chosen by appointment rather than directly by the people. We complain about this in the Seanad (not that that stopped us … well I won’t go there for now) so I don’t really see how we can support it in the Dáil. The wild optimists also think that this system would increase the extent to which the electorate votes on ideological grounds, because they know they are not just voting for their candidate but for his or her entire party. Again, unconvincing. At the last election voters knew they were voting not just for their TD but for their government, and what did they do? Voted in the same shower of bastards they keep complaining about … again.

I’m not sure what the answer is, or whether it can be found through electoral reform at all. Clearly a cultural change is needed - Irish voters do need to stop thinking of their TD as their councillor, social worker, all-purpose-fixer-upper – but there’s no guarantee that would stop them electing the same old crooks time after time, anyway. I’m sure I don’t need to point to examples in other countries to demonstrate this. Whether it’s PR-STV, FPTP, party list, whatever, the bottom line is that nothing is going to change until the voters take it upon themselves to decide that they aren’t going to put up with it anymore.

And if you think that’s going to happen any time soon, I have a landing slot in Shannon to sell you.

LI didn't intend to start a blog just to analyse the Sunday Tribune every week. It just happens they've had more of the stories I feel like commenting on lately.

The cover story this week is speculation that Bertie plans to call the general election next year, rather than wait for the May 2007 deadline. This will no doubt be replied to with a denial from the Taoiseach's office, but it's actually what I have suspected for several months now. Open disagreements between the coalition partners have been increasing, most recently on the building of a new terminal at Dublin Airport and Michael McDowell's proposal for a new "café-bar" licence. In addition, there are a few FF backbenchers who are very strongly opposed to McDowell's planned introduction of Anti Social Behaviour Orders - listening to the Dáil debate last week one could have been forgiven for thinking Pat Carey and John McGuinness were actually members of the opposition. McGuinness, especially; I cannot recall ever seeing a member of a Government party speak out so strongly against a Government proposition. Frankly, this doesn't look like a coalition that has two years left in it.

So what does it mean? Hard to say at this point. Obviously, one of the most important things is getting the PDs out of Government. The damage they have done is immense. I would not be in favour of Sinn Féin going into coalition with FF this time around - we will have around 10 TDs at most and I doubt FF would be as generous to us with key Ministries as they have been to the PDs. And I'm not sure there would be the numbers for FF to coalesce with those independents who'd be willing to do so. I can't see FF and FG going in together, even though you couldn't slide an envelope between their political philosophies (including the one their grandparents went to war over), and Labour have ruled out going in with FF, but there don't appear to be the numbers for them to go in with FG, or even with FG and the Greens. So it's all to play for, really.

I do think it's hilarious that Labour are willing to coalesce with the (slightly) further right of the two main parties, though. A fortnight ago in the Dáil SF introduced a Private Members motion against the privatisation of Aer Lingus. FG, predictably, opposed it; Labour supported it. What would they have done if they were in Government together when we introduced it? Or when we introduced our bill to enshrine neutrality into the Constitution, which Labour also supported and FG opposed? Over the past few years Labour have already moved further right than many in their traditional base would like; their former chief strategist Fergus Finlay openly admitted that they were courting the middle class vote because they think the trade unions, etc., aren't relevant anymore. In Government with Fine Gael they're only going to move even further right. And Sinn Féin will be there, nipping at their heels, on their left.

Incidentally, I'm somewhat neutral on the café-bar thing. I think there are a lot of bogus arguments being thrown around by both sides. Nobody in Ireland limits their drinking (during normal hours) because they can't find a place to get a drink, after all. Nor are many people going to say "Well, I could stay in this pub the whole night, but now that there's a café-bar next door I'll just go there and have a meal with my pint instead". I'm all for the idea of café-bars, actually, because I really quite like them, but I think it would be more sensible to provide incentives for existing pubs to convert, rather than opening additional establishments. I haven't thought out how you'd do that though, so please don't ask me!

The Trib was surprisingly short this week of things-to-make-me-throw-the-paper-across-the-room. My greatest outrage was at a letter to the editor suggesting that the FAI should withdraw from the Champions League next year and nominate Liverpool instead. The day they do that is the day I stop giving any money to anything having to do with Irish soccer. Fortunately it's not going to happen, but it absolutely disgusts me that an Irish person would suggest it in any case. Sure, why don't we just let England have Roy Keane and Damien Duff as well? We're probably not going to need them next year.