Tell me about Irish politics

Great Debates
1

Tell me about Irish politics

Pretty much just that. I want to know what the major parties are. I’ve heard some people say that Fianna Fail is corrupt through and through, but also that their opponents are more or less the same anyway. Fianna Fail is, from my perspective, the better party by far on an ideological basis - they seem to be my kind of people, as opposed to the worn-out Social Democrat imitators. Whatever Fianna Fail may be privately, they seems to have done very well in ensuring growth.

2

I should precede this post by saying that I’m not Irish, so my understanding of the system probably has great holes in it, since I’ve only been here for 8 years and was only half paying attention until recently.

The one thing I can predict about this thread is, I don’t think you’re going to get any answers that aren’t utterly jaded about the government. And I predict at least one argument… :wink:

Confining this to the Republic of Ireland - unlike countries with sold two-party systems, Irish politics is more fractured. There are still the Big Two (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil), but in order for them to form governments, they have to form coalition governments, which tends to dilute their manifesto stance.

My comprehension of the left-right spread is as follows, though I’m sure this’ll be debated over:

Socialists
Sinn Féin
Labour
Fianna Fáil
Fine Gael
Progressive Democrats

Because of the left/right skewing of the US vs European politics, I’d put the PDs close to the Democrats in policy type, thus from your POV there’s nobody as right as the Republican party, apart from some stupid fascist woman from down the country who doesn’t get any votes. I may also be slightly wrong about Fine Gael being further right than Fianna Fáil, based on recent policy history, but the last Fine Gael candidate I spoke to (the late Jim Mitchell, who I kept standing at my door for 30 minutes on crutches; he died of cancer a month later - feel kinda guilty about that) had a very reactionary attitude to immigration - even moreso than Bertie Ahern.

Fianna Fáil is currently in a government alliance with the minority PDs, and as a result they’re skewed rightwards. This means some ongoing privatization and running down of public services, though the entire state is still set up very much on social welfare lines (“Scandinavian ideals with Mediterranean abilities” as a Corkman said to me once) minus the provision of true ‘socialized’ medicine.

Fine Gael actually began life as neo-fascists (the Blue Shirts) but have mellowed rather… I may be wrong but I believe it was they who, when in power, introduced the corporate tax breaks that allowed the Celtic Tiger; Fianna Fáil merely maintained this.

Fianna Fáil are a big corrupt bunch of gits. They’ve a long history of incompetence and working with vested interests for their own benefit, and in the worst cases, taking brown envelopes stuffed with twenties. They also have a recent history of authoritarianism - the smoking ban, etc.

To be honest, I really have a problem finding anyone to vote for. I’m fiscally conservative in many ways (though I’m pro a health service), but socially liberal/libertarian. There are a few independent candidates who I’d support, but they tend to be single-issue.

3

Lord, where to begin.

The first thing you have to understand is that Irish politics - north and south - have traditionally had very little to do with ideology. We’ll skip the northern bit for the time being. In the south, whether people voted for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael (the other main party for the bulk of the State’s history) had to do with which side of the Anglo-Irish Treaty they or their families came down on. (Fine Gael being pro, Fianna Fáil being anti.) Ideologically, both parties are solidly centrist, though both have significant right wings. They may both have had left wings at one point too but that was long before I got here. Although it’s widely said that Ireland is now starting to move past “Civil War politics”, I don’t believe it’s moving as fast as some people believe.

For the past seven years Fianna Fáil have been (nominally) at the head of a coalition government with the Progressive Democrats, who broke away from FF in the mid-1980s. The PDs are solidly right-wing economically, and used to portray themselves as civil libertarians but they’ve been taking a sharp right turn in that area too lately. BTW, I used the word “nominally” above because it’s really a case of the tail wagging the dog - the PDs are clearly the driving ideological force in this coalition.

The second largest (after FG) opposition party is Labour, who are much like their British counterpart - fairly left-wing by American standards but barely centre-left by European. And moving ever rightward. Some of Ireland’s smaller left/republican parties were absorbed into Labour some years back; you can barely even see traces of them now.

Then we have the Greens, who are pretty much like Greens everywhere.

Next in line (I’m going in numerical order by present number of TDs in the Dáil or Irish Parliament) are Sinn Féin, who’ll you have heard about. Politically left and committed to the reunification of the entire 32-county Ireland; the only all-Ireland party, with the exception of a few really small ones that don’t really participate in the political process anyway.

Finally, there’s the Socialist Party. They have only one TD in the Dáil, although they are likely to have another by the next election. They’re, um, a socialist party. Not too much more you can say about them really.

Do you want to know about the micro-groups like the Workers Party, Socialist Workers Party, Christian Solidarity Party, Irish Republican Socialist Party , Republican Sinn Féin or is that enough for you?

4

I’d agree with this, although you left out the Greens (who I’d put between Sinn Féin and Labour).

5

First Irish person in the thread and the foreigners :wink: have basically already nailed it.

As to corruption. Over the last few decade or so the Irish people have been finding out just what the pack of thieving bastards that used(some of them still do) to run this country were like. We have had many public inquiries and tribunals about this.

FF while being majorly implicated are not on their own. Every party was involved. It was like the wild west here for a long time. Ministers actually getting envelopes with cash in them etc to help with the zoning of land and much more. Ireland up till quite recently was a very poor country. We had crippling tax rates and high levels of poverty. The ex-leader of FF was a git called Charles Haughey who while only having the income of a politician managed to amass a wealth of millions. He now lives in his mansion on his Island with his race horses. He’s got cancer so the state have basically left him alone. They did hit him for some money settlement.

We have ex-ministers like Liam Lawlor who are in and out of prison for not giving full and accurate details to tribunals about their hundreds of bank accounts many of which where off shore so as to avoid tax.

From what I can see the people are just pissed off with most things political at the moment. We went through a huge financial turn around over the last decade or so and the countries still trying to get it’s head around it.

We see the price of everything and the value of nothing at the moment. It’s become a very selfish country IMO.

Despicable levels of racism towards immigrants, can you believe it? Irish people not showing compassion to people forced out of their country by famine, oppression or poverty :mad:

I love my country but it’s changing and I’m not too impressed with a lot of it at the moment.

And then we have Northern Ireland, Civil War politics and a huge upturn in organised crime but I’ll calm down a bit before I go near them :slight_smile:

6

http://www.feargalquinn.ie/tribunals.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1911347.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/844378.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/461298.stm

Sigh!

7

I put that down to the rampant consumer boom of the Celtic Tiger years, and the massive rise in house prices, so suddenly people who used to be just scraping by found they were sitting on little goldmines (and no, we don’t have Lucky Charms over here…).

And of course now we’re obsessed with prices because of rampant inflation caused by a) archaic industry regulation, b) lack of competition, c) industry cartels, and d) the euro changeover. And FF seem unable to do anything about it.

Actually, they did try one thing (and this will give you an example of the ideological schizophrenia at the heart of government) - the SSIA (Special Savings Initiative… what the hell does the A stand for?), whereby you can invest up to €256 per month and at the end of 5 years the government will give you the capital back plus 20% (and accrued interest). Very ‘socialist’ policy. But this is from the same government that chopped the top rate of tax from 45% to 42%. More ‘conservative’.

8

Well, I would say that it is pretty difficult for someone living in a drug-ravaged council flat, whose seriously ill father is being kept on a trolley for three days and treated in an ambulance in the parking lot because there are no beds available in the public hospital (although there are plenty of empty ones in the adjoining private unit), and who’s just been learned that she’ll have to drop out of the vocational training scheme for social welfare recipients because the Government has decided there’s no room in its budget for the childcare she’d need to take part in it, to get her head around the idea that she lives in one of the wealthiest countries in Europe (therefore the world).

This is the New Ireland that people who only look at the “growth” don’t see.

9

On a more boring, civics class-esque note:

The government of Ireland is basically run from the Dail, which is the house of representatives.It has 166 seats, but one of those is for the Ceann Comhairle,the speaker. The head of government is the taoiseach, and his deputy is the tanaiste. Then come the various ministers, health, finance, etc. The government is whoever can get 85 TD’s, (teachta dail) to vote for them. There is a general election every 4 years. We also have a president, our current president is Mary McAleese. She has little real power, she signs bills into law, but cannot refuse to sign them unless she is refering them to the courts on a point of law. A presidential election is held every 7 years. The lower house is called the Seanad. It is elected by various groups in the country, including college graduates and trade union members. It also has no power to stop legislation or propose it, it can only recommend changes and send it back to the dail once.

All elections in Ireland are carried out using proportional representation, a fairly complicated system but fairer, since it accomodates second and third preferences

10

Fair enough, ruadh, but the Ireland I first visited back in 1988 was way, way worse than it is now. It had an insane unemployment rate and a net loss of population because of that.

Even though the situation for the very poor underclass may have remained the same (or possibly, as you seem to imply, got worse), the majority of the working class and middle class have had their lives turned around by the growth.

11

jjimm, you say all the important political parties in Ireland now are leftist or liberal parties and there is nothing corresponding to the American Republicans. Very well, but how many of these “leftist” parties support the legalization of divorce, the legalization of abortion, or the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church as the official state church of the Irish Republic? It seems obvious that some progress on those fronts will have to be made, before reunification with Northern Ireland can even be thought of.

That brings up another point. Several years ago my mother visited the Republic as a tourist, and she got the impression that most people there don’t give a damn whether they every get the North back or not. It’s only Catholics living in the North who keep the issue alive. Is this true?

12

Um, no there isn’t. Constitutionally there must be an election at least once every seven years, but by statute this has been shortened to five.

Also, I know what you mean when you say the Government is “basically run from the Dáil” but the current reality of the situation is that the Dáil isn’t running anything, they’re just the Cabinet’s rubber stamp.

13

I don’t dispute that. I just get annoyed when the Celtic Tiger’s accomplishments are talked up without any mention of the (very significant IMHO) downsides.

14

Yeah - yojimbo’s right - the two foreigners have pretty much nailed it.

…and jimm’s right too - I’m too jaded to expand further.

Ah no - that’s not fair to the OP, but while it would seem that there’s a lot of choice party-wise there isn’t really. Some people seem to be moving more towards voting for individuals rather than a party regardless of who’s running in their constiuency (decreasing use of ‘civil war politics’) but they’re in the minority. I’m one of these though I usually end up voting labour. That said the Labour party do annoy me sometimes and I can’t help feeling that they have some good ideas but don’t really think them through properly in terms of their practical application.

In a way the fact that the country has recently been run by coalitions is a good thing because each party will rein in the other when they start getting too extreme. On the otherhand we’re sometimes left with rather weak and pallid policies that aren’t carried through properly as a result.

We need more intelligent and inspiring people going into politics here but isn’t that the case everywhere? - and I for one wouldn’t really be stepping forward to do that schmoozy job… :rolleyes:

15

ruadh the Ireland I grew up in is not the Ireland I live in now. Very few people had money. There were PAYE demo’s to beat the band. The country was fucked. There is a huge amount of money in this country now and much more jobs. The queues in the dole offices used to be around the corner. My father a mechanic was unemployed for 6 years during the late 70’s early 80’s as were a lot of his friends. I was unemployed for a few years after school. There wasn’t a lot of work going around. Now we have a labour shortage.

Yes there are lots of people that weren’t touched by the Celtic tiger and there are huge problems of mismanagement of resources in the health service etc. but the fact remains that this country has changed a huge amount in the last 20 years.

People on average have more money. Charity donations have fallen to an all time low I’ve heard and personally I’ve noticed there is a much more pervasive meanness among people.

16

Misconceptions go leor in this post. Divorce was legalised in 1996, there is no official state church and abortion is illegal in the North of Ireland as well.

Polls still show majority support for reunification (hang on and I’ll dig up a cite), although it’s true it isn’t a pressing issue for most people in the South.

17

Yep. Agreed.

18

Sorry, but AFAIK, the fifth amendment to the Constitution in 1972 disestablished the Catholic Church. So that is an incorrect statement.

Furthermore, I believe that with the exception of FG and FF (not sure about the PDs), they’re all in favour of liberalisation of divorce (which is already legal though still difficult to achieve) and abortion laws.

Well, in my observation there is an emotion vs. pragmatism issue. I believe the majority of citizens of the Republic would like a united Ireland on an emotional level. But pragmatically many people realise that this would be highly impractical. Having said that, I live in “the Pale”, and I think people have a more cynical attitude here compared to the rest of the country.

19

68% of Irish surveyed still believe in a United Ireland

20

Divorce is legal. Abortion is also legal though under very strict circumstances i.e. when the woman’s life is threatened, including a situation when there is danger of suicide (a bit woolly perhaps but that’s for another thread), but this was not as a result of a policy decision by the ruling parties but rather as the result of a referendum and therefore dictated by a small but nonetheless, a majority of Irish people.

The separation of church and state - well this has already happened. Even the church’s influence on politicians is gone to all intents and purposes. A few difficulties need to be ironed out though, especially in the area of education and these difficulties are not insignificant. Most schools and a lot of the best schools here are run or owned by religious orders. If the government refused to give them any more funding it would effect a huge number of children and their families with schools being forced to charge fees where there were none before and higher fees if already fee-paying. It would also put a strain on the goverment to expand the state-schools to cater for those children who would be forced to leave the schools owned by the religious orders.

I’d say this is sort of true. A lot of people here are sympathetic to the past difficulties of nationalists in the north (I don’t believe all of them are Catholic BTW!) but it doesn’t really affect the man in the street too much that Northern Ireland is not under our jurisdiction (though a lot of sports governing bodies are all-Ireland historically and have remained so which can lead to some small complications in this area … that’s only a side-note really).

Over all I think (and I hope I don’t offend you) that your view of Ireland as some priest-ridden, backward nation is out of date and stereotypical, or a little bit simplistic at best. Maybe if you travelled here yourself and talked to some Irish people your eyes might be opened a bit.