NOTHING IS CERTAIN but death and taxes, yet just as some people seek to triumph over mortality through cryogenic or genetic treatments, so some people always oppose revenue-raising measures. Even so, the speed and intensity with which resistance to the new household charge developed last week were striking, as TDs jostled with each other to express their hostility across the radio waves. Indeed, some of the refusenik politicians themselves got carried away in the rush, at least judging by the inconsistencies of their on-air arguments.
Interviewed by Cathal Mac Coille on Wednesday’s
Morning Ireland
(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the independent TD Thomas Pringle described the measure as “a tax too far” for a population already at breaking point. More pertinently, the method of collection, involving voluntary registration, provided an opportunity for people to oppose the €100 charge at entry point and take a stand on the wider austerity programme. Pringle’s annoyance was understandable, but when he said he personally would not pay the tax in solidarity with those who could not afford to, his logic started to unravel.
Mac Coille asked his guest whether, as a legislator, he was duty-bound to obey the law. Pringle initially fudged his answer, saying it was legitimate for people to protest; when pressed on the question, Pringle said people had an obligation to obey the law "except where they think the law is unfair and unjust". Mac Coille wondered where this approach might lead: would Pringle stand by people who could afford, say, the proposed registration fee on septic tanks but didn't feel like paying it? Pringle reiterated that he was rebuffing the household charge in order to stand with those who did not have the funds to pay it, but essentially viewing the law as a broad honour system seemed an alarmingly loose interpretation of the legal system for a legislator. This anomaly had been quietly uncovered by Mac Coille, who has been doing more heavy lifting than usual in a Morning Irelandteam shorn of two of its regulars, Áine Lawlor and Aoife Kavanagh.
Later in the day, the Socialist Party TD Clare Daly appeared on Lunchtime(Newstalk, weekdays), giving the same line and getting similarly tangled.
Daly characterised the charge as a breaking point for people and said she would not pay it: “I think unjust laws should be broken.” When Jonathan Healy asked who decided which laws were unjust, Daly tripped herself up.
She said her opposition was “about standing beside the people who elected you” and “showing leadership”, thus conflating two quite different concepts. Again, much of the logic behind the heated oratory had been undercut by basic questioning. Healy may lack the contrarian instincts of the programme’s regular anchor, Damien Kiberd, but he brings common sense and an Everyman presence to the news show.
The stance of left-wing TDs such as Pringle and Daly seems odd given that the household charge excludes rented and council accommodation, and, as the political reporter Brian Dowling pointed out in his succinct analysis on Thursday's Morning Ireland, avoids the lopsided windfall brought about by stamp duty during the boom. Dowling also pointed out that with up to 11 TDs theoretically facing prison should they snub the levy, a political crisis was looming. You know things are bad when constituency grandstanding is deemed more important than constitutional obligations.
Even if people do pony up for the household charge, it remains unclear what currency it will be paid in. After the inconclusive EU summit, the euro-zone crisis dominated Sunday's panel discussion on Marian Finucane(RTÉ Radio 1), with a grim outlook unsurprisingly emerging.
But there was entertainment to be had in the spectacle of Finucane’s guests buffing their egos as they analysed the gloomy situation.
The artist Robert Ballagh recounted how he knew the euro would fail before it was even launched. Visiting the Central Bank of Ireland when he was designing the old Irish pound notes in the 1990s, Ballagh, who called himself a “concerned citizen”, said he often overheard officials voicing doubts about the single currency’s viability in the canteen. If Ballagh saw any irony in a vocally anti-establishment artist like himself basing his views on dealings with central bankers, he did not express it.
Meanwhile, the economist David McWilliams donned the highly elucidated but slightly patronising delivery he uses when in sage mode to say that David Cameron’s wielding of the veto had been a “win-win” move in terms of domestic politics.
This view was challenged by the Channel 4 newscaster Jon Snow, who believed that any such advantage would be “extremely short term”, briefly winning over Eurosceptics but ultimately leaving Britain in a “lose-lose” situation in Europe.
McWilliams was undaunted, actually portraying Snow’s contribution as a validation of his own analysis. Britain may have been humiliated in Europe, McWilliams said, but “Cameron will come back and be a hero for a little while, and Jon Snow echoed that”.
It was an audacious U-turn, executed with such self-promoting panache that no one picked him up on it. When it comes to spinning arguments in your favour, McWilliams could teach some politicians a thing or two.
radioreview@irishtimes.com
Radio moment of the week
Sean Moncrieff makes a virtue of his ability to slip effortlessly between serious and quirky subjects. Even so, Wednesday’s segue on Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays) out of an item about the alarmism surrounding nuclear weapons seemed particularly abrupt. “We’re going to stay with the question of devastating explosions,” Moncrieff gleefully said, “by asking are men’s farts smellier than women’s?” Oh Sean, you wag.
