AN EXCLUSIVE preoccupation with the crisis in the economy and the changes and reforms prescribed by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union might be understandable in Ireland’s present circumstances. But ignoring political matters more directly within our control would be a serious mistake.
Economic recovery will take time and, since Ireland will rely heavily on export-led growth to achieve it, the performance of the world economy will be critical. There is a pressing need to raise competitiveness in order to stimulate and then exploit the benefits of economic recovery. But there is a compelling requirement too to examine our political system, to question its effectiveness and to achieve fundamental reform.
Any detached observer will have been struck by the glaring failures in the checks and balances in the political system which contributed so greatly to the economic crisis. Fianna Fáil must bear primary responsibility in this regard and its catastrophic stewardship has been compounded by the inability of Government throughout this recession to accurately estimate the size and scale of the challenge to our public finances. Opposition parties, for their part, have too often shown a greater concern for political point scoring and party advantage rather than helping to educate public opinion to the size and complex nature of the problems. And the public service has been exposed as being ill-prepared and ill-equipped to help prevent the greatest crisis in the State’s history and to respond adequately to it.
Serious political reform presents an obvious difficulty. Very often the agents of radical change – TDs and Senators themselves – lose out rather than benefit from the process. Over eight decades there have been no fewer than 12 reports on aspects of Seanad reform, including two reviews by an Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution. But very little has actually changed in that period. Independent Senator Joe O’Toole announced last week that he would not seek re-election because he found the Seanad “indefensible in its present form”. Undoubtedly he was influenced by the Government’s failure to implement reforms proposed by the Seanad in its own review of the second chamber in 2004. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, having seen all efforts at reform prove fruitless, has proposed the abolition of the Seanad. But will what is a pre-election promise survive post-election bargaining?
A feature of past efforts at political reform has been an incapacity or unwillingness by legislators to do very much to change matters. In opposition, political parties may be willing to meet the challenge of major reform but in government prove either unwilling or unable to do so. Will next time be different? A group of political scientists writing in this newspaper last week argued that without radical reform to achieve a “vigilant and decisive” political system, Ireland risks sleep walking into a different crisis in 20 years’ time. And that reform can best be achieved by greater involvement by civil society in pressing politicians to accept necessary change. Could we see any of this in the Budget next week