Institutional change is necessary to restore public faith in politics – but it can only happen from the bottom up, writes ELAINE BYRNE
WHY ARE those who seek to make politics better regarded as being anti-politics? Why are practical proposals to reform an antiquated political system deliberately interpreted as contemptuous of Irish politics? In that lazy anti-intellectual paranoia that passes for rational debate these days, reformists are casually labelled as angry cynics with an authoritarian agenda in their back pocket waiting patiently for the fall of Ireland’s democratic structures.
In that bastion of representative democracy Seanad Éireann this day last week, Taoiseach’s nominee Eoghan Harris made reference to the “delusion . . . of the younger sections of the political correspondents, not the old guard, that all one has to do is assemble people with first-class honours degrees, involve them in politics and the country will be a land flowing with milk and honey. That is not how the real world works.”
Senator, in the real world, people get democratically elected to political office. In the real world, politics would embrace those, young and old, with first-class honours degrees and without degrees who have a first-class contribution to make to reform this country. Politics would recognise the enthusiasm of a new generation that seeks to serve the public interest.
The public are disillusioned and disengaged from politics, and they have every reason to be. According to last week’s CSO figures, almost one-quarter of those on the Live Register are under 25, symptomatic of a future legacy of long-term unemployment. Apart from Dublin and Cork, Donegal has the highest rate of youth unemployment. It was particularly disturbing then in a Morning Ireland vox-pop last Friday morning to hear how indifferent constituents in Donegal South West were about when the byelection would be held there. Nine months after Pat “The Cope” Gallagher’s departure to Europe, full political representation to a constituency in crisis is still denied. The apathy towards politics in Donegal is complemented by Government lethargy in naming an election date. Why would someone in Donegal care about politics when politics has ignored them?
In the last Eurobarometer poll, Ireland has virtually the lowest level of public trust in its political institutions across the 28 European countries surveyed, with only Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Greece returning lower degrees of trust. This is not normal for Ireland. In June 2008, confidence in government was at 46 per cent. This dramatically dropped by 36 percentage points to an incredible 10 per cent only a year later, according to the September 2009 Irish Times/MRBI poll.
“This level of public cynicism toward Government and the political process is all the more corrosive,” according to a recent paper by Dr Niamh Hardiman of UCD, because it occurs “just at the moment when we need effective policy decisions”. In the next few months, such decisions will include the recapitalisation or incremental nationalisation of AIB and Bank of Ireland, and the consolidation or merger of EBS and Irish Nationwide. RTÉ television’s Prime Time conservatively estimated last week that these decisions will cost the taxpayer €11.4 billion. This figure does not include the unknown, overwhelming, toxic cost of the decision on what the hell to do with Anglo Irish Bank.
All of this is in the context of the view of the International Monetary Fund that Nama will not “result in significant increase in bank lending in Ireland”. The anticipated bailout of Greece by Europe will have consequences for Ireland’s ability to attract low rates of international borrowing, which in turn places additional stresses on the exchequer, and ultimately restricts the Government’s spending capacity.
Irish politics has extraordinarily tough and extremely difficult decisions to make in the next few months. Yet, the majority of the Irish public has lost confidence in politics. This will be confirmed when the Moriarty tribunal publishes its report in the next few weeks. The report is likely to be a devastating indictment on internal decision-making processes by ministers and the Civil Service.
But what incentive is there for politics to confront this loss of public trust and voluntarily reform itself? Why would those in authority seek to reform the structures of power when they benefit from the status quo?
Institutions are by definition predisposed towards self-preservation, resistance to change and are characterised by self interest. Politicians have a vested interest not to reform. The very nature of political power is averse to action which seeks to remove those in authority from positions of influence.
This is especially the case when there is a long legacy of incumbency. Ireland’s main party of government has been in power for 20 of the last 23 years. The main party of opposition has been out of power for most of the last two decades, and now waits patiently for what it regards as its opportunity to turn the levers of power.
The crisis of political legitimacy and the loss of trust in institutional authority require alternative participation by different political actors. Civic society must therefore embrace the responsibility of bottom-up reform and take ownership of this process, as has happened in Iceland and Britain. Any radical institutional change must be complemented by the transformation of a discredited political culture.
Bertrand Russell once said that “conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves”.
Don’t shoot the messenger, Senator.