So, the local elections are scheduled for next month. I won’t get to vote unfortunately, as my two-week stint back home comes to an end on June 7th. A pity, but this time out I won’t lose any sleep over it. The county councils will get a little shake-up and it’s long overdue. Unfortunately though, while the opposition will gain, it’ll probably be the same tired old Fine Gael and Labour candidates with the same old tired agenda as before.
Damn it people, get a clue! Slagging off the government is NOT a viable political policy! For those who follow the Socialist Worker ethos of “everything the government does is bad, as long as the goverment is not us”, well, you’ll fit in well with Labour or Fine Gael.
Since the 1997 elections, these parties have shown their complete and total incapacity to provide a credible opposition. The purpose of the opposition is to provide an alternative to the government. To do this well, the opposition should be providing rational, well thought out alternatives to government policy.
Current opposition policy for example, seems to be to protect the dual-mandate, allowing TDs (arguably already doing a full-time job) to hold county council seats also, and increasing the potential for corruption. The only reason I can see for this is that, not content with a tax-free allowance of 50% of their overly-inflated salaries, these avaricious excuses for public representatives want to maintain their steady flow of cash.
Let’s talk about something the opposition could do to boost their popularity among the ordinary people, rather than the corporate interests which finance their election campaigns.
In the 1970s, a Fianna Fáil government under Jack Lynch brought forward a proposal allowing TDs to claim 50% of their salaries as their tax-free allowance. At the time, there was a very good reason for this, all TDs were obliged to pay for their own staff. Nearly 30 years later, staff costs are legitimate expenses, and TDs retain their 50% tax-free allowances, while high house prices, inflation, and lack of salary increases mean many of the people TDs represent are effectively earning less than they were 5 years ago.
Come on… pick up the challenge – Do something for the people you represent, make a change.