Gobshite Politics
07/06/07 23:47 Filed in: Election
2007 |
Politics
I was
chided by a commenter
the other
day for referring to Jackie Healy-Rae as a
'gobshite'. In truth, it was probably a bit unfair
to single out JH-R, because I tend to
consider
all Independent TDs as
gobshites.
Independents are a symptom of our clientilist political process. It is true that they are probably the hardest working politicians in the country, as they have to do as many favours as possible to as many constituents as possible in order tokeep their snouts in the trough stay elected.
But we elect our TDs to Dáil Eireann to legislate for the whole state, not just for the constituency for which they are elected. And this is where Independents are at fault. During the 28th Dáil (1997-2002) the government sought to have Kerry included as an Objective 1 area for EU subsidy funding. They did this under pressure from Jackie Healy-Rae, who was supporting the minority government at the time. We lost a lot of respect in EU circles for that little stunt.
Independents are a symptom of our clientilist political process. It is true that they are probably the hardest working politicians in the country, as they have to do as many favours as possible to as many constituents as possible in order to
But we elect our TDs to Dáil Eireann to legislate for the whole state, not just for the constituency for which they are elected. And this is where Independents are at fault. During the 28th Dáil (1997-2002) the government sought to have Kerry included as an Objective 1 area for EU subsidy funding. They did this under pressure from Jackie Healy-Rae, who was supporting the minority government at the time. We lost a lot of respect in EU circles for that little stunt.