Chrysalis

I read with interest this weekend of a number of our current political crop who are now in serious financial turmoil. No it is not because, Like P Flynn before them, they find life difficult to manage on their close to €200,000 a year in salary and allowances. It seems that many of our law makers have been burned by the property crash having made sizeable investments at the height of the boom. It seems it is not only farmers and small builders that thought themselves developer tycoons during the good times.
We have had the high profile case of Junior Minister (for small business) John Perry battling the very banks he deals with as a member of government over a €2million+ debt he amassed when we were ‘all’ partying. Now it seems Roscommon South Leitrim TD Frank Feighan is in the same boat. We do not know the size of his debt but it emerged last week that he may have to sell off everything including his home to clear it. We know that there are others from all partys involved so it is not isolated to a small few.
Why do I say our politics is rotten you may ask? Well for me it seems a little sinister that the very people who were responsible for making the policies and laws that allowed the property bubble inflate were the very ones aiming to profit from it. Surely we should have ethics, morality even, among our politicians where they would recuse themselves from participating in the gross profiteering of the so called ‘good times’.
Add to what we have learned from Moriarty and the dogs on the street to what we are learning from the workings within Irish Nationwide and you begin to see the extent of this sinister relationship between our lawmakers and money. If the stories are to be believed Irish Nationwide and other institutions gave loans like candy to people of influence and it seems the quid pro quo was a preference for light touch regulation and why wouldn’t it be, remember the politicians were profiting too after all.
As time passes it seems to me that we really do need a truth and reconciliation approach to all this. We thought we were to have it when Fine Gael ushered in a ‘democratic revolution’ in 2011 only to see Environment Minister Phil Hogan stop the investigation in to planning irregularities in council areas across the country. Why would he do that one wonders? Could it be they know what the results would be? Hmmm surely not!
So what can we do? Well we can say enough is enough; we can demand that our politicians make changes to the rules that govern their roles to ensure their focus while in office is solely on the public good and not personal gain. Once elected all other work should either be put on hold or stopped. If I worked for an insurance company for example and left I would be precluded from working with a competitor for a specified period and so it should be for elected representatives. More importantly Ministers leaving office should be precluded from working with businesses from with the area of their portfolio for a specified period.
How do we do this you rightly ask? Simple we vote for it, or we create an environment that will allow a new politics to exist. There is a lot of talk right now of the need for political reform and new political party’s but this will only become a reality if we the people allow it to happen. We need to use our vote strategically at the next opportunity, the local elections, and cast our ballots for new candidates who are offering real changes. The current crop has let us down too often it’s time for a clean sweep.
So the next time you’re chatting over a drink and someone says ‘sure it will never change’ you say ‘yes your right, as long as you and I do nothing’. We should never forget that in a democracy we hold a lot of power and it is time for each one of us to exercise it. I lay down the challenge for you now stop talking about change and make change happen and do your bit to save our politics and our society.