Analysis: The electorate is feeling disrespected

The electorate is feeling disrespected as the local and European elections approach, and Government politicians repeating the mantra that the state of Ireland Inc is improving greatly does not help matters.

The implication is that if your personal situation has not picked up then somehow you are to blame.

There have been anecdotal reports that canvassing candidates from the governing parties seem to want only to shake hands in passing or slip leaflets through the doors, rather than actually engage with prospective voters on the street or in their homes.

Labour’s Pat Rabbitte, Minister for Communications, has been one of the few Government representatives to articulate understanding of how “austerity fatigue” has affected his constituents in Dublin South-West and elsewhere.

In Tallaght this morning, Mr Rabbitte reiterated this, saying: “I understand why people would be running out of patience. They have endured a very long recession.”

Significantly, he also acknowledged that austerity policies had affected some more than others and pain had not been evenly distributed. “I know it’s been difficult. I know there’s been a lot of hardship, especially hardship imposed on some people”.

However, he refused to accept what the most recent opinion polls appear to be saying: that the electorate is ready to embrace Sinn Féin and may have forgiven Fianna Fáil.

The proposition that the beneficiaries of the Labour Party’s unpopularity should be the two largest Opposition parties - “One of whom wrecked the economy and the other would wreck the economy if they got the opportunity” - was outrageous, he seemed to suggest.

“There are [OTHER]parties out there who have a soundbite for everything but they don’t have a plan for anything, and that’s the difference.”

He insisted the Government would succeed in eventually convincing voters “that their own personal family circumstances they can see the change that has taken place in the last three years”.

If you asked your neighbour if his or her personal financial and social situation had improved since 2011, what do you think your neighbour would say? Or might it seem disrespectful to ask?