WHAT are the big issues facing the Irish people? Let us name a handful for example, the dramatic social shift, unprecedented since before the Famine, in which a huge proportion of children born in the State are to unwed mothers. There is a pseudo non-speak in the language in which this issue is addressed or rather, not addressed - which entails the mothers being called single parents. But we know what this means: mums, unmarried, loads of.
This is clearly worth talking about, but it isn't being talked about. The North is worth being talked about, and the security policies of this State, but neither is, Unemployment fraud - which we know to be quite colossal - should be a subject for discussion on the hustings, but it is not. The continuing issue of travellers should be a subject of cool but energetic inquiry and discussion, but it is not. Other things like the quite catastrophic road accident figures, or the Luas scheme for Dublin, or the opening hours of pubs and supermarkets, or the state monopolies over postal services and landline telecommunications - all of these are legitimate subjects for animated disagreement.
Political orthodoxy
But of these vital issues, not a word is being heard, because of the basic orthodoxy of Irish politics, which in terms of intellectual courage is beginning to resemble the Catholic Church of the bad old days. What we are suffering from in Ireland - in the guise of liberalism - is doctrinaire,. ideological cluster-politics which permits certain inconsequential ideas to be discussed, but not important "heretical" ideas. Much as the old Catholic Church let Catholics attend Protestant funerals, but not enter Protestant churches, the new shibboleths of cluster-politics vary from not permitting the discussion of the inconvenient or the complicated - such as a national roads policy, or deaths on the roads, or Luas - to not permitting any conversation about an issue which is sensitive.
Proinsias de Rossa has sneered the issue of single-mothers off the hustings. Anyone who tries to discuss this issue again will probably get the same treatment, Might I suggest that if we want to know what the future could be with this spanking brand new generation of males without male authority figures around the place, we might see it today in Harlem and other black ghettoes in the USA?
Dole fraud
At least the issue of single-motherhood rapidly catching up with shared marriage got briefly aired - which is more than can said about the issues of dote fraud, which we know, from the Government's own statistics, to be huge. We did not need those figures - we know from anecdotal evidence that, all over the country, hotels, pubs, shops, restaurants, cannot get staff to work unsocial hours.
Both of these issues deserve to be discussed, if only to be calmly and resolutely put back in the box marked "unimportant". I myself don't think they're unimportant. I believe uncontrolled single motherhood and bad dole policy are social engineering by default.
The disbursal of government funds on particular grounds must inevitably have social consequences; it will inevitably cause institutional changes, just as the habits of mackerel change according to the sewage outlet pipes - which is mackerelese for the dole.
It is interesting to see the new British minister in charge of this issue, Frank Field, admit to the social consequences of state welfare. He is very concerned about the long-term effect of the outlet pipes into British society but to discuss such matters here is, for the moment, in the derivative and unimaginative language of Irish political life, "Thatcherite". But in due course, when it is too late, we shall no doubt wake up to realise here was a problem which didn't even get mentioned in the 1997 election.
Ethnic problems
Needless to say, the great enduring ethnic problems of Irish life - travellers and the North - do not even get a whisper from ordinary politicians, with of course the odd, incomprehensible, coded gibberish from Sinn Fein about the North alone. I'm not sure about Sinn Fein's attitude to travellers - would it be the Whitecross method, the chipshop technique, or maybe a touch of the Enniskillens? As for all the other parties, not a peep out of anybody, though we know it is one of the most explosive issues in Irish life
No, no, we're too wrapped up with all our talk about the Celtic Tiger; if I could only get my hands on the fool who coined that little metaphor - tigers are tough, take risks, are strong and fearless.
I'm sorry: that is not us. We are more like hamsters - smug, timid, and growing fatter by the hour, until we have our throats cut in our bed by the unsocialised teenage sons of unmarried mothers or maddened homeless travellers. The Celtic Hamster has an altogether more authentic ring about it.
Enough of this election caper. Of far greater importance is the season of Music in Great Irish Houses, on either side of polling day. There are a few concerts not sold out - such as the one at Colebrooke House in Fermanagh, featuring the viola player Bruno Giuranna with the Dublin Piano Trio; the Kontra String Quartet in Freemasons' Hall in Dublin; the concert by Patricia Rozario in Kilruddery House; and back in Dublin, the Hibernia String Trio in Dublin Castle and the London Chamber Orchestra at Dublin Castle on June 14th. Infinitely preferable to boring idea-free democracy. Telephone 01.2781528.