Sir, – Fianna Fáil is surely in a terminal pickle. Reading Harry McGee’s piece, it is obvious they have no clue from where they came, where they are, or where they are going (“Fianna Fáil internal rumblings are about its future – not its leadership”, Analysis, June 3rd).
It is becoming clearer every passing day that the crisis in vital areas, such as housing, healthcare, etc, is a direct consequence of policies that Fianna Fáil, while in government, implemented. The wholesale privatisation of services was no accident; it was a deliberate part of a neoliberal economic ideology that the party bought into over two decades ago. This entailed handing over the provision of vital services to for-profit entities. In the process, they failed to put in place proper safeguards and regulations.
That is where Fianna Fáil has come from.
We have now arrived at a point, with social cohesion becoming dangerously strained, leading members content themselves blaming others. According to Dara Calleary, it is not politicians that are to blame for the current social ills but rather “higher management”. The fact is that “higher management” is powerless to make necessary changes to tackle our ills. That power resides with politicians.
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Barry Cowen wants a future where the party can go “with our chest out and say to people, ‘If you vote for us this is what you are going to get’”. Has he forgotten already the promises made at the last election? Go look and compare to what is being delivered. After the election, the same old agenda of distancing Government from the provision of social goods and turning everything into no more than money-making opportunities continued.
And the truth is rather simple: you cannot create a fair and decent society when the wealth it generates is handed over in large measure to a small well-connected rump. Distributive justice, in all things, is the key to solving not only the woes of the country but Fianna Fáil’s too. Other leaders did so in the past. Eamon de Valera shamelessly stole the Labour Party’s clothes to get a foothold in urban areas; he built social houses and cleared the slums.
Fianna Fáil’s problem is most certainly about its leadership. It seems incapable of separating itself from the comforts of the status quo and getting to grips with solving the problems that are currently destroying many people’s lives.
Harry McGee is correct to say that in politics, “If you don’t stand for something, you quickly become nothing”. Leo Varadkar’s recent comments about “those how get up early” and cutting taxes indicate that Fine Gael is running to shore up its base. By comparison, Fianna Fáil is like an ageing footballer, unable to sort their feet out.
The fact is that the future of Fianna Fáil rests solely in the hands of those who are currently leading it, and unless that leadership is capable of making radical change, or is radically changed, there simply is no future for the party. – Yours, etc,
JIM O’SULLIVAN,
Rathedmond,
Sligo.