CAVEAT EMPTOR. Buyer beware. In truth the currency of political promises, most particularly at election time, has become so debased that every single one should come with a health warning: “Such promises, however categorical, are to be seen merely as expressions of intent, subject to the inevitable discovery when we take office that things are worse than we thought. At which stage . . .” But they rarely do.
“Political language,” George Orwell observed, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”. So when Enda Kenny told voters in Roscommon during the general election campaign that “we are committed to maintaining the services in Roscommon County Hospital”, we are fobbed off later with the line that he came out with yesterday: “At least we have the courage to change”.
That’s alright then. We expect no different. We knew then and know now it was not a real promise, but a “political promise”. There was no intention to deceive. Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, and Minister for Health James Reilly can all be given a pass, morally speaking, when we discover that they have been “economical with the truth” about their intentions for the fate of the Roscommon hospital and a multitude of other hospitals.
It's a bit like the blind eye that many readers turned initially when they found out that the News of the Worldhad hacked into the phones of celebrities and politicians. After all, they were fair game, weren't they? That's the way it is, anyway. The media's too powerful to touch.
Absolutely not. On all counts.
The toleration of “little” white lies, of moral ambiguity and worse in politics and journalism, the turning of blind eyes to petty corruption, the “ah sure, it’s only politics” excuses, all have long contributed to the corrosion of our political system, undermining institutions and, not least, contributing to huge voter alienation. Some might say, naively perhaps, it is what the last election was all about. Fine Gael and Labour would have had us believe they were “different”.
That’s not to say that the Government should at this stage remain bound by those dubious promises. The two Hiqa reports on the hospital – one of them, it should be noted, produced in 2009, well before the election and which could have informed politicians’ views then, had they been so minded – make a powerful case for closure of the AE, which is the right policy.
But the original, irresponsible sweeping commitments – and there are certainly many more out there to re-emerge yet – and the inevitable U-turn, do say much about the failure of the new political reform climate and both Government parties to break the stultifying grip of localism and “stroke” culture on Irish political life. That is disappointing.
Perhaps Mr Kenny should have considered Mark Twain’s words: “Always tell the truth. That way you don’t have to remember what you said.”
They could have saved him some difficulty.