BACK PAGES:Gripes about politicians' pay and allowances are nothing new although Myles na Gopaleen's solution to the problem in 1954 was, as always, imaginative.
The bright season of Christmas approaches – season of goodwill, of presents and parties. Do I perhaps mean Parties, even inter-Parties? I certainly do mean presents. Several of our Partes Conscripti have put the country on notice that they intend forthwith to give earnest consideration to increasing their own eleemosynary allowances of £624 a year to £1,000 by reason of the rise in the cost of living. A tasteless taxpayer might remark that he had thought that rises in the cost of living was what his superiors were in Parliament to prevent.
The State pays a deputy’s travelling expenses. The telephone in Leinster House is free. Stationery is free. The very restaurant is subsidised. I estimate that deputies are at present receiving in cash or kind £1,200. Nor are they required to do one stroke of work for this.
That last sentence of mine is important. If we could have from about three-quarters of them an enforceable undertaking that they would do no work, that they would not meddle in recondite matters which they do not understand, then I think that each would be cheap at £5,000.
It may be, however, that what I have read in the papers I have taken too literally, that money itself is not important, and that what these gentlemen really seek – and indeed why not? – is honour, respect, recognition. Now if that is true, I will deem it a compliment to be allowed to help; I could do so with confidence, for I simplified an almost identical situation several years ago. Remember the CMH?
In every county there is a statutory personality known as the County Manager. He almost is the County Council and is most important, but must have his office in the insanitary settlement known as the County Town.
One cannot symbolise one’s authority in such a place by a jacket and striped trousers, while one goes much too far the other way with an ordinary unpressed suit. What then? I thought of it – I invented the County Manager’s Hat, and I am glad to say the new mode was instantly adopted by the managers. And by more than them; the CMH came to be accepted everywhere as the symbol of standing and authority, just as in ancient Rome the fasces denoted the office of lictor. Soon every business chief, floorwalker, tycoon and bookmaker knew that his livelihood depended on wearing a CMH. Remember?
I am sure we have here the remedy for any impasse that has arisen through a mistaken notion by our Parliamentarians that they are not respected, appreciated, even . . . loved. Each should be formally presented with a CMH at the public expense – I don’t mean just passed over in a pub – but in a grand, colourful public ceremony, as if CMH was our equivalent of an OBE. And I would include, of course, the Senators.
Pray heaven the day will dawn when we shall see that stirring scene in Upper Castle Yard!
Pray heaven we shall see the guard of honour with naked steel, the special beflagged stand containing the Corps Diplomatique, the stand for those representing the church, the GAA, the Masons, the Licensed Vintners, the Knights, the IRA, the Irish Chess Union, the Labour Party, TC and UCD . . . many others. Then – the bugles, the CMH salute, the roll on the drums, and, bare-headed, slowly, one by one the Statesmen advanced to have their hats reverently placed upon their heads by the hands of His Excellency the President.
The Statesmen now hated, form fours and – proudest moment of all! – quick ’shun! down they come in smart, soldierly formation, shoulders jauntily a-swing – eyes right! – for they are passing the stand upon which I am taking the salute, quick march! And they are proudly heading into Dame Street, rousingly led by the Santry Brass and Reed Band.
Show me a man who sees anything wrong with that, and I will show you a man who does not love Ireland, and never did.
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