Una Mullally: This general election will be about privilege

Are you ready for the “election year” to unfold? A good deal of political coverage will now condense into election prep mode: when the election will take place and the reasons for it being late, early, or on time; the tensions between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil personified by Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin; the campaign messaging; the dominant or emerging personalities; the blunders; the social media; the performances on radio and television debates; the promises and manifestos; the things each party will emphasise in an attempt to maximise their vote; the projected trends and hypotheticals.

Some of this will offer genuine insight as to what some politicians want to do in power.

This commentary – the horserace – is partly a superficial facet of an election (the actual behaviour and goals of politicians probably being the most superficial). It’s a necessary facet, but shouldn’t be the main facet. There are multiple narratives and approaches to finding meanings in a general election. Issues are a good place to start.

There is also sentiment, and the idea that if a vote is always about something broader, then a truth can be excavated to inform us about where we are at. We search for the note under the note. This can be framed in multiple ways depending on one’s perspective.

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One could frame this election being fought on privilege: the haves and the have-nots. The heading given to the letter by Peter McVerry published in The Irish Times at the beginning of December juxtaposing the Dickensian details of theft charges faced by a homeless boy and two homeless men in court with how Dara Murphy was permitted by a system to claim €51,600 in expenses in a workplace he spent little time in called Dáil Éireann, was “A tale of two cities”. That sentiment could be rolled out across the country.

I spent a lot of 2019 working with Andrea Horan on our United Ireland podcast, where every week we examine an issue relevant to a particular Irish county and try to give it a broader, often global context.

One of the most frequent comments from guests discussing their counties is this idea of being “left behind” or “forgotten”. This sentiment is as true in Donegal as it is in Waterford, in Roscommon as it is in Derry.

Of course the biggest beneficiaries of the partial economic upswing, and the creation of parallel societies where some flourish and others struggle, will be Fine Gael's base.

The pain that emanates from neglect or perceived neglect is something that has not been heard or treated in Ireland. The State has turned its back on many people with regards to their quality of life across housing, health, childcare, transport and planning. If a lot of people feel left behind or forgotten, that’s an alarm bell.

It’s the same kind of alarm that has been ringing in the UK and the US, where so-called wealthy societies also feature a Ken Loach-ian overlay, in which those who have a lot don’t even notice that there’s anything wrong outside of their spheres.

These are long-term issues that do not lend themselves to the essence of Irish politics, which is short-termism. For many of our lifetimes, Irish party politics has been something of an intellectual desert, where one can wander for years without even encountering an idea. Occasionally something interesting emerges in the distance, until on closer inspection it’s a layer of hot air refracted, revealing itself to be a mirage.

In newspapers in 2019, an increasingly common phrase in headlines was “boom-time levels”. The cost of rebuilding a home in Ireland hit boom-time levels, as did employment rates for college graduates, cocaine use, enrolment figures in private schools, high-end restaurant reservation no-shows, office construction rates, disposable income, and Christmas spending.

This is the privileged side. Yet there is another side very evident when you step outside; the street drinkers and heroin users, the homeless people curled on cardboard, and the snaking queues for soup and coats and food banks.

This jumble of contradictions tells us that there are two tracks in Irish society, one where you have a safety net and one where you don’t. The safety net is largely underscored by generational wealth, something that Irish people tend not to think about, but is the kind of wealth that pays for private education, buys opportunities, and gifts deposits for houses.

Lopsided society

A lot of the prosperity in Ireland now is very public, and a lot of the inequalities are very hidden. Irish society is lopsided. We have the veneer of success balancing on very precarious foundations.

We have a Government insisting that things are getting better, and that they are doing their job on housing, for example, yet the reality for many is completely detached from that PR. If you are reading this and thinking “but everything is fine” – just because hardship is not in your sphere, does not mean it does not exist.

This election will illustrate whether we are comfortable with two cities, two counties, two countries. This election will also be a test for the emotional outcome of the five-year social revolution our referendums manifested. Will we continue to empathise with those not necessarily like us?

Will we continue to extend a helping hand to people who need things that we will not necessarily benefit from? Of course the biggest beneficiaries of the partial economic upswing, and the creation of parallel societies where some flourish and others struggle, will be Fine Gael’s base.

This almost ensures Fine Gael electoral success, unless that impulse to vote out of selfishness and self-preservation is disrupted. So if you have wealth, comfort and privilege, then how will you use it?