Ciarán Cannonsays that he can radically
overhaul the party and inspire it to set the agenda for the next 20
years.
Fiona O'Malleysays that under her leadership, the
PDs can lose the "right-wing" tag by challenging consensus and
standing up for personal freedom.
Ciarán Cannon
IT IS perhaps difficult for any of us living in the Ireland of 2008 to foresee the Ireland of 2028 and the outcomes that await us there. Equally so it must have been very difficult in 1985 for the founders of the Progressive Democrats to see a way out of the massive unemployment, family-destroying emigration and punitive tax rates that Ireland suffered at the time.
But it was those very difficult circumstances that spurred our founders into action and rather than sitting around waiting for change to happen, they went ahead and they made it happen.
It is interesting to note that over the last few weeks there have been many acknowledgements from media commentators, some begrudging and some freely given, of the positive contribution that the Progressive Democrats have made to Irish society.
In fact all seem to agree that our biggest problem is that most of what we stand for politically has been subsumed into the general political mindset across all party lines, with even the Labour Party seeking tax cuts in the last election.
So if we have set the agenda over the last 20 years, can a new and resurgent Progressive Democrats begin to set the agenda for the next 20 years?
I believe that we can.
I came to the Progressive Democrats five years ago with no political baggage.
I was not raised on politics, I chose politics. At 37 years of age at the time I, like many of my generation, grew up alongside the Celtic Tiger and was in a position to benefit from the many constructive changes brought about by our party founders.
I did not have to emigrate and had many career choices, yet I felt that despite this progress there was still much work to be done.
As chief executive of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, a nationwide charity of 6,000 volunteers caring for young people with special needs, I encountered many families who felt that the State was not being as supportive as it should in helping them and their children in facing the challenges of disability.
At community level, I believed there was a serious disconnect between local government and the people it served.
With no political affiliation whatsoever, I began researching the policies and aspirations of all parties.
Time and time again one party seemed to make so much sense in everything that it espoused and that was the Progressive Democrats. The American journalist Bill Moyers once said: "Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism."
That very concept of using politics to generate and act on great ideas is the essence of what the Progressive Democrats are about and that is what attracted me to the party. Take just one of those ideas, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, and look at the immense benefits it has brought to thousands of Irish people.
Last week the fund helped its 100,000th patient to achieve a positive outcome and waiting times for routine procedures have dropped from two to five years in 2002 to just two to five months in 2008.
I am now asking the membership of my party to bestow on me the honour of leading them into a new era and I am excited by the endless possibilities for growth and renewal, both within the party and Irish society.
For that renewal to work, we need a radical overhaul of our party structure to build on all the potential that exists there.
We have many loyal and committed members who are awaiting the call to action and that is where our strength lies.
I, as leader, will involve every member in the rebuilding process.
Everyone's opinion will be sought and valued.
The best policy is made by those that are impacted and we have people from every walk of Irish life who have excellent ideas on how we should meet the challenges of the Ireland of 2008.
We now need to imagine an Ireland of 2028 where we are still at the cutting edge of global business, where we have a world class health service for all, where each and every one of our children is encouraged to reach their full potential, where no one feels left out on the fringes of society, where we have vibrant urban and rural communities and where deep and meaningful reform has taken place where it needed to take place.
It is that strong appetite for reform that will be at the heart of our commitment to the Irish people.
The day we stop striving to learn from our past mistakes, the day we stop striving for change is the day our nation lapses into decay. My party has been and always will be a progressive party.
My party is the Progressive Democrats.
And my party is here to stay.
Ciarán Cannonis a member of the Seanad and contested Galway East in the 2007 general election.
Fiona O'Malley
FOLLOWING LAST year's election, most "informed" observers gave no hope for the Progressive Democrats. Some lamented its predicted demise and acknowledged the huge contributions made over the past two decades, both to Irish economic and social policy.
But sentimentality isn't enough reason to keep a party going. If the PDs are to survive it must be because we offer a different vision of society which is relevant to the Ireland in which we now find ourselves.
The PDs were formed as a liberal party that promoted personal freedom and which challenged a consensus that governments were there to tax and spend, shout loudly for Irish unity (though do nothing to achieve it) and wait until social problems became unbearable before advocating a sticking plaster solution. We challenged the politics of delivering solutions which offended nobody, but which failed to achieve significant reform.
Our immediate success showed some in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that liberalising the economy and liberalising society could offer electoral advantage. So while all parties borrowed freely from PD policy, it was also convenient for them to label us as "right-wing". This has served to damage us.
However, regardless of the labelling, a party like the PDs is needed. Successive governments have decided to use increased tax receipts to free themselves from making difficult choices. Something wrong with the health system? Spend more money! There is no one left to challenge this statist orthodoxy in which consensus-seeking is a goal in itself. Too many in politics are afraid to undertake reform that challenges any powerful interest group.
And those interest groups include the State itself. The tax system is designed to make collecting money simple rather than using it to incentivise types of behaviour that can bolster our economy. There is no rationale for stamp duty - a tax that forces young people who want to buy a house to pay a year's earnings to the Government - except that it is easy to collect.
How government spends that money is flawed. The National Development Plan is a shopping list rather than an exercise in real planning. Dublin's transport infrastructure could be remodelled relatively cheaply, but we spend money on poorly planned "grand designs" that please few except building contractors and ministers addicted to cutting ribbons. Meanwhile, the south and west of the country is ignored.
In education, the State controls what students learn, and the impact of examinations means that students, teachers and parents are forced to forget what the point of the education is. Innovation becomes impossible because the Department of Education and Science thinks it knows what's best and insists that each school delivers its orthodoxy. It consigns many young people - for whom the education curriculum is unsuitable - to failure. Then we wonder why they drop out of the system. The State's answer to drop-out rates is to legally oblige them to remain. If that failure leads them to crime, we call for tougher sentences.
While judges send people to prison, we must question the rationale. Is it to punish, rehabilitate or retain dangerous people? Surely we need to design a system that takes account of these different needs, and offers appropriate responses. But questioning judicial autonomy is unacceptable in Ireland. The judges have always controlled the running of courts, and for now, the status quo goes unchallenged.
Ireland is a wonderful place that many people are choosing to live in. This is a significant endorsement of our economy and society.
The way in which Irish people have adapted to large-scale immigration is testament to our decency and sense of fairness. But Ireland is not perfect and there is a danger that complacency will lead us to fail to confront new challenges. Other parties have accepted the need for a liberal economy, but we also need a liberal state; one that lets people get on with their lives, intervening only to correct failures. This is not accepted by other parties. The Irish State controls many aspects of our lives and is reluctant to allow innovation and change.
As a liberal republican, the Progressive Democrats under my leadership will stand up for personal freedoms and challenge orthodoxies. We will lift the barriers of excessive State control and support innovation. The Progressive Democrats are still necessary, but to become relevant again we need to change.
The challenge the PDs face is like that which Ireland faces. As a party, we were too top-down. My pledge to members is to reform; to give members more say, to give the party back a distinct identity and to communicate this to the country. We will lose the right-wing "uncaring" tag, which has dogged us, by showing ourselves to be a party for working people: pro-consumer, pro-innovation, tolerant and full of common sense.
Fiona O'Malleyis a member of the Seanad and formerly TD for Dún Laoghaire