“Terms and Conditions Apply!”

So Frances Fitzgerald finally fell on her own sword. Not before putting up a huge, behind closed doors fight, with her Fine Gael colleagues. There was even talk about her “Having something on Leo?” Nonetheless, he remained so steadfastly on the side of “She has done nothing wrong and let’s wait for the tribunal, before judging her!”

The trouble was, that Leo’s pantomime Dames were also told, in no uncertain terms, to get behind their Tánaiste. “They’re behind you!” The spin was “Innocent until proved guilty.” Then more and more, leaked emails started to appear. Evidence against the Minister was mounting, indications being that Frances knew more about the shenanigans surrounding Maurice McCabe, than she was willing to tell the Dáil. Had she convinced Leo, she was no Panto Baddie, no Wicked Witch?

Pressure mounted on ALL concerned, nobody wanted a pre-Christmas election. The hustings were awash with threats of rebellion. There was no festive cheer. The door knocking over the 12 Days of Christmas, was without doubt, going to be a complete and utter disaster. It would be an election date of infamy.

Joy of joys. Two Tuesdays ago Frances did the honourable thing and tendered her resignation, at the very, very, very last minute. Talk about leaving it late. She took the Government and the country right to the wire.

There must have been terms and conditions attached?

Sure enough, only a few hours later, the now ex-Minister and ex-Tánaiste received the full backing of her party. She stood for and was nominated, as the FG candidate for the next general election in her Dublin Mid West constituency. I have no doubt that a future ministerial role has been pencilled in, if FG are returned to govern.

Scroll forward a few days and on Thursday 30^th November, Scotland’s St.Andrew’s Day, Minister Simon Coveney, can’t believe his luck. Accepting the position of Tánaiste with alacrity. Have absolutely no doubt, he has attached his very own “Ts and Cs” to keep FG and FF happy. Will we see a third budget, as promised in the Confidence and Supply Agreement? “Oh yes we will!” Well, only time will tell.

 

Then out of the blue, the terms of reference are announced, by Minister Simon Harris, for the National Review of Specialist Cardiac Services. We’d rub our magic lamp and Waterford’s Lotto numbers would come up. We’d scoop the Euro Millions jackpot. Professor Nolan would lead the review that would once and for all, deliver the South East’s cardiac services.

Alas, yet another false dawn, I am afraid.

The terms of reference, are once again, comical, laughable, and even “Wishy-Washy”. They are quite evidently worthy lines for a pantomime Dame. “Oh NO they’re NOT!” the Government shout. “Oh YES they are!” we shout back.

An unbelievably long, drawn-out timescale of 12 to 18 months. Hello, we might all be dead, by the time the report comes back to Minister Harris! At least the can has been well and truly kicked down the road, for the next Government to fight Waterford.

Then, we see the now obligatory photo shoot, appearing all over social media. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am sure that some, maybe even all, are trying very hard to deliver our very basic health service rights. But when you see only three TDs pictured with the Minister, is it any wonder that this South East “Crisis”, is seen by those in the Dáil as wholly Waterford’s conundrum?

Could I produce a few more TDs from behind the Minister? “Abracadabra”, I shouted, but without my magic lamp to rub, no more appeared.

There are 158 TDs in the Dáil, yet only 3 turned up for the launch picture. That represents less than 2% of the total number seated in Dublin. If all 19 regional representatives had shown up, that would have increased the proportion to 12%!!!!

Or to put it another way. I win €1,000,000 on the Lotto and offer a lucky reader the chance to get 2% or 12% of these winnings. €20,000 or €120,000 – what would you choose????

Percentages matter in Irish politics. It’s very simple. The bigger representation you have, the greater the slice of the pie - Ts and Cs always apply. 

A colourful City?

At the time of writing, Minister Pascal "Use the Force" Luke Donohoe, would have been polishing the finer points of his 2018 Fine Gael Budget.

After being “Anointed” in June this year, to Leo’s Cabinet, as Minister of Finance, his wee primary school abacus has been dusted down and no doubt, never worked so hard. As TD after TD has demanded that their very own field of green deserves much, much more than their nearest neighbour.

There is NO sense of teamwork. Friendships are completely forgotten. Camaraderie goes out the window when budget time comes around. It is dog eat dog in the halls of power, in Leinster House.

I grant you, it is slightly more complicated this year, with the thin bonds holding this Government together. The sticking plaster is under tremendous strain, or so the spin would like you to believe. Yet, at the end of the day there is really very little between our two “Centre, right, left” parties and neither is going to step down from the seat of power just yet. There are deadlines to reach, in terms of securing pension rights, pay rises to accept and the feeling is that our next election may well be pushed out to 2019.

Just who, from Waterford, has been battering down the door to the Minister’s office in Upper Merrion Street? We have suspiciously heard very little from our two sitting Government TDs. You have to wonder just which side they’re batting for?

The jungle drums are beating out messages, telling us that the likes of our neighbouring Teflon TD, is working miracles for his Tipp constituents. Kilkenny’s new boy on the block, is steamrolling yet more investment into his county, to make up for the disappointment of their hurlers!

All around this wee green isle, deals were being done and papers signed, to advance parish pump politics. Something our elected few seem particularly bad at. We know the game plan, but just like some of our soccer teams, we find it impossible to stick to. When we need a “Plan B”, well, it is simply not there. Good in practice but poor in execution. “He talks a good game”, could be our political mantra.

Will Waterford be any better off once all the dust has settled on Budget Day 2018? Will the granny knot on Pascal’s purse strings be untied, affording Waterford much needed exchequer funding. Improving our access infrastructure, starting the North Quays, giving the South East proper cardiac care and delivering a REAL university for our region......I am not so sure.

Printed words will promise the earth, moon and stars, however I fear much of the same old, same old rhetoric. We have for far too long, been used to reading paragraph after paragraph of waffle. Commitment with absolutely NO substance, in how Waterford will likely benefit from the remote decisions being made, on our behalf, in the Dáil?

Don’t hold your breath! We are once again bottom of the pecking order and have been thrown the odd crumb or two. When will we ever get the chance to order, once again, from the à la carte menu?

My spirits were lifted on Sunday, despite this concerning backdrop. Once again I was involved in stewarding for the Solas Cancer Support Centre Run and Walk for Life. Having been Chair of the organising committee for the last two years, I was delighted to see the new committee run the most successful event to date.

The 5-mile walk, introduced in my first year as Chair of the RWFL in 2015, has as expected grown exponentially and has now become the main stay of the event. Well over 2,000 people took part in this the third walk. This annual event may now have become the biggest participatory event in Waterford.

A spectacular and solid sea of orange could be witnessed along The Quay and up The Mall.

Once again, I managed to get hold of a loud hailer. I positioned myself on the corner of John’s Street to bark, Sherk-like, instructions, to the runners and walkers. Then, I found myself balance on my push bike, cycling alongside the walkers, using the hailer to shout encouragement.

“Only 4-miles to go!” may well be my new calling card. 

We’ve had “Bertie’s Bowl” and now “Varadkar’s Valhalla!”

I arrived in Ireland, some sixteen years ago, having driven a lorry containing ALL our family’s worldly belongings from Larne to Waterford City. It was a mammoth, long, weary journey at the time. There was little or no motorway infrastructure and in truth there were crappy roads everywhere, from the North to the South.

Our very small Scottish convoy, which constituted a rented 7.5 tonne truck and my Escort estate car, was stopped just across the border. This, I recall, put the fear of god into me and here’s why. In the back of my car, my air rifle was hidden inside my golf bag! I was well aware that an air rifle was illegal in Ireland, so to hide mine, I somehow thought making it look like a golf club was a good idea. Luckily the Garda only asked where we were going and once I explained that I was moving from Scotland to Waterford, he waved us on. The air rifle quickly left the Garland household once we settled in the City.

Thankfully, we have now seen major changes to the road infrastructure. The difficulties in accessing the South East corner, which took me from memory around 9 hours to get to in 2001, have been resolved. Belfast can be reached in less than 4 hours. Better still, you can actually drive from Belfast to Waterford without being stopped at a traffic light. Whilst the speed of change has been more walking pace than meteoric, there has been progress in opening up this wee sunny corner of this green isle.

When I settled in Waterford there was great talk and discussion about Waterford being THE “Gateway City” for the South East region. It would be developed to become the economic powerhouse of the region. Securing and attracting inward foreign investment, which would bring huge numbers of well paid jobs to everyone living in the “Sunny South East”. We would have a regional hospital with all the bells and whistles. A regional airport servicing the UK and the Western fringes of Europe. A university to rival those of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

Scroll forward sixteen years and Government after Government have abjectly failed to deliver any regional development. Both the South East and North West have been principally ignored, by the very bodies that should be concentrating on promoting these disadvantaged areas. But the Irish way seems to be to ignore these problem children, sitting so far away from the epicentre of power.

The IDA’s own figures reveal a damming indictment on just how far Waterford has fallen off the table, in terms of “Promotional visits”. We are told that Waterford and the South East cannot be pushed ahead of the other regions. In fact our region cannot be promoted or receive special attention – as that would just be unfair! So, with the other regions flourishing, they're becoming an irresistible draw for yet more and  more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), at a significant cost to the struggling NW and SE.

Our current Government recently launched the National Planning Framework, amid much pomp, ceremony and PR spin. A highlight for Waterford was Minister Coveney’s promise to double the City’s population. Yet, almost the very next day he rejected a report’s recommendations to extend the City’s boundary North across the River Suir. Talk about flip flopping, this party has it down to a T.

So, the very latest Government idea, to help a “Struggling Dublin?” with its booming economy once again, is to consider building a new City for Ireland in the Midlands region!!!!

Just where is the sense in such a stupid, ridiculous idea?

Our two struggling regions are crying out for Government investment. They are ready for regional investment and yet may once again be overlooked.

Are we really prepared to accept one more political folly after another? Who remembers Bertie’s Bowl? Now, after only a few wet weeks in office, we are planning to build Varadkar’s Valhalla. Why do our leaders feel the need to build their own Guggenheims? To be immortalised when they depart the political arena?

Surely, delivering an equitable, fair and reasonable regional development policy is a better legacy than one more Guggenheim?

Who remembers THAT letter? “What letter?” I hear you cry!

In May last year, I wrote about a certain Neville Chamberlain’s political faux pas, which defined his office as Prime Minister of “Blighty”. On the 30^th September 1938, after a meeting with Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Chamberlain returned to England, via Heston Airport. He exited his “Corporate jet” waving a letter from his now BFF, announcing that there would be, “Peace for our time.”

Chamberlain, in those few brief minutes, was claiming that he had singlehandedly stopped the prospect of Armageddon. He had prevented World War II.

Scroll forward just under twelve months, to the 1^st September 1939, which we now recognise as the “Official start date” of WWII. For all Chamberlain’s letter waving and pontificating, there was no substance to Chancellor Hitler’s letter. In fact we now know, that the letter was used to stall for time, to allowing Germany to build even bigger military forces. More disturbingly, this hand typed A4 piece of embossed paper, meant that the European powers could “Legitimately” stand back, empowering Germany to make some significant land grabs.

Recorded history is a great reference point and I would advocate that we all every now and again, dip into it to see the journey we have taken.

On 6^th May 2016 we, particularly in Waterford, became very excited about a similar piece of correspondence. A letter from the then Minister of Finance, Michael Noonan TD, was waved to us, by our own Junior Minister Halligan. This declared that a second Catheterisation Laboratory had now been signed, sealed and delivered for Waterford and the wider South East. The funding and building of the second laboratory was cast in stone. Written into that mythological document, “The Programme for Government”. Fine Gael, supported by a few Independent TDs, would construct our Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

We should have been very wary of such claims and promises. History has taught us to be cautious of people waving letters. But then again we somehow choose to learn so very little from our immediate past.

“Subject to a favourable recommendation from an independent clinical review of the needs of the region....” in the first paragraph of the Minister’s letter. This should have set alarm bells ringing. We were told that this review was merely a formality. Boy were we sold a banana boat with no paddle!

14 months later and we are in reality, no further forward. We’ve yet to see foundations being dug to build a Catheterisation Laboratory. This would give us access to the very basic rights to appropriate emergency care.

The political fudge, to appease the Waterford/SE hordes, was to provide a mobile laboratory. This too was also given lots and lots of PR spin. Yet many, many weeks have passed since this unit was supposed to find its way to Waterford, for the month of June. We are led to believe that September is now the promised landing date for this unit – maybe we should club together and buy Minister Harris a sat nav?

What is for sure is that Fine Gael, with its Independent Alliance support foundations, could sign off on the procurement, build and delivery of a Catheterisation Laboratory for Waterford and the South East, at the stroke of a pen! Far too many do not see Waterford and the SE as a priority, certainly Leo and Simon don’t.

There is, in all honesty, NO need for people to be asking for other parties to threaten this and threaten that, if the lab is not delivered. Let’s face it, the opposition parties are only interested in getting into power and not bringing down a Government. Asking the people to vote at another GE is not on the cards. There is NO appetite for this type of political revolt. Anyway, we only have two opposition TDs in Waterford, so in the Number’s Game, we’re zero/zilch!

OUR issue is that we need politicians who are prepared to box clever, whilst driving OUR agenda. We need people in power, representing us, who can forge alliances and work the dark, dingy corridors of power in the Dail.

OUR Political talent pool is just too small to make any real difference. Maybe next time around?

Forget the first 100 days, Leo’s first 100 hours were mighty!

Donald “The” Trump, as president of the “Good Old US of A”, was assessed on his progress, as the newest resident of the White House, after only 100 days. Our latest and youngest ever Taoiseach, Leo “The Lion” Varadkar, has already courted so much controversy that we need only look to his first “100 hours” in office to read his mindset.

When you dig deeper into his cabinet appointments, you can see that there is really very little to shout about, for Ireland’s Oldest City and the wider region.

As with ALL cabinet reshuffles, there will be the inevitable winners and losers, prior to all the dust settling and before the unavoidable fallout starts. The best you can hope for, is that your own TDs get a gig on the back of putting at least one of their big feet into the right camp. For Waterford that foot surprisingly, belonged to our very own “Scarlet Pimpernel”, from the “Westh” of the county, John Deasy. There can be no doubt that having put his head above the parapet to support Leo, he could have expected a small token Junior Minster post, in one of the more obscure Government Departments.

 

“Surprise, Surprise!”, as Cilla Black would have said, Waterford was given no such recognition. In fact the whole of the South East was left remarkably short of any representation at Leo’s round table of cabinet lovies. As he was ignoring the “Sunny South East”, he also disregarded many a talented female TD and loaded his Ministerial roles with men from Mars.

Across the border in County Kilkenny, there was significant recognition for John Paul Phelan and a post to the very Department that looks after our local government. This was after all the very man who was so vociferous on the boundary issue, that I and many others suspected he was the very reason that Simon Coveney choose not to implement the report’s recommendations. Did John Paul have one foot in each camp during the Fine Gael leadership election campaign? He may very well have done and do you know what, it was such a pity that our own could not manoeuvre the chess pieces around the board to do the same? He supported Coveney and yet wooed Varadkar. The result was a role as a serious influencer for his constituency and lots of positive PR for himself.

Unfortunately, both the political heavyweight parties see our nearest neighbours as either 2 or 3 seat constituencies. Waterford on the other hand looks like it may well return 1,1,1,1, for the foreseeable future. Unless, I hate to say this, we somehow return 3 FF or 3 FG we will continue to see political tumbleweed blowing us through Dáil Éireann. Waterford, as a political force, has been out flanked by our surrounding counties and the net result will be the odd minuscule crumb, thrown to us every now and again.

The sad truth is that we cannot even get this Government to deliver a poultry circa €2 million project for increased Catherisation Laboratory facilities. This is chicken feed spending to an Irish Government! All around the country other TDs are delivering quietly and efficiently, services their constituent voters want and demand. All done outside of the glare of national press scrutiny and publicity. We here in Waterford, are being stitched up like the proverbial kipper!

I fear that unless the UHW situation is fixed with a long term plan, we could very well see a stand alone candidate being elected for Waterford in the next general election. The sad truth is “What good will this do us?” As he/she will be one lone voice, outside of the sphere of Government influence, wandering aimlessly around the corridors of Leinster House.

Our other crumb of comfort is that Leo’s mother hails from County Waterford. This of course means that he will see his home county as somewhere that needs special attention, ahead of all other constituencies! A Junior Minister post for a sitting FG Dungarvan TD perhaps? Oh bugger, I forgot that dice has already been cast!

So we in Waterford are once again waking up, scratching our heads, thinking “Groundhog Day?”

“Golden Circles” and "BIG Tubes" everywhere!

Was it any real surprise the UK voters gave Theresa May’s Tory Government a bloody nose and, if truth be told, a damn good kicking last week in the UK’s surprise general election? An election that was supposed to increase the Tory majority to such a size that May could, quite literally, steamroll her policies through the Westminster Parliament with gay abandon. 

May’s so called “Dementia Tax”, ensured that thousands of traditional bedrock Tory voters would jump ship, for fear of losing their homes, farms or property. This, along with many other “Stupid” manifesto promises, well and truly put several nails in her coffin.

In the meantime, that wily old fox that is Jeremy Corbyn, promised young and old voters, the earth, moon and the stars. In terms of what he would deliver, for FREE, if he and his Labour party were given the mandate to govern the UK. Let us not forget that it is always easier in opposition at election time, to guarantee voting nirvana, when you don’t actually have to make the books of Government balance. The same, back of a fag packet economics, goes on at the moment with FF, SF and the so called Independent Alliance. Their economic policies as individual stand alone plans, probably do stand up to individual scrutiny. But, as a combined fiscal strategy, these are as watertight as a sieve.

It is also worth pointing out, that there was a huge amount of arrogance within the May campaign. That could clearly be seen on her battle bus’s shrink wrapped blue colour scheme and campaign slogan, “Theresa May for Britain” – no mention of the Tory party! There was very little acknowledgement of the actual Conservative Party, but lots of references to what Theresa May would do for the voter.

In the end May lost the trust of the voters and Corbyn gained the trust, albeit temporarily, of many others. Nobody really expected Labour to win, but many were prepared to give May a handicap to impede her run towards another “Solid” term in office. Her majority Government is no more and a rather uncomfortable alliance is now being sought, with that “Most stable” of parties the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)! I just wonder if Arlene Foster will ask for too much and that the Tories will be back to the people in a few months time?

It would seem now, that both UK and our own Irish politicians are much more remote from us, their paymasters. I put this down to the “Golden Circles” that they inevitably surround themselves with. After all, if your Cabinet, committees and work teams are all made up of “Lovies” and people who are prepared to “Lick arse”, then you are going to always get a consensus of opinion. There will be absolutely no buffer against someone standing up and saying “A hum, excuse me, but maybe, just maybe this is not what our voters want?”

To put it another way and to use a cycling analogy. Supposing you are unfortunate enough to get a puncture on your bike, whilst out on our Greenway and replace the inner tube with the wrong sized tube, i.e. you put on a bigger tube, then you are in real trouble. Whilst all may look well on the outside, whilst you cycle the bike, the ride will be extremely unstable and well, downright dangerous. The fact is that Governments are, in far too many instances, putting on “Big tubes”, instead of finding the right and correct size in the first place. They are guaranteeing themselves a bumpy ride by being downright lazy in not doing the right thing in the first place.

“Golden Circles” are here to stay. I fear that they are now becoming accepted, as part of our everyday lives in terms of politics. You can be sure that during the FG leadership election campaign, groups of the chosen few, from each camp, would have been sitting in darkened rooms paying tribute to their own efforts to get their man elected.

Unfortunately, we in Waterford don’t even have access to the “Bronze Circle”. For the foreseeable future, we will be outside of that circle, unless we find a real political heavyweight.