SWEETENING THE DEAL
Back in the crisp, autumnal days of 2016, when I first began writing this column, I had but two resolutions. The first was; don’t moan too much. Don’t become another miserable doomsayer, grumbling and grousing, never a good word to say about anything. There’s enough of those types in our national media and the good people of Limerick deserve better.
The second centred on our Government and Irish politics in general. I didn’t want it to become a weekly dressing-down of the great and the good of Dáil Eireann, a platform for cheap shots and hurtful asides. So I resolved not to attack our TDs, ministers, councillors and senators on a regular basis, but to admonish them sparingly, to only dive in when the mood took me.
With regards to my first resolution, I really can’t say whether I have been successful or not; that’s for you to decide.
But I know for a fact that in the case of my second resolution, I have failed miserably.
I’ve tried to focus on other issues, tried to ignore the tomfoolery, the sneak thievery, but by Christ they don’t make it easy. In fact, such is the sheer level of buffoonery, the incalculable arrogance and conceit, that I am seriously considering whether to set myself a new resolution; to discuss nothing but politics every week, and become a miserable doomsayer in the process.
But that’s for the future. Right now we need to go back, back to last year’s election and in particular the weeks leading up to it.
I’m going to presume that the majority of you voted, that you exercised your right as citizens of this free state and put ones and twos beside the lads and lasses you liked, and sevens and eights (or blanks) beside those you didn’t. I’m also going to presume that there was at least a modicum of thinking behind your decisions, that you didn’t give someone your first preference because they had a lovely moustache and you didn’t ignore a perfectly good candidate because “they looked a bit shifty.”
Whatever your reasoning, it’s unlikely you were influenced by any of the pre-election campaigns. Yes, you may have smiled politely when they came a’ canvassing, you may have promised to bump someone up from a six to a five just to get them off your doorstep, but when it came to the nitty-gritty, to the dishing out of those all-important first and second preferences, your mind had been made up long before the first posters appeared on every wooden object within a five-mile radius.
They had to try though, they had to do everything they could to sway you. It mattered not that they’d had five years to convince you that they were the person to trust, five years to reiterate the policies they would conveniently forget upon being elected, it all had to come down to that final push. And boy did they push.
Records released by the Standards in Public Office reveal just how much each candidate spent on their election campaign, and, rather brilliantly, what they spent it on. And trust me when I say this stuff is for the ages.
The maximum allowable spend for a constituency with three seats on offer was €30,150, for a four-seater it was €37,650 and for a five it was €45,200.
It’ll hearten you to learn that the candidates for Limerick city and county kept things pretty simple. There was some frivolity; the €400 spent by Michael Noonan on ‘Sorry I missed you’ cards for example (we were hiding behind the couch the whole time, Michael). Or the €4,842 spent by Jan O’Sullivan on advertisements in local papers, a figure which dwarfed that of her local rival, Willie O’Dea (€1,155.80). But, for the most part, our local politicians behaved themselves, which is just as well.
The real action was to be found elsewhere in the country, in constituencies where the pressure was on and each and every cent mattered. The biggest spender of all was Finian McGrath, an Independent Alliance TD, who spent a whopping €42,920 to ensure he came fifth in Dublin Bay North. McGrath forked out €28,059 alone on election posters which, to put it in perspective, was almost triple that of what Limerick’s most poster happy candidate, Tom Neville, used to ensure his rugged features peered out at you at every traffic lights and intersection.
Deputy McGrath’s biggest folly of all was the €335 he spent on getting those posters taken down after the election. Anyone with a brain could have told him that, if left there long enough, those posters would have been ripped from their moorings, torn asunder by locals sick of the sight of his wholly sincere, yet slightly unnerving, ear-to-ear grin.
Next in the list of big-spenders was notorious Tipperary TD, Alan Kelly. You may remember the Labour candidate, red-faced and jubilant, being carried aloft by his adoring public (I think there were five of them) after it was announced he’d retained his seat. Like his counterpart in Dublin Bay North, Kelly snuck in by the skin of his teeth, and like the inestimable Mr McGrath, Deputy Kelly paid for the privilege. His entire campaign cost him €40,358, almost three times what fellow party member Jan O’Sullivan spent on hers.
Posters and newspapers ads are all part of the game though, a cunning persuasion technique which slowly works on our subconscious until we’re having erotic dreams about members of People Before Profit and calling our mammies Councillor Creighton. If you really want to get ahead in Irish politics you need to go the extra mile, you need to appeal to our more sensitive sides or, failing that, our stomachs.
You need to do what Senator Ged Nash did to ensure the people of Louth voted for him last year. You need to spend €366 on boxes of Crunchies, a chocolate treat so sickly that it’s been known to send raucous seven-year olds into sugar comas, a confectionary so potent that one bite will have its recipient agreeing to virtually anything. Vote for you? Keep those feckin’ Crunchies coming and I’ll marry you!
But if you can’t do that, if you morally object to plying your voters with that ‘Friday Feeling’ you could always follow Deputy Anne Rabbitte’s lead. The Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East cannily took advantage of the seasonal fare on offer, spending €283 on Crème Eggs to hand out to her grateful, salivating constituents. Needless to say she got elected.
I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel a little short-changed, starting to think that the person who received my first preference last year didn’t really do enough to earn it. I’m starting to think that, come 2021, it’s going to take more than a few decent policies to get my vote. So lads, if you’re reading, I really like Bounties.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
In other ‘politicians out of touch with reality’ news, it was revealed over the weekend that a group of independent senators have asked that a space for “quiet reflection and prayer” be included in the newly-refurbished Leinster House. Requesting a “quiet space” to take some time out from “all the madness” the poor divils were eager to stress that it wouldn’t be a religious edifice and would instead be a multi-denominational room like the kind often seen in airports.
So, in short, what they’re looking for is a chill-out room, what they want is one of those ambient little alcoves you sometimes get in nightclubs, those rooms with cushions and beanbags, blue strobe lights and soothing dolphin noises, that people in the midst of an epic drug experience go to in order to calm down.
Because that’s what life is like in the Seanad, it’s like being in a nightclub, with a head full of drugs, gurning away like a madman, pumping your fist in the air and waving like you just don’t care. The lads go in all calm and relaxed, and emerge, hours later, exhausted, bleary-eyed and looking for sessions.
I think this chill-out room is a great idea, I think it should be installed with no little haste. They already have their own bar, one where Happy Hour is every hour, so all they’ll need to complete the scene is a dancefloor and a DJ booth. The fight over who gets to man the decks should make Oireachtas TV that bit more entertaining.
