Irish politics today: paralysed by indecision. But is that what we want?
Success comes to those who never make a mistake. Or a decision.
Our latest podcast is up, links below.
We begin with a slightly idiosyncratic - and highly stylised - discussion of how Ireland went from a nation of farmers to a high-tech economy, missing out on industrialisation. Our focus is on one very simple question: Having got Ireland to ‘here’, why is the current crop of leaders incapable of dealing with known problems that have known solutions?
Previous generations of politicians and civil servants eventually took big and brave decisions. Perhaps backbone discovery requires a crisis. But we have had plenty of those recently, and have at least one right now. And nothing ever changes. Where are the giants now? The ones who, like Alan Dukes - and others - many years ago, took great personal career risks to do the right thing?
Has democracy reached its limits? Small, sometimes single-person, blocking coalitions can impede or stop any policy they don’t like. NIMBYism on steroids. Many economies will recognise this one.
Today’s crop of very smart politicians have worked out that the route to success - or mere survival - is to never make a mistake, never annoy anyone. That means never taking a decision. Let others do that and watch them fall by the wayside. Rise without trace.
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I always thought that one way to "stiffen politicians' spines" is if those politicians who lose at the next election continue to get paid until the following election. If they fail to get reelected, then their salary stops. That would help incentivise the new TDs to do a good job, and also allow the booted out TDs another Dail term to lick their wounds, and spend a long time finding out what they could do to get voted back in.
No surprise there really. What’s the old saying number 1 priority for politicians get elected . Number 2 priority is get re-elected and at a poor number 3 is far behind the first 2 whatever that is.