Last orders for the PDs
BY JUSTIN MORAN
It doesn't take a political genius to see that the Progressive Democrats are in trouble. Membership and morale in the party is in free-fall, making Harney's chances of retaining four seats come the next election slim at best. Like Fine Gael, a fellow party in crisis, the PDs are clutching at anything to stave off the unpleasant truth that they are a party whose time has passed, if their time ever really was.
A symptom of this clutching-at-reeds philosophy was Harney's article in the Irish Times last week claiming that the PDs are Ireland's party of social justice, the party that, in her own memorable words, ``believe in solidarity, particularly with vulnerable people.''
The PDs' claim to be the `real' champion of the excluded and undervalued of our society would be amusing were the truth not so frightening. When the history of this government comes to be written it will be a tale of wasted opportunity.
One need look only as far as the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) to see how deeply moved by the plight of the underpaid the PDs are. The unions have been tied into an agreement that can't even keep pace with inflation and has seen 26-County public sector wages fall far behind our EU counterparts. Teachers, nurses, train and bus drivers, and construction workers, to name but some of the most prominent, have found themselves forced to take industrial action as a result of the deal.
McCreevy's December budget, in which the PDs can be seen to have had a heavy influence, amply demonstrates where the government's real interests lie. The budget failed to take all minimum wage workers out of the tax net and those tax cuts that were brought in overwhelmingly favoured the higher paid. The plight of the unemployed, when considered by this government at all, is given cosmetic attention. This section of society have been left worse off as booming inflation makes it harder and harder for the disadvantaged to make ends meet.
The PDs have also backed increased defence spending. The government has already spent £40 million on armoured vehicle and plans massive investment in the 26 County navy in the next year. Millions of pounds spent, wasted, on toys for the Free State generals to play with, whittling away at Irish neutrality as, now fully fledged members of the Partnership for Peace, we take the role always envisaged for us by Fianna Fáil and the PDs as one of America's international sidekicks.
Harney also used the pulpit of the Irish Times' opinion pages to preach about the party's human rights records. ``Ireland's human rights performance will be clear, for example, in how fairly we treat asylum-seekers and refugees.'' Fair enough Mary. Leaving aside the PDs' track record on human rights abuses in the North, their deafening silence on plastic bullets, RUC shoot-to-kill operations, maltreatment of political prisoners and their support for Section 31 political censorship, the coalition's track record on refugees is nothing to boast about.
Peter O'Mahony of the Irish Refugee Council said there are weaknesses in the PD approach to refugees and asylum seekers. ``Where there is a weakness it would be on the part of Mary Harney in her position as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the right of asylum seekers to work. At present all those who applied for work before 27 July 1999 were granted the right to work after 12 months but now they are not permitted to take up employment until after their applications have been processed.''
Despite the government's stated target of six months to process an application, O'Mahony said the government was not even remotely close to achieving this target. Ironically, with so many asylum seekers willing to work, O'Mahony claims that the delay in the processing of applications is a result of the government's inability to find staff to do the job.
The PDs must also have had a hand in the government's latest decision to slash capital gains tax on land speculation. After announcing that heavy penalties would be incurred by developers who have amassed land banks at a time when land was so badly needed, the coalition government, whose housing minister is PD stalwart Bobby Molly, have reneged on that promise.
The Progressive Democrats are not the party that will end division in Irish society. Indeed, as political parties go, it does more than most to exacerbate division, to protect the rich and privileged elite of the Celtic Tiger at the expense of the low paid Irish workers who created it in the first place. No one denies Harney's claim that the economy is going through a boom period. Government ministers claim a rising tide lifts all boats. They don't understand that thousands of Irish people are on rafts, not boats, yachts or cruise-ships. It is these people who are being left behind. It is these people and those who seek real economic and social justice that Sinn Féin represents and it is these people who will use the next election to send Mary Harney a message. Time's up Mary. It's time to go home.
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