From top: Clr Gary Gannon at government buildings last month; Gary Gannon
The age of political spin is fading. What is emerging is a desire to understand what our elected representatives actually stand for.
Gary Gannon writes:
It has almost become a pejorative label in our society but I’m just going to come right out and say it; I am a politician.
I am currently a City Councillor who does aspire to be a national legislator and as such, I will contest the next general election in the constituency of Dublin Central.
I am a member of the Social Democrats. Along with others with whom I share similar values, I am committed to building this political party to the point where we can enact legislation and create budgets in the manner that we feel reflect the wishes of Irish society today.
The above is only really important in the sense that each week I intend on sharing my views with you, the readers of Broadsheet.ie on a variety of different issues.
You should be aware though that at an unspecified time in the future I will be requesting that you might place your trust in my party, over the others that may be on offer.
I won’t be overtly using this particular column for that purpose, but nor should I insult your intelligence by claiming that it isn’t a factor in my considerations.
Last week I wrote an article for Broadsheet.ie which detailed our inhumane system of Direct Provision. In the week previous to that I had requested the opportunity to present a weekly op-ed for Broadsheet.ie and was thrilled when the response came back positively.
I chose to write about Direct Provision first because it is an issue which often keeps me awake at night but I perhaps should have begun by outlining my reasons in requesting this opportunity in the first instance.
This week it was my full intention to examine the issue of alcohol-related health campaigns that are funded by commercial interests. At Monday’s [Dublin City] council meeting I had a motion passed which will in future prohibit the granting of advertising space to these campaigns so this column would have been a very obvious place to elaborate upon why I felt this was an important issue.
I very well may do so in the future but for the moment, it just felt a little wrong to dive straight into that type of conversation.
You see, I am conscious that I am not an impartial commentator. Nor am I an opinion writer or a columnist. These people play an important role in society in terms of generating debate or offering an alternative perspective to the topical issues of the day.
This country, or indeed this world, does not need just another moralising politician who can highlight the ills of society without actually offering a ‘So, here’s what I/we would do differently’ paragraph.
I strongly believe that a politician should have an actual opinion on a multitude of issues that they will potentially have to legislate for or against in the future.
I want a space where I can show to as many people as possible that yes, this is what I believe and this is why I believe that to be so. I requested this column not so much because I feel my opinions or actions are particularly revolutionary or inspiring; I requested this column because I want to be held to account for them.
The term ‘new-politics’ has been sullied recently but I am a person who believes in transformative politics which can re-imagine the cultural landscape of Irish society.
To embody those principles means that I really have no interest in shaking hands with people at the back of mass or finding the cleverest way of saying nothing at all.
Rather I feel what this country has lacked is politicians who are prepared to share honest opinions that may result not in the dreaded loss of votes but in affording citizens the respect of knowing what the person they are voting for actually represents.
It has only ever been in the rarest of moments in Irish politics that we have been presented with the opportunity to hear the true authentic voice of our politicians. We should know what motivates a person to seek an office where you will make decisions daily that will impact upon the lives of other people.
The age of political spin is fading. What is emerging from the electorate is a desire to understand what our elected representatives actually stand for.
Social media and online journals such as Broadsheet.ie lay down the gauntlet to us as public representatives to demonstrate the courage of our convictions by simply taking a position on an issue that can be challenged if necessary.
Gary Gannon is a Social Democrats Councillor on Dublin City Counicil for Dublin’s North Inner City. Gar’s column will appear here every Friday before lunch. Follow Gary on Twitter: @1garygannon
I appreciate that there’s probably a wide range of issues you wish to write about, and fair play for doing so, but surely there’s something more topical than the drink responsibly funding for your second column?
anyways, I look forward to reading you columns.
it’s probably topical as his family has just opened a new pub named after a person who died of alcoholism?
Never mind. Let us all join hands in Club Bona Fide and sing .. ring a ring a politician, a pocket full of poseurs. A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down.
Welcome to BS , Gary.
any chance of a spin-off from broadsheet where we could ignore the ramblings leather jacket guy ,Mary Ann and Dan and the rest of these political diatribes ,it could have a name that keeps the initials b.s. something like bull something or other.
You apparently haven’t heard, but you’re actually allowed to ignore them on Broadsheet.
Certainly interesting to hear from you, Gary. Good luck with your columns, will read them with interest. Seems like an excellent way to keep your potential voters in touch with what you stand for and to get some feedback.
You would think knowing what politicians represent would be a basic criteria for the job.
But Lowry, Healy-Raes, Lord Ross would show otherwise.
Indeed. Mind you, I can only really guess whether, off the top of my head, Frances Fitzgerald stands for anything in particular, other than elected office.
When you die, and the Healy Raes (all of them) turn up at your funeral, offering mass cards to anyone who will take them, we’ll see how dismissive of them you are then, eh…
I expect nothing less than their full funeral pack!
*chuckles*
Oh no, my inner libertarian has to come out when I read someone wants to place a restriction on advertising alcohol. I see this as part of an incremental attack on Freedom of Expression. That’s not to say, I don’t believe that alcohol is the most harmful drug of them all – it is.
No disrespect to you Gary, at least you’re up front about what you believe in.
+1
Alcohol is no where being the most harmful drug. The logic people use about alcohol is mind boggling. Because some people abuse it does not make it harmful.
Check out Prof. David Nutt’s Multi- criteria analysis on drug harm. Alcohol comes in at Number 1
Fair play. I look forward to reading it.
Actually, a word of advice to the Social Democrats….drop the word ‘Social’ and just call yourself the Democratic Party, because that’s effectively who you mirror. That way, you’ll entice the centre ground progressives and the slightly left-of-centre liberals.
– and then add the word Progressive before your name and you’re home.
Rather them then those horrible meta-communists who hang around the Irish media like a stale fart!
Save us from this generation of SJW bearded beta male mommies boys
SJW = ‘The Flange’
Would that be an I-beam or a T-beam flange?
Liam, is that you?
Let me guess “human”, you’re a big old alpha “man’s man”. Of course.
What’s your pal Jonathan’s view on alcohol advertising?
Wedgie!!!!!!!
could we have an end to party political broadcasts on bs.
the soc dems are so refreshing .. actual politicians who have a desire to actually run the country as fair as possible and serve it and its people. i just hope i get to see them in power in my lifetime. so sick and frustrated by the other parties who treat it like a business, who have made this country an economy and not a society. who do not care about the country or its people, but just their own agendas.
I hope you’re as positive once they’ve had five years as part of the government. Governing is a dirty business. Reality keeps creeping in.
+1
That’s why AAA/PBP never want to actually get in to government.
Hi Gary,
I voted for you guys, and will again. Just be careful about going down the ‘everything is bad and must be banned’ route.
Thanks
Clampers
+1
Its all activists know how to do…. Ban this, police that….. They never actually improve the quality of peoples lives…..
the same
Ah come on…. When I see the word ‘social’ I know lurking in the background is a ‘tax and waste nanny state herd follower’ who see the state is the solution when it’s the crooked bureaucracy that’s the problem
I have aspirational hope that both can be fixed :)
I may be deluded on this matter, but I have hope!
….From my cold dead hands
They are the Irsh equivelant of the Lib Dems. Gary seems like a nice genuine guy but at the end of the day people want action and so far as the Soc Dems have done is talk talk talk…
A) they aren’t in power, talking is all they can do right now, but talking has power
B) their talking has led to a number of widely praised government policies, their commonsense and fair ideas have been co-opted by the larger parties, though of course passed off as their own
What part of their talking has influenced what policies?
Mary Robinson has large house over in Crossmolina, she was UN High Commissioner for Refugees, surely as gesture of solidarity, perhaps she might
offer alternative accomodation as short respite to those in direct provision, also
J.P. McManus has huge sprawl in County Limerick that could be used too.
and then there is the under used Vice Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park.
???
“To embody those principles means that I really have no interest in shaking hands with people at the back of mass or finding the cleverest way of saying nothing at all.”
Pity the column has said nothing at all.
Was going to post to say that, but you beat me to it.
There’ll be a lot of: I’m from the inner city of Dublin and therefore I’m realer than real.
Another one?
Either get a FG/FF columnist that people can shout at or just call this SDsheet.
Gary, laudable intent. Next time , try saying something of substance rather than the aspirational stuff.
I also look a bit like that Speedo-shamed bloke in the PTSB ad whose bird who looks like Vicky Pollard’s sister from another mister.
Is Broadsheet just an online newsletter for the Social Democrats now?
We just had a general election and it couldn’t increase its number of TDs from 3. They got 64,094 votes out of 2,136,405
Do the owners of Broadsheet feel a strong impulse to push a rejected agenda so they get another TD of two? Does Broadsheet feel passionately that the other 97% of us made a mistake and need to correct it?
Isn’t it sinking to the depths of certain national newspapers in constantly pushing an editorial line favouring one political party on its readers?
Well Broadsheet is a lot better than the ‘Den-do-pendent’ and the wishy-washy Irish Property Porn Times.
I’m fairly tired of small clique of circle jerk political pundits who aid and abet the political cartel who control this country and the narrative
Last SocDem to get a Broadsheet column is a rotten egg!
Yeppers in the main. Mind, Derek Mooney (no, not that one) and Dan Boyle (yes, that one) do have occasional bylines, too.
Now pardon me, but that looks like a piece of spin, says very little and does nothing of substance.
But politics as usual suppose.