From top: Pro-choice protesters challenge a Pro Life demonstration on O’Connell Street in 2016; Dan Boyle

The starter’s pistol is at the ready. We are close to another bout of our real national sport of moral breast beating.

The 2018 event may yet be seen as definitive, although we have been here before particularly during the two Divorce referenda of 1986 and 1995.

Those campaigns began fuelled by a liberal giddiness, informed by favourable opinion polls, that proved themselves totally divorced from the reality of the eventual results.

We live in a changed Ireland than that which existed in 1983. That was the time of my first vote in a constitutional referendum. I had already voted in three general elections. I was only 21 years old.

It was a dubious privilege to have voted in that first referendum. Almost 35 years later, where after changing demographics more than half of our existing electorate did not participate in that vote, the time has long since passed to revisit the question.

It reminds me of that couplet from Eric Bogle’s ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda‘, about the First World War, though applicable to any conflict situation.

“The young people ask what are they marching for?

And I ask myself the same question”

Along with most my friends I voted No in 1983. I couldn’t, and still can’t, grasp the concept of the equal value of life of a mother with developing life within her womb. It seemed to me, and to us, unbearably cruel that a woman who had been raped would be expected to carry a resultant pregnancy to full term.

Since then I’ve grown to despise the Eighth Amendment and what it represents.

It has been a piece of constitutional virtue signalling that has caused the State to turn its back on thousands upon thousands of Irish women, forced to flee to a neighbouring jurisdiction to deal with their crisis pregnancies. These women were often on their own and all lacked any type of appropriate support.

The lines are being drawn now for what must be a definitive battle in this war. As with previous battles the chief weapon will be fear.

For those on the Pro-Life/Anti-Choice side of the aisle, the fears seem to be of an extraneous bent, based on projecting a dystopian future of eugenics and euthanasia which beckons.

Those on the Pro-Choice/Anti-Life(?) side of the argument have not, either, been beyond pulling emotional heart strings.

The anniversaries of the Kerry Babies saga, as well as the horrendous death of Ann Lovett in Granard, have somewhat cynically been used to hammer home the choice angle.

That said the fear of what has definitely happened in the past will always supersede the fear of what might, but probably won’t occur in the future.

The role of a Referendum Commission will be vital in this campaign. To control emotional overspill, that risks the peeling of truth, a firm Commission needs to define the narrow confines in which the debate is being held.

It needs to be especially vigorous in ensuring that the arguments being made are truthful and are medically and scientifically based.

It would be nice to believe that the arguments about to be made, will be made in a calm and informed atmosphere. I wouldn’t be holding my breath though.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: Dan Boyle and Micheál Martin, Christ the King Parish Hall, Turners Cross, Cork, 1986; Dan Boyle

Our family homes are little more than 100 metres from each other. The two year age difference between us might as well be a generation gap. We didn’t hang out and had different groups of friends. But we did similar things – played soccer in the cramped square in O’Connell Crescent; took part in Nemo Rangers street leagues.

We did serve simultaneously as altar boys at the iconic Christ the King Church in Turners Cross. For both of us, I suspect, it was less of a spiritual journey and more for the want of something to do.

My Dad was chair of the local ‘Joe Murphy’ cumann of Fianna Fáil. He nominated and supported Micheál, in his successful attempt to be elected, to what was then Cork Corporation. It was a political debt Micheáll has always been prepared to acknowledge.

While he became a city father I engaged in community activism. As a local councillor he told me I was brave to be challenging both church and state when suggesting that each had a role in providing facilities for the area.

After an unsuccessful attempt to be elected to Dáil Éireann in 1987, he eventually succeeded in 1989. Once elected he did what he had to do to get noticed, such as his befriending of the Haughey children.

I was elected, as a lone Green, to Cork Corporation in 1991. Within five months l found myself as a swing vote necessary to pass a budget and keep the council in existence. Michéal negotiated on behalf of Fianna Fáil.

He allowed himself a wry smile when the Fine Gael Lord Mayor of the time, Dino Cregan, sought to smoke me out by stating “We’ll have no Gregory deals deals here,”.

Micheáll ascended into cabinet in 1997. I thought the procession through Turners Cross, that evening, a bit redolent of another Ireland, but I did not begrudge him his success.

In Government he acquired a reputation for avoiding decisions. The principle seeming to be that firm decisions risk alienating those who disagree. His response, invariably, was to commission a report or to establish a committee.

History will be the judge of whether his ban on smoking in public places will outshine his setting up of the Health Service Executive.

In 2002 I succeeded, after several attempts, in being elected to Dáil Éireann. In sharing the constituency the unspoken convention was to co-operate rather challenge, even with Micheál being a Minister and my being an opposition TD.

In 2007 I found myself negotiating a programme for government with Fianna Fáil. Micheál would have rung me a number of times then. I’m still unsure whether the calls were for his personal benefit, or if he was meant to be something of back channel.

The arrival of the Trioka brought that government to an end. Micheál timed his exit well, just as Brian Cowen was seeking to pack the cabinet with cronies. The following morning’s Irish Times ran a picture of me talking to Micheál, just inside the gates of Leinster House, my arms outstretched in a WTF pose.

Micheál went on to lead FF into its worst ever election defeat. The way he has stuck to his task since has been admirable. This is despite collecting unwanted records along the way. Michéal remains the only FF leader never to have been Taoiseach, and he is the longest standing FF leader of the opposition.

With these epithets, along with naturally cautious nature, his statement on repeal of the Eighth amendment seemed surprising.

It may yet be the making of him. To seem to go against his parliamentary party and membership, undoubtedly he risks his position as leader. Paradoxically, in undertaking this decisive act of leadership, he may just have given his party a more sustainable future.

He must realise that as Ireland becomes more urbanised, it also becomes more liberal. Dragging his party into the 21st century could become his defining political act.

I wish him well on that endeavour, while continuing to disagree with him politically on many, many things.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: Sinn Féin’s Barry McElduff; Dan Boyle

One of the extra curricular activities I most enjoyed, while in Leinster House, was being a member of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. This brought together elected representatives not only from the Houses of the Oireachtas and Parliament, but also from the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Irish and Welsh assemblies, as well as representatives from The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

For many who took part it was seen as something of a jolly. Getting away to some nice location where the vicissitudes of normal politics could be hidden. Those appointed seemed an often curious mix of those on their last political lap, blended with many who would never likely achieve ministerial position. My sore thumb status was amplified by being the only Green from any of the parliamentary bodies.

I thought, and still think, that it has greater potential than it has shown. I took it seriously enough to involve myself in one of its sub-committees, which sought to compare and contrast the approach taken to social disadvantage in the various jurisdictions.

The sub-committee was chaired by an extraordinary man, Alf Dubs. Now Lord Dubs, he had been a junior minister at the Northern Ireland office, working with Mo Mowlam. He had a far better understanding of the situation there than most of those who were members of the assembly.

His personal story was even more incredible. An orphaned refugee at the end of the Second World War, he has in recent years, used his experience to embarrass the Tory government to address the fate of similar children now found in the Calais refugee camp. It was a privilege to have worked to have worked with a person of such calibre and dignity.

Barry McElduff, as an MLA, was also a member of the Assembly. I write that not to contrast Barry with Alf, only to illustrate the range of people who were involved. I found Barry to be friendly, jovial, if not particularly deep.

As with many Sinn Féin representatives he seemed wedded to an ideological version of history. To these there was to be no veering from the belief that a just war was waged in Northern Ireland over that horrible 30 year period.

To the many, so many, innocent victims of that violence, there hasn’t been a tinge of regret. Various mantras get repeated ‘Terrible things happen in wars’ or ‘We need to look forward not back’. When these trite cliches fail to convince, argument falls back into a seemingly endless well of whataboutery.

Black humour sustained many individuals and communities through those awful times. No amount humour can repackage those events into a guilt-free future.

This will be Mary Lou McDonald’s biggest obstacle. Sinn Féin’s glass ceiling will be double, if not triple, glazed. Until the party can present a worst critique of itself than its opponents do, it will always find itself carrying that wee bit more additional political baggage.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: Paddy Harte and Peter Sutherland; Dan Boyle

This week has seen the passing of two Fine Gael luminaries, Peter Sutherland and Paddy Harte. Much like Marc Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ I write to praise them, because I feel they are deserving of respect for doing what they did, in the way in which they so did.

There are many, many things on which I would never be in agreement with Fine Gael about. The party’s general approach to economic and social issues brings about, to me, a more unequal society. It pays little more than lip service to environmental issues. Its attitude to policing and general justice issues ranges from the aggressive to the possessive.

The party, for some reason best known to itself, believes itself to be morally superior to Fianna Fáil. It isn’t.

These caveats I add in anticipation of those who are about to disagree with me, that to like someone, respect them or to acknowledge some of their achievements, is somehow to bend towards their political worldview.

It is a shared characteristic of both the Rabid Right and Rigid Left that any deviation from the standard orthodoxy must see the heretics challenged.

For my part I have no difficulty in saying that Peter Sutherland performed well as a European Commissioner. The Erasmus programme is a singular achievement. As a Attorney General he was right to state that inserting the Eight Amendment into The Constitution, would ultimately turn out to be self defeating.

Would I be a fan of his work at GATT/WTO? No I would not. The emphasis in these agreements sees the sustainable welfare of people, if at all, then as very much a distant afterthought. However, I do believe that his subsequent work on immigrants rights was formed on his belief for a more inter related, more inclusive World.

Was I impressed by his chairmanship of Goldman Sachs, or his board membership of several banking organisations? Again not really. He was a creature of his circumstance. I don’t believe there is any inconsistency in not liking what someone does, whilst admiring the ability they have in doing what they do.

Paddy Harte was a gruff conservative. He had left front line politics before I had entered it. I doubt there would many subjects of public policy on which we would have found ourselves in agreement.

He was implacably opposed to the murderous campaign of the IRA. As a TD for a border constituency that was a difficult opinion to hold. Nevertheless he succeeded in being elected time and time again, even if he never really troubled the higher echelons of national politics (he briefly was a junior minister in the early 1980s).

What I most admired him for was the work he did with Glenn Barr (once of the Ulster Defence Association) in bringing proper recognition to all the Irishmen who fought in the First World War.

History tells us that WW1 was a fruitless, unnecessary carnage brought about by the dying embers of empires. For many who participated they truly believed they were fighting for the rights of small nations, especially the right to become one.

Paddy Harte should be given enormous credit in helping bring the memory of these men back from the historical cold. As does Glenn Barr, whose own death in October 2017 seems to have gone largely gone unacknowledged.

I intend to continue my eccentric and eclectic approach to politics. I will still admire the skills, abilities and achievements of those with whom I vehemently disagree. Damn me.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Pics: RTÉ/Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: A Mini car driving through flood water in Salthill, Galway, as Storm Eleanor hit Ireland on January 2; Dan Boyle

Two days into the new year brings with them two storms. There is no novelty in recognising that the only predictable thing about the Irish weather is its very unpredictability.

Now is not the time for smugness. Sadness and justified anger should be the predominant emotions. Climate Change has been researched, recorded and its effects have been anticipated for more than forty years.

We can’t say we haven’t been warned. The antipathy of a vocal, ignorant and sadly far too powerful minority, hasn’t helped. When I see how Conor Skehan, retiring chair of the Housing Agency, views the issue he was supposed to working towards solving, then it isn’t surprising to realise that he is also a climate change sceptic.

We sadly still live in a world, where to oppose change, or to seek to maintain unfairness or injustice, is a better passport to seek position, and thus the ability to hinder progress, in what we dare call the ‘developed’ World.

If it hasn’t been outright opposition, it has been the push it down the road attitude, that has most permeated official responses to threats to the natural environment, and to the planet itself.

I have myself leaning, against my better instincts, more and more towards direct confrontation against those troglodytes, through whose antipathy or indifference, have helped bring us to where we are.

I am not going to listen to statements like “we’re too small a country to make a difference” anymore. Our carbon emissions per head of population is one of the highest in the World, and they are going in the wrong direction.

Nor do I want to hear that there are more important priorities. Every important economic and social priority can be and should be linked to how we deal with climate change.

We should be building new houses designed to prevent future fuel poverty. We should be creating energy through maximising our renewable resources, also enhancing community benefit, wherever possible through community ownership. We should be properly subventing our public transport systems to help prevent the number of single person vehicle traffic.

Each one of these policies initiatives would result in win win scenarios that would work towards meeting our climate change commitments, and improve the state of our economy. If done as part of a holistic suite of policy measures, we may even see better health outcomes.

It isn’t accidental that it is among right wingers where climate change denial is most prevalent. Conservatives want to maintain the status quo. They are most protective of the vested interests in whose interest the status quo is being maintained.They fear, rightly, the redistributive aspect of climate change policies.

The sharing of proportionate responsibility between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations, would see ‘developing’ World countries increase their capacity and thus improve global trade.

Within developed and developing nations redistribution of environmental responsibility must be used as a trigger to achieve better equality in society.

For those whose instant response will be why the Greens didn’t achieve this in three and a half years in government, consumed with dealing with an economic collapse, I can only say:

You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. If not, we might become a bit more than mildly agitated.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Pic: Galway Latin Quarter

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top, left to right: Taoiseach Leo Varadakar, Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Josepha Madigan and new Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney at Government Buildings inin November; Dan Boyle
.

It says a lot for most people’s expectation for 2017, that the minimal hope was that it wouldn’t be an extension of 2016.

That was a year that will be seen as a ground zero for democracy, beaten by its biggest contradiction that the best decisions get made by the largest number of those who choose to participate on a given day.

Before I release a chorus of ‘you lost get over it’, I have to admit I still am unaware of any better system. Neither should it be seen that disgust at the triumph of reactionaries be is wholehearted, unquestioning support of any alternative. I’ve been on the losing sides of too many such decisions to believe that it is the system that is at fault.

Where it has fallen down in recent years, has been the strength that self interest has held over any sense of the common good. It has also been a time when so many chose not to inform themselves, relying on instinct in making their decisions. Ignorance has become the preserve of the alt realists.

2017 has seen something of a fight back by the alt. ignorant. Wilders in The Netherlands and Le Pen accumulated large amounts of votes, but nothing like the totals that had been feared.

Although by the end of the year we have the Freedom party in government in Austria, with the AfD (Alternative for Germany) winning one in every seven votes in the German general election.

In that election the immigration scare was played to its highest. The psephological graphs produced on that election showed, that just as with Brexit and Trump, those with least interaction with immigrants, were most likely to have that as the basis for making their votes.

In our neighbouring isle Brexit Britain has become a year long pantomime. Its surreal nature being enhanced by the Democratic Unionist Party who now seem to be providing the intellectual ballast for its future basis.

As a lily livered liberal, long committed to the idea that the notion of Irish unity cannot occur but through the winning the hearts and minds of the Unionist community in the North of Ireland, I find the notion of continuing to placate the DUP component of that community to be completely unrealistic and more than a little infuriating.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with aspiring to the idea of an United Irish state being realised within my lifetime (I am ten years older than Simon Coveney!). It will never be done through coercion nor should it be ever be apologised for.

On the other side of the pond The Donald gave full vent to his anarcho-capitalist routine. The hope is that his incapacity to act in any way honestly or honourably, will eventually catch up with him. However he may yet survive his entire term, during which he will be able to cause untold havoc.

This year saw the transfer of power within Fine Gael and by extension within Government Buildings. Enda had been a somewhat lucky general. Despite an almost Trump like attachment to the truth, and a lack of willingness to initiate anything, he was there when things happened.

His successor, Leo Varadkar, would prefer if very little happens. He’s unlikely to be fooled by distracting opinion poll ratings. He should have learned the lesson of Theresa May’s bolt to the nation in the UK.

An Irish general election still seems likely sometime next year, as it seems unlikely that Fianna Fáil would want Fine Gael to go to the country on foot of what will be presented as a giveaway budget. When that election gets called it will be more about housing and healthcare than any curiosity with the novel.

Before that we will have again our national obsession over abortion. At this remove it looks like the 1983 insertion into the Constitution may finally have overstayed its questionable welcome. The campaign will, sadly, open many wounds. It may be ugly. One more bout of ugly might have to be endured, if we are ever have sanity on this issue.

At the very least in 2018 we should try to move further from the hate filled societies created by events in 2016. The movement will be slow and small, but should be in the right direction.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: Christmas shopping in Grafton Street, Dublin 2; Dan Boyle

Throughout my adult life I’ve moved house no more than half a dozen times. I’ve never enjoyed the experience. Outside of the effort involved there is something almost soul destroying in seeing your life reduced to a number of boxes. An occasional smile is given on finding a photo, a newspaper clipping or a well thumbed much read book, but mostly the content of the boxes often ask more questions than they answer.

The most obvious question is why? Why have I acquired so much along the way, so much that doesn’t seem to have any ongoing value? As I get older the longest and slowest lesson I’ve had to learn is that doing things is worth far more than owning things.

It’s a well worn and excessively used cliché that money doesn’t buy happiness. It sadly remains a philosophy that still informs how economies are structured and how they are seen as being successful.

At this supposed time of human achievement it seems we have been reduced to ‘we are what we buy’. A strong economy cannot exist, we are told, unless we consume and continue to consume. We are mere economic actors whose job it is to push economic activity further and higher.

All this results of in is clutter. We are the box fillers of the future. For as long as economic success is determined as how much we buy, then ultimately what satisfies us will be subject to diminishing returns.

In today’s global economy that only thing we can be certain that money buys us is other money, in other words debt. This is the ultimate paradox of modern life. We buy so much that we don’t need on the basis of wealth that we don’t properly define, wealth that in reality is borrowed from the future. Or as told to me over the years by several romantic co-conspirators of mine  – we can’t continue to go on like this. Like those conversations the reassuring statement that ‘it isn’t you’ sugarcoats the deceit. Except that it usually is us.

Minimal changes in our lifestyles could bring about a considerable impact without major changes in our collective quality of life. That’s the positive distillation of the Green message.

Some would argue that there is no real choice. To continue consuming as we are, means consuming resources that are becoming all too scarce on this all too finite planet we share. Soon we may no longer have the luxury of continuing to buy luxuries.

More are realising that the future, the short term future is a very uncertain thing. The Green movement has gathered to preach, preach the operable word, this message to a sparse number of believers. There is a danger has been that such a doom laden approach has also alienated many. I would like to think that a Green future can be, should be, must be a happy future.

Apocalyptic narratives don’t persuade. They push heads even further into the sand. There is a comfort in doing things as they’ve always been done. Persuading people to do otherwise in such circumstances is, and always be difficult. But in making do with less of much of what we never needed, we begin to do more with what can be shared between us, and then begin to own less.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Meanwhile…

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

From top: Sky News’ Adam Boulton: Dan Boyle

Let’s admit that this is hard for them. The reflected glow of Empire no longer sustains them in their dotage. The strain of being considered just another country has really become too much for them to bear.

The realisation other nations have interests that may equal or supercede theirs, is a thought that they never before have had to countenance.

Within the British political class this level of ignorance is more easy to understand. Politicians, after all, are generalists. They can’t be expected to know everything.

It is the ignorance of many within the British media that truly astounds. A media that it meant to be informed so it can inform, seems particularly easy to manipulate.

No one British ‘journalist’ seems to exemplify this more than Sky News presenter, Adam Boulton. Already compromised though working with Rupert Murdoch’s UK version of Fox News, Boulton’s puffed out vanity has led him to believe that his access to the British establishment makes him an integral part of that establishment, entitled to speak on its behalf.

The wedding for his second marriage to Anji Hunter, then Head of the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street, was attended by her then boss the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

But romantic New Labour is dead and gone. It’s with Dr. David Kelly in his grave. It’s the Tory line that Boulton now has to spout. And spout he has, particularly during his recent interview with Simon Coveney.

I like Simon. I get on well with Simon. That’s despite the fact there are many, many things on which we politically disagree. However, to give him his due, he was spot on in identifying Boulton’s questions to him as nothing other than British/Brexit spin.

Boulton could have phrased his question as the British Government believe that you… Instead he parroted the British Government line as if it were absolute truth. It was shoddy, shoddy journalism.

Wading into the twitter storm that followed, his use of the Ivory Coast flag instead of the Irish, and claiming the dismissive phrase ‘You Irish’ was the type of ‘You Guys’ banter no one should take offence at, is typical of an English arrogance we used to describe as being phlegmatic.

And yet…

Maybe this is the best opportunity we have ever had to rid ourselves of this national inferiority complex. The people we have been feeling inferior towards are idiots. At this point of our history we have a glorious chance to crush forever the pre-internet meme the ‘Paddy the Irishman’ joke.

Say it loud. Say it proud. Boris the Brexiteer walks into a bar…

But let’s not be so cruel as Punch magazine was for many, many decades in caricaturing the Irish as apes. Apes are more evolved than Brexiteers.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

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Looking for a political stocking filler?

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

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My attempt at selling more books has failed spectacularly. #MakingUpTheNumbers pic.twitter.com/ybsAUgJD9L

— Dan Boyle (@sendboyle) December 13, 2017

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From top: A box fresh copy of Making Up The Numbers by Dan Boyle ; Dan Boyle

Having made myself the unofficial historian for the Green Party in Ireland, I produced two books – ‘A Journey To Change’ an account of the party’s first twenty five years in existence; and ‘Without Power or Glory’ a personalised account of party’s period in government (2007/11).

When I undertook a Masters degree in Government (2013/14), I thought it might be interesting that my thesis should be to compare and contrast the experiences of the six smaller parties, that have been part of governments in Ireland. In the back of my mind I thought it might form the basis of a future book.

The thesis being twenty thousand words in length was far too short to be made into a book. I also began to think that focus of such a book, concentrating on only the six parties concerned, may have been too narrowly focussed. There was a wider story to be told about smaller parties and independents in Irish politics, and I wanted to tell it.

A number of books have been written on some of the smaller, now largely disappeared, parties. Books have also written been about individual independents and about the concept of independents. I wanted to write a comprehensive account of others in Irish politics. It may not be fully comprehensive but I am hoping that the gaps that are identified may become easier to fill in.

I believe it is a story worth telling. On average around 15% of the vote has been won by others. Over five hundred and fifty Dáil seats have been won by others, more than the number won by the Labour Party. These seats have often been vital in determining whether governments could be formed, or if a sitting government could continue in existence.

Those with large p​ersonalities and their willingness to be different are traits that are found more often among smaller parties and independents. There are many interesting personal stories among those others who have been elected in Ireland, some of those stories quite tragic. There can be no denying that others have brought large amounts of colour into a political system that has otherwise been quite moribund.

Others have been the source of much of the change that has occurred in Irish politics, even when the achievement of change has been a factor in hastening the end of many smaller parties.

Probably the biggest achievement of others in Irish politics has been to slowly move our politics from a politics of tribes to a politics of more coherent political beliefs, born from philosophies that bend less to the breeze of perceived public opinion. That change may not yet be complete, although we have moved considerably in that direction.

The vote for others may oscillate in future elections. It is likely though that it will remain a significant vote, and thus will continue to be necessary when new governments are being formed.

Our borrowed Westminster system of government now operates with a European style political diversity that helps underline the uniqueness of Irish politics. So much for the better.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.

We have three copies of Making Up The Numbers to give away

To enter the give away, simply answer this question:

How many political parties with the word ‘Clann’ have had Oireachtas representation?

Lines MUST close at 1pm

‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics

From top: Frances Fitzgerald with Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Fine Geal South Dublin County Councillor Vicki Casserly at the Fine Gael Election Convention for Dublin Mid West last Monday; Dan Boyle

An alternative interpretation of The Wizard of Oz questions whether the witch Glinda, was a ‘good’ witch, but was instead a more Machiavellian figure, who used the character Dorothy as a weapon in which to depose her rivals – the ‘Wicked’ Witch of the West and the Wizard of Oz himself.

I’m not saying the Frances Fitzgerald is any way a witch. During the time that we worked together in the Seanad, I found her to be quite a pleasant woman. She was in the midst of a political comeback then. She had lost her Dáil seat in Dublin South East (also the constituency of John Gormley of the Greens). I admired her capacity to fight back and seek to secure a presence in the Dáil once again.

That opportunity came in the 2011 general election when she became elected in Dublin Mid-West, whilst living in Dublin West. Enda Kenny looked kindly upon her and she became Minister for Children, a newly created Department, with a brief to bring about a children’s rights referendum to insert a new wording into the Constitution.

This was a ball that very nearly was dropped. The turnout for the referendum revealed an electorate that was less than enthused. Its validity was challenged (and rightly so) when Fitzgerald, as minister, blatantly set aside the McKenna judgement in spending public money in order to try to bring about the government’s desired result.

She was more fortunate, but also more deserving of praise, in her later handling of the same sex marriage referendum.

After the first fallout from the revelations surrounding the appalling treatment of Maurice McCabe, which brought about the departures of then Garda Commissioner, then Secretary General of the Department of Justice, and the Minister for Justice himself, Alan Shatter; Frances Fitzgerald found herself as the big political winner.

While she was lucky in her advancement, she was also given a clear agenda of what changes needed to be made within the Department of Justice. Forearmed with this knowledge she showed herself unable, but more likely, unwilling to make any changes.

By the end of her tenure at the Department of Justice she had gone quite native, not challenging the Garda Commissioner (who she had appointed) or any of her senior officials in the department.

Her failure in any way to challenge has made her a passive participant in the appalling behaviour that has continued to be exerted upon Maurice McCabe.

With the end of the Enda era, Fitzgerald’s political luck seemed to continue. Destined to be brushed aside by Leo’s new broom, Fitzgerald found herself not only still in the cabinet and free of the straitjacket of Justice, but also clinging to the prestige title of Tánáiste.

However luck carries anyone only so far. Silo thinking produces closed minds. Seeking to avoid appalling vistas tends to create even worse scenarios.

With her passivity and failure to inform or consult, Frances Fitzgerald deserved to be dismissed. Those who should have done so, in failing to do so, have shown up their own inadequacies.

The eventual falling on the sword may have postponed for now a still inevitable election, but that only means that the twitch is dead. Sadly it will return.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Looking for a political stocking filler?

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ published by the History Press is available at all good bookstores now.