EDITORIAL: Will the public be left to play spot the difference in the next election?
From this week's Tipperary Star and The Nationalist
You know we are nearing the beginning of election season when you see the glint of knives behind backs and the blame-game buses rolling in.
This week, Simon Harris’s comments to the Irish Examiner suggest that the Government coalition’s marriage of convenience is going to end in a messy divorce.
The Minister for Higher Education said on Wednesday that the snail-pace of home building is down to the fact that Fine Gael had to resurrect the economy after the last Fianna Fáil Government. His comments were taken as a “swipe” at his party’s coalition partner.
But we all know that. What was more interesting was his comments that suggest he sees the recession times as behind us and that people can judge for themselves the record of the political parties.
And indeed, they can. Minister Harris was responding to a Eurostat report that 68% of young people 25-29 are still living at home. He said he remembers when people sat in his constituency office in Bray, worried about mortgage arrears and tradespeople leaving Ireland for better opportunities.
Yes, that’s right, he used the past tense. I’m sure nobody needs a Minister to tell you about the cost of living crisis. But where is the progress? Is it the missed housing targets, skyrocketing rents and property prices, or is it the dwindling disposable income of families getting ready to send children back to school.
Tipperary, and indeed rural Ireland, may not see the affluence of Bray or Dublin, but people here still vote, and many do not see the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
People or the electorate, (whatever you want to call them), care about homes and lives, not units and getting by. And people who have said goodbye to loved ones at airports still miss them. So, for every party using the look-at-our-record line, you may want to reconsider.
Because to be fair, if we do that, we may not have a Government after the next election. And as things stand, people seem pretty sick of the devil they know. But perhaps the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know...