Don't do it!
Can someone please explain to me why Fianna Fail are currently polling close to an overall majority? In the past we've had a lot of governments who failed to bring about necessary reforms, but, in a way, they had an excuse, we were always a piss-poor wee backward country with no money to fund reforms.
However, this current government (through no fault of its own...) governed during the most prosperous period Ireland has ever known. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I would have thought that the government should have taken that opportunity to plough money into infrastructure; areas like health, education, transport, etc.
However, as we reach the end of the economic boom, we appear to be little better off than we were when it began. I recently waited 7 hours in an accident and emergency room for a friend to be seen after he was hit on the head with a bus (long story). A Spanish friend who accompanied us there was horrified, pointing out that such a long wait would be unheard of in Spain. Spain, it should be noted, is not the world's largest exporter of software, that would be Ireland, yet they can afford a decent A&E system while we can't.
A friend who lives in Galway takes four hours to drive to Dublin, a journey of the same distance would take less than three hours in the US. Germany has an excellent system of motorways with no speedlimits on them, and yet it has a lower rate of road related accidents than Ireland with our 70 mph limit. We have twisty wee narrow roads, quirky road markings (if any) and a bizarre mix of signs, some in Kilometers and others still in Miles. Sure it adds character, but it also adds risk and a large chunk of cost to our motor insurance.
With house prices soaring, the waiting list for social housing has increased by 18%1 in the last year alone. Fainna Fail's election manifesto states that they intend to maintain their record levels of housing provision over the next five years, conveniently ignoring the fact that this record level has been accompanied by huge increases in those on the public housing waiting lists. That would suggest to me that the current house completion rates are not sufficiently high, our beloved leaders must have some other interpretation of the figures.
Violent attacks and homicides more than doubled in 2000. 2 Fianna Fail point to the amount of money they've spent on the garda Siochana, but ignore the fact that their investment doesn't appear to have produced results. Violent crime is increasing while some our police force is busy beating up peaceful protesters 3 4.
Government spending has been too high throuhgout the economic boom and this has left us with no reserves now that global economies are taking a downturn. The latest budget is now believed to have hugely overestimated the amount of money that will be available to the government in the coming year5.
Despite this abysmal record we're about to re-elect Fianna Fail to government with, probably, an overall majority. What is wrong with the people of this country? How can they reward a party who have fundamentally mismanaged the country's economy during their last term in office?
Let's get this straight: the last government did not create the Celtic Tiger. They didn't even create the necessary conditions for the Celtic Tiger (low corporate taxes, reasonably well educated workforce, etc.). The groundwork was laid long ago to allow us to take full advantage of what was a global economic boom. Fianna Fail and their coalition partners have taken much of the credit for that boom when in reality they inherited it, and promptly did their best to sabotage it. They are not a good government and there is no reason to go and vote for them this time 'round. Vote for Labour instead, they have some brilliant policies in the area of health in particular. Or vote for the looney greens if you really have to, they do have a lot of good policies, despite their anti-europe stance and their fondness for protectionism. Or go mad and vote for the Socialist Worker, they're nuts, but they do have a great record of supporting human rights and other important issues (oh, and some stunningly stupid ones like the campaign against waste charges).
Hhmmm, don't all vote for the greens and the SWP, though, I'm under no illusions about their ability to run a country. But Labour actually can run a country, they've been in government before, they have solid policies that could actually see us through this economic downturn. But whatever you do, don't vote for Fianna Fail on the 17th May.