St. Patrick's Day

On the day that's in it, it seems a bit churlish to have a go at our so-called leaders; but hey ho!

If we are to seriously set about building a new way of running things in this republic of ours, we need to stop doing a lot of the things which have passed for policy in the past. Prime among these outmoded ways is our politicians' annual migration to the four corners of the world for St. Patrick's Day. Why this is still going on in a world of instant global communication, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and so on, is beyond explanation. But perhaps the only feasible reason is the belief of our political class that they deserve an annual jolly at our expense and by God they're going to have it!

One picture from today is guaranteed to make any citizen's blood boil. Minister for Health, Mary Harney, is pictured in the front seat of a vintage, open-top car, waving to mystified locals at the Auckland St. Patrick's Day Parade. New Zealand is noted for its informality, but it hardly extends to a visiting dignitary venturing out in nothing but a green tee-shirt to represent this country, if this picture is to be believed. Worse still, knowing full well that nobody would have a clue who she was, the organisers, or perhaps one of the Minister's large entourage, had pasted a sign to the door of the car telling people she is "Irish Minister, Mary Harney TD."

The tackiness of this effort is probably replicated throughout the world today, as political lightweights from the Dail spend vast sums of our money making zero impression on unknowing and uncaring crowds in numerous cities. Mary Harney herself seems to need a fortnight to make absolutely no impression on the people of New Zealand, despite presiding over one of the most dysfunctional departments in the State. Why?

The St. Patrick's Day junket, where nine Cabinet Ministers and 11 Junior Ministers are traipsing around the world, is one of the most blatant leftovers from the old ways of doing things in this first republic. Perhaps there was some justification for drumming up interest in the country in the early days of the 1920s and 1930s, when the State was new and underdeveloped and we could not afford numerous agencies to market us on a full-time basis. But with 1,000 quangos sucking up public funds, allegedly on our behalf, there is no need for government ministers to be replicating these jobs.

However, the worst aspect of this junketeering by people who are already elaborately overpaid and overstaffed by us, is the message it sends out to the Irish people and those who care enough about Ireland to attend St. Patrick's Day Parades around the world. What they see is a group of selfish politicians unblushingly taking their own people for a ride. The message is being sent out loud and clear around the world that the leaders of Ireland no longer care about the welfare of the country and its people. Instead, they are demonstrating in the most blatant manner that the institutions of the Irish State exist for the personal pleasure and patronage of the people in direct control. There could be no clearer sign to the Irish diaspora that the first Irish Republic has used up the last remnants of the patriotism that brought it into being.