Dear reader,
I like to be an optimist, now and again, so of Simon Harris’s decision (in the words of Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy) to plant Fine Gael’s flag “firmly on the right” over the weekend, let me say the following:
It’s good news. It is good news when people who have previously made their disagreement with and contempt for your views central to their political identity suddenly do a u-turn and come crawling in your direction wondering if you’ll take them back.
If you are, like me, a long-suffering natural Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil voter who’s given up on those parties, then by all means take a moment and enjoy the new “vibe” from Mr. Harris.
Just… don’t be suckered.
The extraordinary thing about Simon Harris’s act over the weekend was that it was a word-for-word re-run of the schtick Leo Varadkar tried to pull a decade ago. Fine Gael – wait for this – is now the party of fellas who get up early in the morning, again. And it’s the party of taking a rhetorical baseball bat to people who turn the dole into a lifestyle choice.
Varadkar gave us that option. He then governed as if he was in a competition with Canada’s Justin Trudeau to win the Miss Wokeiverse pageant.
The similarities between Varadkar’s “right turn” all those years ago and Simon Harris’s today are not coincidental. This is the thing about progressives: They sometimes realise that there’s an advantage to sounding like they are right wing, but the problem is they have no idea how to do it. What they agree on, with the media, is that right wingers are pretty mean people who don’t like the poor and disadvantaged – so to sound “right wing” to them always means the same thing – bash the poor. Go after the lads on the dole.
I talk to a lot of genuinely right of centre voters. What annoys us is not, by and large, the lad in the council estate who does not do a tap and spends the dole money on fags and drink. Or to the extent that it does annoy us, it’s relatively low down the list of priorities.
As to the other bit – being on the side of those who get up and work? The question there is this: Who isn’t?
“I’m for people who work hard” is the emptiest phrase in politics, and could be uttered by anybody. The whole point of the Labour Party, for example, is that it’s for people who work hard. Hence the name. In theory.
No, if Simon Harris wants to “plant his flag on the right”, he’ll need to do better than that. So I’m making three suggestions here. Not suggestions, now, that you as a reader might think go far enough or solve all the country’s problems. Not panaceas.
Just three things Harris could, plausibly, do to signal to the people he wants to reach that he’s on their side. And things that he could do “right now” – meaning within the next year.
1) Cut legal immigration
This is a very simple one and it is within the government’s gift. In 2025 – data here courtesy of Nick Delehanty and co’s excellent new website – Ireland doled out 31,000 work permits for people to come to Ireland.
Work permits, remember, generally go to people from outside the European Economic Area. That’s the thing about the EU single market – you do not need a work permit to work here. So the notion that these work permits are necessary does not just posit that companies here can’t find employees in Ireland. It posits that they cannot find employees across the 450m-strong European Union.
Further, work permits are governed by legislation, but the Government can restrict their number through ministerial regulations under existing law. It could substantially reduce the number it awards without needing to pass a new Act of the Oireachtas.
So do that. Set a quota of 15,000 work permits per year. I know that’s too high for some of the immigration fundamentalists amongst you, but it’s something FG could do relatively quickly and would send a far bigger signal than any speech.
As for the companies, they could still find workers in the EU. Or you know, pay more for qualified people than they need to pay for people coming from the second world.
2) Announce that FG will make the fuel duty cuts permanent and will not vote to reverse them
This is again, a small thing, but within Fine Gael’s gift. The budget will survive the lower rate of fuel duty on diesel and petrol. Those who want the reductions ended are, essentially, in two categories: Civil servants who like revenue, and Green types who hate Carbon emissions. Neither of them traditional Fine Gael voting blocs.
Fianna Fáil would have two options: Go along, or go to bat for higher taxes on motorists. Make them make that choice.
3) Announce a hard limit on the number of TDs and propose a referendum to change the constitution on it.
The Dáil currently has 174 TDs. Because the constitution mandates at least one TD for every 30,000 people in the population. With the population exploding, the number of TDs is due to explode.
Voters, by and large, do not like expanding the number of politicians – so put a stop to it. Lead the charge for a referendum capping the TD numbers at 150. In the process, put 24 TDs out of work at the next election.
There are a range of other things Fine Gael could do, of course, ranging from deportations to law and order to income tax rates, or cutting the funding for RTE and NGOs, or whatever you are having yourself.
They should do those things too – but the point here is that the three suggestions above are all within the party’s gift.
They are things they would do, were they sincere.
But then again, they’re not sincere. We know this because, just a decade ago, we heard it all before.
J.
I wouldn’t rule out losing a referendum on limiting TD numbers for the simple reason that if you do limit it rural counties will get fewer TDs as the country continues to urbanize. After all, this is the country that voted to keep the Seanad.
Another thing that they could do immediately is start construction of the Thornton hall prison. Reduce USC. They won't do anything remotely practical. This is just all smoke and mirrors design to fool the gullible voters yet again. I think that Harris has a better chance of winning the lottery on two successive weeks that getting away with this scam.