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    Post-election 2016

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    The general election was tedious and it’s not really clear what message it purveys. The electorate seemed jaded and the politicians delivered no memorable new policies, apart from Renua’s utterly regressive at tax proposal. Village believes that elections should be all about ideas, ideology, policy (and how best to implement them). In these terms the election and its participants were a two-out-of-ten failure. Commentators from the equally idea-free media have interpreted the results in heterogeneous ways. Every sort of theory and cleverality was deployed to describe the drearily and precariously hung Dail: a triumph of democracy, a triumph of social democracy, the end of the civil war, the end/beginning of the beginning/end of the civil war. The perennial smart view that the electorate has failed the parties got several outings. If the second-rate sages had been able to they would have loved to interpret it as a triumph of angry white men. They couldn’t. Some saw it as a victory for the small parties and independents. But the Social Democrats did not increase, Renua was wiped out, the Greens gained only two seats in an era of climate-apocalypse. The People Before Profit/ Anti-Austerity Alliance finished up with only one more seat than they had before the election, and Direct Democracy did not gure. Before the election these were the only small parties. The truth is that this election was a triumph of the interchangeable FF/FG (FG/FF) duopoly, though its trajectory has been definitively defined as downward. Ideology is what political parties apply when they run out of policies. Since most of the parties’ manifestos are short and the events to which policies must be applied are unpredictable it is reasonable to expect that your candidate will have an ideology to guide her. Village for example favours an agenda of equality of outcome, sustainability and accountability. The ideology is comprehensive, it provides a solution for any situation, and a template against which policy formulation can be benchmarked. Candidates shouldn’t have to reflect Village’s ideology, but they’d be better having some sort of one. Neither civil-war party has an ideology. It is impossible to know what they will do once elected. How, therefore, could anyone who does not live under a stone be enthusiastic about a government of FF and FG? FF is a conservative party that believes in so little that it surrendered its entire ethos to a culture of provincialism and cronyism, last time it was in government. It believes in no more now so, though it is touting a centre-left agenda there is every danger it will return to populism, short-termism and promoting the only agenda it understands – the interests of the people its representatives actually know – a cronyist populism that always finishes up favouring those who shout loudest. It is naïve to think of FF as Micheál Martin and when it is the movement it has always known itself to be, of Eamon OCuív, of Barry Cowen, of Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher; and tens of marginally more presentable sons and daughters of best-forgotten FF dynasts. Kevin O’Keeffe, son of Ned O’Keeffe, anyone? FG is a conservative party currently dressed up as a Christian Democrat party. The ethos is exible enough that under Garret FitzGerald it was in effect Social Democrat. In its latest incarnation it has been right of centre, at a time when most people want fairness and an improvement in services. It failed to deliver an agenda of accountability and its representatives seem to believe in little beyond sound money, ‘Europe’ and law and order. Having once appeared to be purer than FF it is now tainted by the Moriarty Tribunal report and a perceived ongoing proximity to Denis O’Brien, Ireland’s richest man, as well as by its large number of low-grade County Councillors, whose corruption record is a hairsbreadth from as bad as FF’s. Though essentially conservative, both FF and FG contain some social democrats and liberals in their midst. These aberrations and those who vote for them are delaying the day a real Social Democratic party with coherent left-of-centre platform can become a force that could anchor a government. On the other hand it is clear that more people than is desirable voted FG in 2011 to get FF out and then FF in 2016 to get FG out. These people need to acknowledge that they are forces forconservativism. The incarnation of this is the dangerously articulate Éamon Dunphy who apparently voted FF in 2016 because he really believes in People Before Profit (or Sinn Féin. It isn’t clear). Anyone who thinks that FF was the solution to our problems in 2016 is part of the problem. So what next? FF and FG should merge as a conservative party though even coalition is for the moment some way off. FF is tactically sharper than FG and FG is in retreat so it is likely FF will tantalise FG to weaken and demoralise it during this Dáil. Nevertheless the (non-)ideological compatibility of the parties has been exposed and will generate its own momentum. While allowing this momentum its space the Left of all hues must use the logic of the momentum against FF and FG, and social democrats must colonise some of the space the dinosaur parties have occupied for tragically long.

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    Responsive parties don’t want reform, responsibility or even power

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    The election is over, but the prospect of forming a government is still somewhat distant. This probably shouldn’t surprise us. Apart from the outgoing Fine Gael-Labour government none of the other parties were really proposing to go into government. Their campaigns were based on a critique of the incumbent government. The Irish people roundly rejected the outgoing government. But it is not clear what positive choices the voters were making, if any. The result was remarkably similar to the result of the local elections in 2014. Local elections are regarded as second-order elections, in which voters aren’t making a decision on the choice on offer, rather making a judgement about the government of the day. These are protest elections. In 2016 each party came within 1.5 percentage points of their result in the local elections. This Dáil will have the appearance of a protest meeting. It’s not just the Trotskyite left, but also Sinn Féin and many independents. It is not that these don’t have any interest in policy – they do – but they have no interest in taking responsibility for policy delivery. At the moment Sinn Féin repeats relentlessly that it will not compromise its principles. We have rarely seen so many on the left anywhere greet the prospect of a right-wing government (of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) with such jubilation. But, problematically, they are in effect telling their voters – the ones living in hotels, or lying on hospital trolleys, or waiting for treatment – that they don’t matter. Those people will have to wait five years until the party is bigger, because their political movement’s long-term growth trumps effecting real change to people’s lives through compromise. These are ‘responsive’ politicians, responsive to every real or perceived grievance on the part of the citizens they represent. Populists on the left and right offered voters simple solutions to these grievances. All we needed to do was tax the rich, burn bond-holders, spend more money and everything would be solved. They appear to believe that we live in a world without external constraints. These parties and independents were not only responsive to voters’ concerns, they fed them. They sought to say to voters that any problems experienced by them or their own community were the direct responsibility of the state. Though many rise up as ‘community activists’, by being so demanding of the state they are actually disenfranchising their communities. The government parties’ politics were ‘responsible’. The Greens took responsibility. Labour took responsibility. Certainly they made mistakes; in pursuit of ‘responsibility’ they were often too anxious to please markets and Europe. They ignored, or weren’t responsive to, the often genuine concerns of voters. But surely the establishment parties’ unwillingness to promise the undeliverable wasn’t one of their mistakes? Between the harsh realism of ‘responsible’ politics and the utopianism of the ‘responsive’ politics, languish ordinary people who struggle with increasing insecurity. Issues such as rural services saw the rise of independents, issues such as the affordability of childcare, homes, and transport led to ‘responsible’ parties seeping votes to ‘responsive’ parties who have no real solutions. The ‘responsive’ don’t want reform, they want to protect failing systems. They offered few ideas beyond investing more money into services. That we already spend above OECD average proportions of GDP on health appears not to matter. They want to protect poorly designed redistributive payments that help create a small underclass so removed from society that many of us cannot actually understand them. Accepting that people’s diminished disposable income, which affects their ability to afford consumer goods – atter at-screen TVs – is a genuine problem that the state needs to care about, the ‘responsive’’s answers to issues such as the housing crisis are firmly rooted in the twentieth century – rent controls and rent allowance. They are more interested in protecting failing teachers than helping the children they damage. All their answers deal with the symptoms of inequality, accepting the disease of inequality of opportunity as if it is the natural order of things. If our politicians are going to be ‘responsive’, voters need to start to take responsibility. We should avail of the time over the next month or so when there is no ‘government’ to reflect on whether punishing parties who make compromises is going to deliver anything other than more fantastic promises by parties who eschew power and, especially, its responsibilities. Eoin O’Malley

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    FF won’t see coalition as an ideological issue and FG is glued to stability

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    The most extraordinary coalition formed in Ireland was the first one, in 1948. It involved Fine Gael and a then-new party headed by Sean McBride, Clann na Poblachta. The Clann was a lively mixture of liberals, left-wingers and Republicans with a deep immersion in the IRA. The surprise with the Clann was that its youthful enthusiasm and vigorous campaigns against partition very nearly toppled De Valera from his then hegemony over Irish politics. McBride himself was a former IRA Chief of Staff who subsequently cut out a career for himself as an international eminence becoming a Nobel Prize laureate and founding member of Amnesty International – the campaigning global Human Rights body. Because of lingering republican bitterness against General Richard Mulcahy’s role in the civil war, Mulcahy, the Fine Gael leader, stood aside to facilitate a coalition with the Clann and its tooth and claw republican militants. John A Costello became Taoiseach in the coalition instead. The point of all of this is to illustrate that, from the very outset, coalition formation in Ireland has been a pragmatic business where big parties and small ones dispense with ideological or philosophical differences in order to provide an alternative government and run the country. Down the years few, if any, Fine Gael or Labour leaders worried too much about the differences of left and right when it came to forming a government designed to extract Fianna Fáil from prolonged periods in power. In 1989 Charles Haughey led Fianna Fáil for the first time ever into a coalition arrangement with the Progressive Democrats, stating cheerily: “Sure, it was only me that could have done it”. His party colleagues resisted it furiously believing non-participation in coalition an absolute core value for the party up to that point. The bitterness of doing this coalition was magnified by the presence of Des O’Malley and his new party – composed of individuals who had fought Haughey, then split from him to create their own party. For Haughey it was just another deal but for the Progressive Democrats, who claimed to be policy-focused, it was about taxation and other precious policy items, including a public Tribunal into the goings on in the Beef Industry. Haughey worked hard to save his own skin and persuade his ministerial colleagues of the merits of going into coalition. Apparently at one stage in the discussions around the cabinet table he held out his arms sideways demanding in relation to the opposition: “D0 you want to give them all of this?”. Shortly afterwards the new Taoiseach Albert Reynolds formed a coalition with the Labour Party which followed an election in 1992 which featured advertisements generated by Fianna Fáil scaremongering about a left-wing takeover of the country by Labour. This was no small tactic and involved giant billboards and full-page newspaper adverts in a bid to frighten voters in a move that was redolent of the ‘red scare’ tactics of the 1950s and 1960s. During the actual campaign my father, the late Brian Lenihan Senior. When all about him were these banner advertisements called for an alignment with Labour rather than the PDs. His rationale was that Labour were more compatible with FF than what he viewed as the “Thatcherite ” Progressive Democrats. He was dismissed by the party bosses during the campaign only to find himself instrumental, behind the scenes, after the election in putting the coalition deal with Labour together. Albert Reynolds, a businessman, proved to be very pragmatic when faced with the post-election numbers and getting back into power. My father had key relationships and friendships within the Labour Party and within the labour movement generally. These relationships and ability to communicate became vital to the formation of this government. When people set out to cross party divides there is a need for credible and dependable intermediaries who can give assurances on policy and how the share out of ministries will play out when the negotiations get real. This was my own experience when I set out, at the request of Bertie Ahern, to put in motion the process of having a coalition with the Green Party in 2007. In fact the groundwork had begun in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 election. Ahern was already entertaining doubts about the future sustainability of the PD coalition because of problems with both policy and numbers. I knew a number of the key figures in the Green Party, including Trevor Sargent and had been in university with both Eamon Ryan and John Gormley. Part of the reason for having a coalition with the Greens was a concern within the party about the right-of-centre nature of the PD coalition, as well as a fear that the party was already becoming too visibly identified with the building industry and big capital. It was also made easier by the overarching atmosphere of mainstreaming environmental or green issues. When the post-election numbers showed a Green coalition was necessary Bertie pressed the buttons and appointed a skilled and experienced team of negotiators so that his own ministers were locked into the items agreed with the Greens. The government itself worked well together though it has to be said it was much more difficult for the Greens to get the coalition deal past their activists than it was for Bertie to get it past his parliamentary party. Rural TDs were the most resistant regarding Green policies on farming incentives as tantamount to treason. In the event they overcame their difficulties. As with the previous Labour Coalition, outside of the main negotiations, a series of reliable and discreet intermediaries were on hand to smooth out any issues that arose in the talks. Ahern himself was a very accomplished negotiator. General Election 2016 has been dominated by speculation of a grand coalition between the once very dominant big parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The fact that both parties combined now count for slightly less than 50% of the popular vote has hastened a frenzy of speculation about such a

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    Are you content, or angry?

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    Will the 2016 election bury the idea that the left-right divide is the key one in politics? For most of the 20th century choices facing voters in Europe were to go for parties that said they’d tax more and spend the fruits on public services (the left) or those who would provide fewer public services and aim to take less in tax (the right). What we might consider the centre has shifted about a bit. From the 1950s to the 1970s most, even the right, agreed to tax and spend more. From the 1980s the centre shifted right. All this time most parties were identifiable on this left-right dimension. Voters too could usually identify themselves on this scale. If you were working class you tended to vote left, if you were middle class you tended to vote right. Sometimes the middle classes who worked in the public sector would vote left, and sometimes the left was too left or the right too right for their ‘natural’ group to support it fully. Then there was a convergence on the right, and so in the UK the Labour Party became New Labour, and essentially became a right-wing party. In Ireland wily Fianna Fáil’s shifting policies offer a good barometer of which direction the ‘centre’ is going. In the last decade, particularly since the Great Recession in 2008, left and right have become less meaningful as an explanation of what divides the parties. While Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump appear to have little in common, they are both appealing to voters concerned about the same crisis. Those voters are demographically very similar (white and working class). While Trump and Sanders interpret the crisis in different ways – one a crisis of capitalism, the other a crisis of border control among other things – they agree in many ways. They both rail against a corrupt political and business elite, they both claim to represent the ordinary worker, they agree on protectionism in trade. More than anything they are both angry. They represent the frustrated in life. It is this emotion that may be the main denominator in elections. Rather than left-right, parties can be distinguished by whether they are angry at the establishment or are part of it. If we look at the rise of UKIP we can see that the party’s support comes at the expense of what Labour might have thought its core supporters – the working class. Labour was (and perhaps still is) seen as a part of the metropolitan elite. The party divide in Ireland was always hard to understand. There wasn’t a strong left-right divide, but it was Fianna Fáil’s genius that it could simultaneously portray itself as a party of the ordinary man AND be the main party of government. Bertie Ahern used to talk about the government as if it were some third party, not the organisation he was leading. In this election Fianna Fáil still likes to portray itself as the party of the worker, painting Fine Gael as a party of the rich. But it’s not angry. It’s a part of the establishment. Labour is trying to sound as if it represents the frustrated. Its ‘Standing up for Ireland’ slogan is designed to pit it on the side of the ordinary against some elite, but it is not plausible, having campaigned to deliver Labour’s way not Frankfurt’s way in 2011. It has for some time been a party that gets much of it support from the middle classes. And Fine Gael is happily appealing to those in Irish society who are content. The other side are the frustrated: people who feel unfulfilled and unable to do anything about it. It’s a toss-up whether the parties representing them will be on the left or right, but in Ireland they tend to be on the left. Shane Ross and his alliance of independents position themselves as anti-establishment rather than obviously left or right. Renua will attract some of the angry on the right, who perhaps see Ireland as being ruled by a liberal elite. Sinn Féin pitches based on the premise that there is a cartel of bankers and politicians who rule Ireland for their own interests, a proposition shared by the alphabet soup parties on the left. This is made more plausible by the banking crisis. Sinn Féin talks of a two-tier recovery “that benefits [the government] and their friends at the top, not the majority of hard-working, fair-minded Irish citizens”. These are sentiments that one could hear a Le Pen, a Trump or UKIP venting as readily as an Alexis Tsipras or Pablo Iglesias. The main difference distinguishing left and right internationally, which no Irish parties have focussed on, is immigration. It’s to Sinn Féin’s credit that it never used immigration, especially given it is a populist nationalist party. Many young working class men hold views that make them ripe for anti-immigrant politics but Sinn Féin’s nationalism (and Ireland’s history of emigration) makes it dif cult to be an anti-immigrant party. But parties can’t be anti-establishment forever. What happens when the parties representing the frustrated get into power? They usually disappoint. Eoin O’Malley Eoin O’Malley is the director of the MSc. in Public Policy at Dublin City University

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    Election 2016

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    In 2011 we wrote in this space, “You would think from our recent history of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, that we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, this election time we see no new ideas”. Sadly democracy in Ireland needs an overhaul every bit as much now as it did in 2011. Village is disappointed at the quality of politics, across the range. It’s easily diagnosed: Fine Gael is open to regressive policies and cronyism. However, at least on its own terms it deserves credit because it has consistently stuck to its agenda of (unimaginative) economic orthodoxy and because Enda Kenny has proved relatively competent, in the face of scepticism, including from this magazine. In 2011, we stated, “ Perhaps it is a unique merit of Fine Gael that if it is elected with a mandate, this time it may actually govern as it has campaigned. The electorate will be able to assess whether what it voted for was what it wanted”. This edition of Village explores at length the extent to which the coalition government delivered on its Programme for Government. It’s a fair test and it shows that, beyond promoting economic stability, the Government has been a disappointment. Labour certainly does not have the Fine Gael appeal of consistency. It never does what its manifestos promise. Worse, a number of its senior TDs have allowed themselves to appear smug and ideologically jaded or even, in Alan Kelly’s case, dangerous. Because of the elasticity of its conscience Labour has long attracted the wrong type of representatives. Fianna Fáil is tainted by its reckless past and the incoherence of its platform. It believes serving the people, parish and business in equal measure is viable. It has learnt little beyond the need to regulate the banks. Sinn Féin’s commitment to a Left agenda is unclear bearing in mind its defining preference for irredentist nationalism over ideology, its centrist pragmatism in the North and its willingness to coalesce with Fianna Fáil. Its performance at local-authority level is not impressive or particularly leftist. It is cultist, and ambivalent about democracy and transparency, and its leaders lie casually about its, and particularly its leader Gerry Adams’, past. Renua seems like a somehow unendearing chip off Fine Gael’s Christian Democratic block, with a penchant for propriety. The Independent Alliance (dubbed Shane Féin) is utterly incoherent of policy and membership. If ex-stockbroker Mr Ross and turfcutter Michael Fitzmaurice ever breathed an atom of the same political air, Village cannot imagine where it was. Village has a weakness for the Social Democrats, whose mild platform is essentially the same as Labour’s, though strangely more pro-business, but whose small membership is more prepossessing. Its antipathy to water taxes is expedient but regrettable. The radical Left offers the huge appeal of integrity and seriousness but its opposition to property taxes is inexcusable, and its focus on opposition to the loathed water taxes rather than a broader anti-inequality platform, including opposition to the iniquities of Nama, corruption and the resurrection of the developer classes has diverted its revolutionary ideology. The Green Party’s policies are often radical, and its agenda mature, but it is not hard-minded and it achieved so little in the last government that it is difficult to be enthusiastic. To the extent that we have not afforded space in this edition of Village to the policies and protagonists of most of these parties, it is because they simply don’t offer enough to justify it. Village believes equality of outcome, sustainability and accountability are the most important policies; and it is difficult to be optimistic about their immediate Irish prospects. Laboured machinations over the fiscal space are ephemeral, though most of the other media address little else. Reflecting the need for a vision of society as well as economy this edition focuses on the coalition’s delivery across a number of departments that promote equality, sustainability and accountability, though we do have articles by Constantin Gurdgiev, Michelle Murphy and Sinead Pentony on the iniquitous handling of the fragile economy. We consider Education, Health, Social Welfare, Environment including climate change, Small Firms policy, and Accountability. These departments make life worth living. We systematically assess whether they achieved the goals set by the Government for each of them when it took office. In the end the conclusion is that they have underperformed. And so therefore has the unimaginative, regressive and stolid Government behind them. Against this backdrop, we would again not presume to advise readers where to direct their votes. However, we can say the non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the pragmatic centre hold little appeal, even when mitigated by somewhat more thoughtful ones. A coalition of the parties of the Left, radical Left and the Greens would, as always, best promote Village’s agenda, if no doubt imperfectly.

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    Review 2015 in Village

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    January The Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, reveals he is gay to a receptive Miriam O’Callaghan, becoming the first openly-gay government minister in Ireland. The Irish economy is not some kind of exemplar, says President Michael D Higgins, controversially but magnificently. Mahon tribunal reverses its finding of corruption against Ray Burke because the tribunal never revealed that whistleblower, James Gogarty, had made unsupportable allegations against the likes of Nora Owen, TD, and Supreme Court justice, Seamus Henchy. Nobody names the lax lawyers, who permitted it, or demands return of their fees. SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor sets out principles for a Charter for parties on the Left.   February 13 men aged 50-70 to appear before the bank inquiry; no women. Gardai arrest Paul Murphy, TD, along with three other anti-austerity activists and politicians, leading to public speculation about “political policing”. Former Fianna Fáil minister Pat Carey reveals his homosexuality publicly. The Irish Times announces the reintroduction of a paywall for its website, beginning on February 23. Michael D Higgins gives us another poem. March Solicitor Brian O’Donnell barricades himself into his Palace in Killiney with help from the ironically titled Land League. The Sunday Independent reports that O’Donnell scion, Blaise, didn’t know how rich his parents had made him. Contrariwise, The Mail reports Blaise got a €156m London office block from Dad. Ireland’s rugby year peaks with Six Nations Championship. Belfast County Court finds Asher’s Bakery guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake an ‘Eric’n’Ernie’ cake bearing a pro-gay-marraige slogan. april Joan Burton proposes a cap on the property tax when the freeze on increases start to register, at the end of the year. Minister Alan Kelly to allow builders of one-off houses to opt out of the usual building-control certification requirements. John Fitzgerald writes that borrowing to fund the bank bailout costs around €1bn a year, a small fraction of the total fiscal adjustment of €30bn since 2008. Gerry Adams tells CBS he never pulled a trigger, ordered a murder or set off a bomb during the war in the North. Ed Moloney, of course, disputes this. May A smug Jeremy Paxman, on the verge of retirement, lays into British Labour leader, Ed Miliband, on Newsnight and is overheard at end asking “are you ok, Ed?”. Miliband says “yeah” and wonders if Paxman is himself ok. Broadcaster and political editor of the TV3 television channel, Ursula Halligan, publicly declared her homosexuality and her support for a ‘yes’ vote for marriage for homosexuals and lesbians in the Constitutional marriage equality referendum. Competition Authority finally getting serious over CRH. Mary Harney promised investigation a political generation ago. Broadcasters Bill O’Herlihy and Derek Davis died. Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife visited the west of Ireland, including Mullaghmore, County Sligo, where his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was murdered by an IRA bomb in 1979. Referendum on two amendments to the Constitution – the 34th (marriage equality) wins; and the 35th (presidential election voting) loses. NY Times and Guardian, Village and Broadsheet. ie publish the Dáil Record of Catherine Murphy’s allegations about Denis O’Brien’s banking arrangments. The Irish Times, Independent, Mail, Sunday Business Post wait for clarification from the courts. June Strong, clear clarification from High Court on the unambiguous existence of the privilege for Dail utterances. Binchy J as predicted clarifies that he never intended, nor could it have been intended, his comments would apply to reporting of utterances in the Dail. Exciting dream team of Catherine Murphy, Stephen Donnelly and Roisin Shortall to form Social Democrat party. RTE tells Atheist Ireland it will reconsider the title of the Angelus Ireland’s poorest kids hit by lone-parent payment cut. “We are not God,” acknowledges Pope Francis, and we shouldn’t “trample his creation underfoot.” The average American woman now weighs 166 pounds — as much as the average 1960s man. Dutch government ordered by court to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling. Central bank Governor Patrick Honohan explains “the bank guarantee should not have included subordinated debt nor existing senior-term debt”. Joan Burton slams social welfare fraudsters for “giving two fingers to their neighbours”. July The hottest month in history Brian Cowen scathingly tells the banking inquiry his ‘friends and colleagues’ were private people not bankers though doesn’t explain relaptionship with Fintan Drury, or golf. Media consider performance a triumph. Greece votes no to bailout plan but government imposes it anyway. Yanis Varoufakis resigns as Greek Finance Minister. august IS destroys 200 year old temple in Palymyra, Syria. September INBS, Michael Fingleton appears before Oireachtas banking inquiry but is let off hook Radical socialist Jeremy Corbyn elected leader of British Labour Party. October Five adults and five child Travellers die after fire at Carrickmines, Residents object to rehousing of the survivors nearby. Budget will reduce USC but is light on plans for investment. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin tells a synod of bishops in Rome that Irish people “struggle to understand abstract moral principles” and that the recent debate about same-sex marriage in Ireland has been conducted by lay people in language that traditionally belongs to the Roman Catholic Church: ‘equality, compassion, respect and tolerance’”. November Judge Brian Cregan announces he does not have the legal powers necessary to conduct his inquiry into write-off sales of loans by IBRC do not allow him to. 130 people murdered by IS in Paris. Peter Robinson says he will resign as First Minister. Former Minister Pat Carey resigns after improper media leaks about alleged paedophilia. December IFA President Eddie Downey declares he has been thrown under a bus by his colleagues after it was revealed he received €147,000 annually and CEO, Pat Smith, half a million annually, from often impoverished farmers. David Cameron announces Britain’s intention to bomb IS in Syria.

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    Dissidents and dissenters

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    While focus over the past year has been on Loyalist alienation, there is also a significant level of nationalist alienation in the North. Dissident Republicans have small but real support. Far beyond their circles, there is a discontent: a feeling that the Assembly has not delivered, and that the DUP is running government: of dissent. There is no possibility, in the foreseeable future, of either the dissidents or the dissenters significantly eating into Sinn Féin support. A small trickle of recruits is joining dissident groups – despite their weakness on all fronts. Those who claim such groups have no support refuse to recognise a reality they dislike. The dissident groups can operate in a small pool. Support is underestimated because many people will not openly admit to holding an unpopular view. This is analogous to the way that opinion polls understated electoral support for Sinn Féin (and to a lesser extent the DUP) in the past. An older generation of dissidents came from Sinn Féin. To become the largest nationalist party, Sinn Féin dramatically moved to the centre. Its electoral strategists recognised that this meant shedding more hard-line voters. The loss was counterbalanced by taking votes from the SDLP. The more republican voters who left had nowhere to go: the votes taken from the SDLP have reduced that party. The older group which left Sinn Féin is now mostly inactive. Of more current significance is an angry section of Catholic working-class youth which has never accepted Sinn Féin. The dissidents have recruited among them. However, even some young Catholics with jobs consider themselves dissidents. Over the last few months, I have met a scatter- ing of young people who call watch your backs – both of you “ themselves Republicans, but disagree with the strategy of Sinn Féin. Some are in organisations, others not aligned to any. A Real IRA member once explained to me that the peo- ple they were recruiting had been active supporters rather than former members. Most now come from the post-ceasefire generation, tending to be between 20 and 40. Most are from deprived areas, but by no means all. Among dissidents convicted here have people with skilled and white-collar jobs. Militarily the dissident organisations are weak, and riddled with agents. Partly because of what Northern society went through during the Troubles, their military campaign is unpopular. Importantly, the dissidents do not have a cause to mobilise around. There are, though, always dangers of a British government blunder. However, three contentious issues have been resolved. Sixty-three year old Martin Corey from Lurgan has been released: he was a former Republican life-sentence prisoner whose licence was revoked and who was jailed for three years without facing any charges. A dirty protest by prisoners on the Republican wing in Maghaberry prison has been settled. The seriously ill Marian Price, who was a remand prisoner, was released on bail. Dissidents are active on the issue of marches by the Loyal Orders through perceived Catholic areas. These are resented by most residents in those areas, even many who would not call themselves Republicans. Dissidents have members in some of those areas, and oppose the somewhat conciliatory approach of Sinn Féin. There are wider symptoms of discontent than the small dissident groups. ‘1916 Societies’ have developed. These developed first in East Tyrone, the traditional heartland of Northern Republicanism. Initially they attracted an older generation. More recently, they have attracted numbers of young people from the post-Troubles generation. They are a loose network whose only clear policy is promoting Irish unity on the lines of the 1916 Proclamation. Members disagree with Sinn Féin for often conflicting reasons. They disagree on the central issue of Republican tactics: whether or not there should be an armed campaign. They are a network for ex-members of the IRA and Sinn Féin. More generally, there is discontent in the wider Nationalist community. All sections of the community feel the Assembly has not delivered on its initial promise. Among Nationalists, many feel Martin McGuinness is too conciliatory to the DUP. Despite the DUP having moved towards the centre there is a deep distrust of it in the wider Catholic community. Projects which many Nationalists saw as symbolic gains for them like the Maze/Long Kesh Peace Centre and the A5 dual carriageway from Ballygawley in Co Tyrone to Newbuildings, south of Derry City, have been cancelled. All this will have political implications. Of the Nationalist parties, the SDLP’s long decline continues. As Sinn Féin becomes a mainstream party, its active membership has decreased. Could it, like the SDLP ear- lier, lose contact with its electorate, and if so what would the consequence be? Anton McCabe

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