Election whiff in fall Irish air

The annual Fianna Fail September get together this week again saw the party attempt to portray itself as one of social conscience by wheeling out a former advisor to President Clinton, while Fine Gael and Labor geared up for a joint Dail campaign with their first joint policy document.
The presence of respected Harvard professor Robert Putnam, at the Fianna Fail event in Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan, was well flagged in advance with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern giving an interview at the weekend in which he described Putnam as his “guru.”
Putnam addressed Fianna Fail backbenchers on the need to maintain strong civil and social bonds in Irish society. His invitation to attend the event was similar to that granted to Fr. Sean Healy of the CORI Justice Commission last year.
Healy, a long-time critic of the Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrats coalition, then spoke of the need to address inequalities in Irish society.
Fianna Fail – some say rattled by the publicity granted to the “Rip-off Republic?” TV program chronicling the high cost of living in Ireland – meanwhile went on the offensive against the opposition coalition.
Ahern and minister for finance Brian Cowen said the opposition’s economic policies would return Ireland to the dark ages while foreign affairs minister Dermot Ahern slammed, what he called, the Fine Gael/Labor “axis of taxes.”
“Fianna Fail in government since 1997 has built prosperity. We maintained that prosperity through the worst global economic downturn in thirty years,” said Ahern.
“The next election will be about defending that prosperity. Arrayed against us are Fine Gael, Labor, the Greens and Sinn Fein. That’s no rainbow coalition or Mullingar accord – that’s an axis of taxes,” he said.
Fine Gael and Labor responded by mocking Fianna Fail’s “conversion” to socialism and by issuing a joint policy document on benchmarking for public sector workers.
Cowen described the Fine Gael/Labor alliance as being completely bankrupt.
“All we have is a string of generalizations and platitudes on social partnership. This is thin stuff and a very feeble attempt to cover up the complete lack of any real agreed agenda,” he said.
Labor had little time for Putnam however with its environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore saying Tuesday that Fianna Fail’s conversion to “Puttnamism” was as convincing as its previous conversion to socialism.
“If he [Bertie Ahern] wants to act on his failed policies on social cohesion he should have a Dail debate on the National Economic and Social Council report on housing published last Christmas,” said Gilmore.
“Nothing demonstrates Bertie Ahern’s failure as taoiseach than the fact that it has taken them eight years to realize that their housing and planning strategies have been destroying communities and society in general.
“Fianna Fail didn’t need to bring over Robert Putnam to explain this to them,” he said.
Fine Gael was also scathing of the Fianna Fail get-together.
“The warm glow generated by the two-day think tank in County Cavan will be both short lived and of little comfort unless the government takes action on the issues of oil prices and the promotion of conservation and alternatives,” said party spokesman on communications and natural resources, Bernard Durkan.
“Rapidly rising oil prices will put the country’s economy under further pressure as we approach the winter,” he said.