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Fear of Fine Gael?
Read more about: Green Party
About a year ago, back at the beginning of Irish Election, I wrote about the The Irish Politics of Fear, about how the various parties use fear to get votes. It seems I am not the only one at this; Green Party TD Ciaran Cuffe has struck out—if I was in Labour I would say slammed ;)—at Fine Gael (and not for the first time) for their use of fear around crime, saying:
It is Fine Gael that has me worried, though. Not the individuals themselves who are for the most part charming and pleasant, but the policies. Boot camps and drink tanks are my concern, and of course playing the fear card in politics. It has been done before of course, but let’s not forget about the causes of crime.
Again I have to wonder, is the Greens going in with Fianna Fail that crazy?
Mr Cuffe does not seem particularly taken with Fine Gael. Indeed, he even manages to get a word of support for Michael McDowell in:
I’d also agree with Michael (for once) on the issue of café bars, better them than super-pubs with all the atmosphere of an airport Departure Lounge, and I’d say it would reduce the need for drink tanks as well.
I know I have said this before, but Ciaran is one of my favourite TD’s and it is mainly due to his blog. It is probably the honesty. You can see what he thinks, unlike any of my local representative who I haven’t a clue what they think.
So crime does not exist, eh?
Anyway, one wonders why Mr. Cuffe is so concerned with Fine Gael.
Taking his implicit criticism of Creighton’s poster, it would suggest that he believes that people are safe walking around Dublin late at night on their own. Fair enough I suppose, but I wonder if he sleep safe in the knowledge a female friend of his was walking home from town at 3 in the morning - and more exactly would that female friend feel safe? But I forgot that is the politics of fear, and one should remember that everything is a okay on the streets out there.
Also, given the other post on this site (Real Debate Needed - http://www.irishelection.com/12/real-debate-needed/) on the desire to make this a more policy oriented debate, Cuffe’s dismissal of Billy Timmons’ idea on youth justice sums is an example of the rather simplistic, shallow soundbite engineering that passes for politics in this state. As was pointed out elsewhere, there was a lot more to the idea than the headline on a press release, but unfortunately Mr. Cuffe doesn’t go into to that. Indeed his juxtaposing of this idea with the Children’s act is a but werid, as that is something that FG supports the full implementation of.
Mr. Cuffe obviously lives in the world where you just need to tackle the cause of crime and not bother with crime itself (mainly because it is figment of FGer’s imagination).
But then what would you expect from a politician that seem to believe that the St. Pats is like the Dáil. Fortunately, unlike many of the people who enter the detention facilities in this state, I don’t think Mr. Cuffe will be returning once his spell is up in 2007.
Sounds more like Ciaran is looking to sell some fear of fear himself. And really haven’t the Greens had enough of rural TDs telling everyone that all the Greens do is fearmonger about the end of the world to not start into the same game themselves. Yep, FG are going to make you walking in a straight line before accessing A&E, send all shams and skankers on training stints with the Rangers and then on their graduation send them to Basra to assist the Yanks and Brits in Iraq.
I can’t help but wonder if this is more to do with Ciaran trying to ensure he stays ahead of Oisin Quinn and gets enough of his and Richard Boyd Barrett’s transfers (no harm to bad mouth FG with the ould SWP folks) to hold his own seat rather than what anyone else is actually saying about crime and responses to it.
You know soundbite and all as it was ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ wasn’t such a bad idea if there had been enough follow through.
Interesting comments observer and i think dan hit the nail on the head in one very important respect. Local concerns trump any high-minded call for debate at all times. Ciaran (and many other politicians) logic is local first.
on the issue itself, i dont think anyone would say crime does not exist. It seems though that in the response we have always had two clear paths presented to us. Deal with the causes or prevent crime through punitive measures. Of course neither work and it is fair to suggest that Ciaran points out that FG have consistently erred on the side of the punitive and perhaps need to consider causes for a proper solution (as you rightly allude to Dan).
I dont get the inference of only focussing on the causes of crime from his statements, simply a call to balance responses to crime with consideration of causes of criminal behaviour.
Cian, I would disregard that governments that FG have led have erred on the punitive side. Sure FG supporters and backbnechers have made louder noises than anyone else about the punitive side but that is not to say that the governments the party was in ignored addressing the other side in so far as it was possible to do so at the time. On that basis one might say the same thing about Labour for the most part or DL totally as the only governments they were in were with FG.
I meant disagree not disregard, apologies for that.