Grow a pair

Decisions, decisions, decisions. How many do you make a day? Thousands, I’d hazard to guess. Governments make lots of decisions too. In Fact, Ah since coming into power in 2002, the Fianna Fail/PD coalition has either amended/introduced a whopping 137 acts. Now that’s a whole lot of decision-making.

How do you make a decision, one way or another? Sometimes I go with whatever takes my fancy. Other times I listen to what those around me say. Most of the time though, I’m looking out for numero uno. My decisions are invariably motivated by a desire to capitalise on the circumstance I’m faced with. What motivates the government when they are in the throes of the decision-making process? They serves us the people, so surely they are looking out for our best interests.

So when legislative change reform is needed, the government looks in all directions for advice. An army of civil servants, interest groups, the Attorney General and TDs all have their say at the various stages of the process. But why then you may ask have the current government sought to make decisions that are forged based on the advice of people not included in the list above?

More and more, the media, people with serious wealth, and even celebrities are having a part to play in the decision making process in this country. It took two television programmes aired in the past year to convince the government that they needed to take the finger out; Eddie Hobbs’ Rip Off Ireland thankfully forced the government to take affirmative action to abolish the Groceries Order and Prime Time’s report on the Leas Cross nursing home made them address how nursing homes were being run and inspected. Only a few weeks ago Brendan Gleeson appeared on the Late Late Show venting his anger at the third-world conditions in our hospitals. Lo and behold, Mary Harney announced emergency A&E directives the very next week to combat the growing numbers of people left for days uncared for on trolleys. A coincidence?

Just who is running this country? Will the government make any hard calls in the run up to the next election? Even the fearsome McDowell ran scared from the vintners last year when he tried to introduced the café bar licence. He has rightly taken a strong stance against the IRA/Sinn Fein but lacked the cajones to take on a few pub owners. For too long property developers have held the quality of many Irish people’s lives to ransom by paying politicians to vote their way.

Is it asking too much for the next government to be prepared to make the hard calls in the public’s interest?