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Where Are The Opposition?
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For several days now the media and the blogosphere have been asking after the whereabouts of Bertie.
Fair enough you might say. He is Taoiseach and has been elected Taoiseach.
Where is Enda Kenny, though? He is the former Taoiseach-in-waiting and we are led to believe that he is the future Taoiseach-in-waiting. He is leader of the Opposition and has been elected to that position.
I mean, either way. In favour of laissez-faire or intervention or otherwise?
The only thing I have found is a press release on the Fine Gael website where Joe Carey, we are told, has “reacted angrily”.
I’m only asking.
If the Taoiseach (a single man with a grown-up family) can’t even make an appearance and he is in just down the road in Kerry, and you reckon that Enda with a young family should have come back early from abroad for a photo op?
Yes Dan
Actually you touch on something which makes it hard for FG to get anywhere on issues like this.
As Sarah Carey has been so quick to point out one cannot move but for locals and FF people discussing the Shannon issue.
This is due to FF playing opposition to itself as usual. I have seen some of Michael Noonan early on but not much lately. If the government can do the job of ruling and opposing itself it renders the need for opposition empty.
This may feed into a lack of demand for the FG/Opposition leaders from media and subsequent low visibility. There is nothing stopping them from grabbing this issue (one way or the other) and running a decent strategy from it though. And they arent really doing that.
This morning I hear Michael Ring on the radio and he was strongly opposing the loss of the SNN-LHR link.
This is where I think it now gets interesting from a political philosophical point of view. As I understand it, FG are a conservative party with a free market, minimal government intervention kind of approach (I don’t think it is a very conservative party right now, but I will stand corrected, if I am making a mistake). However, Ring is now advocating government intervention to stop a private company doing something.
As Cian says, the FF party is not speaking as one voice right now, but I think the FG party would similarly not speak with one voice, so perhaps the tack until today has been to not speak at all.
Again, I may be wrong and maybe it is the media having no interest in the FG opinion, but maybe I am right.
If I am right, then it comes as no surprise to me that FG have been out of favour for so long. They cannot just have a leader/policies for the 6 weeks before an election.
Cian is absolutely correct, the true genius of the situation is that Fianna Fáil are offering us both government and opposition. What need of Enda Kenny et al?