Liberty, Fraternity AND Equality

The scenes on streets in Dublin represented a modern Ireland, a modern Republic – one that our founders would no doubt have been proud of. The scenes on the streets were replicated in their own way in thousands of homes across the country, but most importantly there was no doubt similar scenes in the minds of gay people in this country, that finally they do belong.

Politicians learned many lessons no doubt from the marriage referendum campaign, but one they have to work out how to use is the absolute engagement of people with this social issue. Yes young people voted in numbers, but so too did every age group in our nation – because it mattered to so many people, voting Yes and No. How our politicians tap into that in the months and years ahead remains to be seen, if they do at all.

One lesson they did learn last weekend was that the day belonged to the people. Yes they took in their numbers to the stage in Dublin Castle, but they kept it low key, instead letting it be the day for the people who’d thronged in there in their thousands, with many more watching from afar.

It’s only a few short years since we were on the brink of being a ‘Banana Republic’. Now we take our place proudly in the world as a ‘Rainbow Republic’, leading the world as the first country to back equal marriage in a popular vote.

Male, Stale and Largely Beyond the Pale? Yes

Modern Fianna Fáil was delivered a pretty big blow on Monday when rising star in the party, Senator Averil Power left them and in the process delivered a damning verdict on them. Power had been a leading figure in the Marriage Equality campaign for the party – in fact apart from a couple of doorsteps and TV appearances by others, she was the only figure representing the party at any sort of a national level.

Power’s resignation showed up one thing – the ‘old boys club’ is alive and well in Irish politics, or at least in one party in this country. The reaction from her colleagues was stunning – they blamed her personally, criticised her in a way she did not individualise anyone, and to be frank they just stopped short of being sexist and saying that it was because she was a woman that she was leaving.

A little over an hour after Power’s departure the ‘leader without followers’ (in fact many of them followed him in the hours and days afterwards) went on national radio and accused his former Senator of personal attacks – anyone who had watched the performance of Averil Power on the Dáil plinth on Monday at noon and listened to what she said could not have found anything personal in it – but Micheál Martin did.

Power’s defection to the Independent ranks leaves Fianna Fáil with a big problem – they are mainly pale, stale and beyond the pale as enforcer in chief Timmy Dooley admitted this week. This was evident in pictures with the arrival of the party’s newly elected TD, the bright new hope from Kilkenny, 60-year-old Bobby Aylward to shouts of ‘hon Bobby’, ‘whoo-hoo’ and other grunts and groans.

Power spoke to Seán Moncrieff on Tuesday’s programme on Newstalk – here’s just a little of what she had to say about the attitude towards her, and indeed women:

‘It was the system .... but I stopped the golf balls’

For some of us the jubilant scenes of happiness from last weekend were quickly replaced with new rage levels watching the banking inquiry this week. Patrick Neary – the man who was supposed to regulate our banks in the years before the financial crisis was witness in chief this week. He beat all previous records – his apology arrived at the end of the first paragraph of his opening statement. Up to now most other witnesses who felt the need to say sorry or regret did so only after they had settled in to their speech. The challenge now is for some witness to start their statement with those words.

Neary blamed the system, the system was designed that way (not by him of course) and he did his job, maybe looking back now with hindsight he could have done a better job alright, but sure at the time the attitude of everyone was to let the banks run themselves and do what they liked.

He did have all the powers he needed to stop the banks lending too much money to the property sector – but sure those limits they were breaking were really just guidelines and not any sort of hard and fast rule. So no he didn’t use those powers.

Neary has a nice pension as he was a career civil servant, and he took a golden handshake when he left that equals the mortgage arrears of quite a few people struggling – but his defence was that it was all within the rules and entitlements for someone who served the state so well for all those years.

One thing Neary did stop was promotional golf balls being handed out by teh regulator’s office – but as Susan O’Keefe asked him – what were they doing with branded golf balls in the first place?