Turbulence Ahead: Val Falvey TD for Taoiseach

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Val Falvey TD for Taoiseach

Will Val Falvey, TD do to the Irish political establishment what Father Ted did to the Irish Catholic Church? There are some interesting parallels: in Father Ted, Ardal O'Hanlon plays the part of a bumbling, not-quite-sure-why-he's-there character, partnered by a wiser, more cynical sidekick. In Val Falvey TD, Ardal O'Hanlon plays the part of a bumbling ...

The parallels may not stop there. Father Ted made us laugh at the surreal pomposities of priests, bishops and a hierarchy only interested in serving their own interests. But eventually we stopped laughing and started demanding an end to the cover ups and lies that hid an anything-but-funny cesspool of criminal behaviour. With Val Falvey TD we get to laugh at the surreal pomposities of TDs, Ministers and a hierarchy only interested in serving their own interests ...

Which brings us to last night's extraordinary capitulation by Brian Cowen TD at the negotiations on public sector pay. There is now only one logical outcome: the taxpayers of Ireland will be screwed even more than was planned already. Not that logic has ever played much part in Irish politicians' dealings with the public sector. Val Falvey TD would have done a better job.

You heard it here first: Val Falvey TD for Taoiseach.

(You can catch up with the first two episodes on RTE Player by the way).

2 comments:

JRGDec 3, 2009 05:29 AM
I see our real rulers don't much like any criticism being made of the ongoing soap opera cum pay negotiations (http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1203/partnership.html). Consider yourself told off, Gerard!
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HughDec 4, 2009 12:24 PM
Re: your reference to Brian Cowen's extraordinary capitulation to the public sector unions, I doubt Cowen has ever flown so close to the wind. With his legendary complacency, he was all set to sell the private sector down the river, as he has done so many times before, until even the supine FF backbenchers were goaded past bearing and rose up to demand he drop the ludicrous proposal to substitute holidays for pay cuts. It is now surely beyond dispute that social partnership is a blatantly anti-democratic conspiracy against the people, and that social partnership = oligarchy. Although, thinking about it, perhaps it would have been better if Cowen had persisted in his attempted fraud on the taxpayer, if the consequences had propelled the taxpayers to take their rightful place in civil society with their own representative organisation, as they have clearly never been represented by anyone at the table of "social partnership." (Sorry about the long post).
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