Momentum Builds for Reform

I guess one is basically "conflicted" as the yanks put it, when you agree entirely with the sentiments of a political leader but deplore their motives. That's exactly the way irishtaxpayer feels about the latest weird pronouncements of Enda Kenny, the esteemed leader of the post-fascist Blueshirts we grace with the title 'official opposition'.

With a conversion worthy of Saul on the road to Damascus, Kenny revealed to a pig-sick collection of party worthies that he wanted to abolish Seanad Eireann.

Most of the fat-cat bloodsuckers in the audience that night must have been choking on their foie gras, as the Seanad, or waiting room for failures as the rest of us know it, is a key part of the system that props up the worst people in politics and delivers them back to us at every election.

Kenny is either being extremely brave to take on the vested interest that is Fine Gael, or else he has truly taken leave of his senses after the shock of being made to look like an uberwimp by Eamon Gilmore during the dispatch of John O'Donoghue.

But the truth, of course, is that Enda Kenny is now as much of a slave to his PR people as Brian Cowen is to his civil servants and the unions. Which explains the desperate attempt to suddenly surf the zeitgeist by leaping onto the bandwagon before it finally disappears over the hill.

The only bright spot in this sorry affair is the reference by Kenny to a list system as part of his proposed new broom. Although he probably sees this as just a new way to use patronage, it could be a brilliant way of bringing real talent into the stagnant pool of the Oireachtas. God knows, even one outsider from the world of business or science would increase the general IQ level in the Dail by a factor of ten!

The last great hope of reformers - the Greens - sold out to FF in the Programme for Government when they kicked reform into the long grass by settling for an electoral commission, whose final report can be safely ignored until the election is out of the way.

At least with FG now making such a bold grab for the people's vote, it will be next to impossible for any of the parties to bury reform from now on. Nevertheless, poor Enda has probably bought his ticket out of the party leadership with his talk of abolishing one of the carriages on the gravy train. The lazy good-for-nothings in his party will see to that.

The bottom line is that this movement for reform of our political institutions is too important to be left to self-interested politicians. They are cowering in their bunkers hoping we will go away. It's up to us to keep the pressure on until we have a system that is fit for purpose.