Somewhere along the line this year, Micheál Martin had an idea about how to win some badly needed votes for his perennially struggling Fianna Fáil Party. It was not, it must be said, an especially new idea. In fact, it was a very old idea. He would bribe a section of voters with their own money.
Specifically, the plan was to bribe health workers, or, in the preferred parlance, to “reward” them for their service during the pandemic with some form of bonus. They have, after all, served on the “front lines” of the pandemic.
The problem with such a plan should have been obvious, from day one, to anybody with even an average political brain. Yes, health workers, especially nurses and ER doctors, served heroically on the front line, risking exposure to Covid 19. But so did Gardai, to some extent. And bus drivers, to some extent. And teachers, to some extent, and so on, and so on.
In Ireland, rewarding one group in this fashion was always going to be seen as providing an insult to other groups. Add to that that many private sector workers and business owners suffered greatly during the pandemic, suffering financial losses for “the cause”, and what you have is not a recipe for votes, but yet another political mess for the Government, entirely of its own making.
Honestly, would it not have made more sense just to mint a medal for meritorious service, and awarded it to the most deserving? Most of us who did not get a medal would not especially mind. It would be recognition, without risking half the population feeling cheated. Over in the UK, that’s exactly what they did: The NHS, as an entity, was awarded the St. George’s Cross, the highest award that the Monarchy bestows for non-military bravery. Boris Johnson, a much abler politician than Mr. Martin, was never going to get himself into a mess over who deserved more money, and who does not.
But the Government is now committed to some form of bonus, and so, some form of bonus will have to be forthcoming.
The coming weeks will be full of people on the airwaves, making the case for this sector or that sector deserving a piece of the cake. And, eventually, because it is the least painful thing to do, the Government will spread the “bonus” around as evenly as it can.
Of course, the more widely the bonus is spread, the smaller the bonus for each individual will become. And, when it is eventually paid out, it will be decried by opposition parties, trades unions, and some columnists in the media, as “insulting”.
At a stroke, Mr. Martin will have managed not to win votes, but to have won six or seven weeks of poor coverage for his Government. He will also manage to alienate whole chunks of the electorate.
The bottom line is that this is a Government which often seems simply not to understand the people that it rules over. This particular mess was obvious miles in advance, and yet, as usual, nobody in Government had the foresight to say “stop”. The consequence now is that some large number of millions of euros will be spent on a bonus which will make very few people happy, win the Government no votes, and add yet more to the national debt.
It’s hard to fathom how incompetent it all is.