Disclaimer: The only source that we actually have for this story is an anonymously-sourced article in yesterday’s Sunday Times by Claire Scott. That said, Scott is a fine reporter, and you have to ask yourself: is there anything at all here that contradicts what we know about Irish politicians, and how they think?
The government is shelving plans to introduce a directly elected mayor for Dublin over fears it could become a launchpad for contentious would-be politicians such as Conor McGregor.
McGregor is unlikely to achieve his much-discussed bid to get on the ticket for the presidency this year, but the coalition is reluctant to have a plebiscite on whether or not Dublin should have a directly elected mayor as this is seen as a more realistic avenue to political office for the mixed-martial arts fighter….
…..“He would essentially have the powers of a minister. It would be a very significant role and the Dublin voter base would be the most amenable to him compared to any other part of the country,” a minister told The Sunday Times.
The election of John Moran, an independent candidate, as the first directly elected mayor of Limerick has heightened fears over holding a vote in Dublin, according to another minister.
“There has been discussion about someone like McGregor potentially doing well out of a Dublin mayoral election. There’s more of a risk there than with any other election because it would be such a powerful position, roughly 60 per cent of the Irish economy comes from Dublin,” the minister said.
A few things here:
First, there’s the obvious and self-evident point that we have Irish politicians (anonymously, but on the record to newspapers) now admitting that they do not want to hold certain elections out of a fear that the wrong sort of person might win. Beyond the obvious point that this is inherently anti-democratic, it is also – I think – pretty revealing. It was just a couple of weeks ago that we had the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, and other Ministers insisting loudly to literally anybody who might listen that “Conor McGregor does not represent Ireland or the views of Irish people”.
Yet, apparently, in private, they think he might. That’s worth noting.
Second, there is the perennial point that the most consistent trend in Irish politics and public life to have emerged over the past two and a half decade is the fear and loathing that the governing class have for those over whom they rule. Fear, in that there is genuine concern that if offered their true preference for who should govern them, the Irish people would choose something different, or something not currently on offer. Loathing, in that this fear inspires Irish politicians to be constantly thinking about new ways to keep the worst excesses of their own people under check. This expresses itself not only in political restrictions like “hate speech” legislation, or significant investments in the media to control the message that people consume, but also in lifestyle laws regulating how much people can drink, gamble, or eat. “The public are the problem which must be fixed” is perhaps the single most pervasive instinct in Irish political culture.
Third, there is the lack of vision.
The Irish Government is – as recent polls have shown – not popular. This is because it takes the blame for every problem in the country, which is natural in a country where the Government inserts itself into almost every issue.
A directly elected Dublin Mayor being some completely unprepared clown populist would actually be the best thing – politically – to happen to the Irish establishment in years. What they should do is welcome the election of some proper radical, and give the public a reminder in the process that actually, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are not so bad. Making Paul Murphy or Conor McGregor responsible for Dublin’s housing woes would be one way to do just that. And in the very worst-case scenario (for the politicians) where a populist mayor takes power and actually succeeds in cleaning up Dublin? Well. The country wins.
The only patriotic explanation for the attitudes outlined in the Sunday Times is that our politicians love Dublin so much that they cannot bear the thought of Mayor Richard Boyd Barrett declaring every Saturday a citywide day of Palestinian rage, or Mayor Niall Boylan welcoming Donald Trump to the Mansion House. That they believe such acts would be so bad for the country that to countenance them cannot be risked.
But if that is true – and for the record I think at least some of the fears about an unprepared populist mayor have merit – then isn’t it an argument, ultimately, for cancelling all elections? If the political establishment genuinely believes that the voters of Dublin cannot be trusted to make good decisions in a Mayoral election, then what does that justify if ever the day comes when opinion polling suggests that those same voters might be getting ready to elect a populist of left or right as Taoiseach?
Anyway, their fears are unfounded. I’ll tell you right now, that if they hold that election, no populist is going to win it. It would be much worse than that. The last time Dublin voted in a City-Wide election, which was in the European Election of this time last year, we got some sense of where the voters are at. And I’ll tell you here and now, that if there was a Dublin Mayoral Election, the end result would be a hundred times worse than “Mayor Conor McGregor”. It would be “Mayor Aodhán O’Riordáin”. Or perhaps even worse, “Mayor Hazel Chu”. Or, God help us all altogether, “Mayor Ivana Bacik”.
No, on second thoughts, they’re right. We shouldn’t risk that damned election.