I had, as is not uncommon, an email last week from a woman who was very distressed about the state of affairs in Limerick University Hospital Accident and Emergency. You can probably imagine what it said: Suffice to say, her loved one had the misfortune of being told to go there on a Friday evening, and was still there, awaiting a first chat with a medic, in the early hours of Saturday morning. It’s an experience I had myself, a few years ago: Sent as a precaution by the doctor on call because of chest pains, I arrived at the gates of hell (as Limerick A&E should really be known) at about 9pm. At about 2am, after five hours perched on a plastic chair, I decided that if I was having some kind of heart incident, it might be better to go home and die in the comfort of my own bed. I was subsequently advised that if I ever did think there was something wrong with me, to call an ambulance, because that way you can skip the queue, when they wheel you in. Ironically, the very well intentioned person that was giving me that advice was displaying broadly the same attitude to Irish rules and regulations as your average Fianna Fáil TD: This is how the system works, and here’s how we make it work for us.
Most of us don’t care, let’s face it. We just don’t. Until we need the hospital ourselves, and then it’s a disgrace, Joe, so it is. But since most of us are healthy, it’s just other people whinging about the health service again. We can deny it till the cows come home, and some of you will, in the comments. But the record speaks for itself. There is no obsessive coverage, no phone-in outrage, no protest marches, over the state of that Accident and Emergency, or other Accident and Emergency departments, until it affects us directly.
But, have you heard about Robert Troy?
Robert Troy is, objectively, a wealthy man. That’s his first sin, at a time when people are struggling. His second sin is that he is, clearly, a bit of a cute hoor. He buys property cheap, and sells it for more. He has a finger in every pie. Cavan is full of Robert Troys. So is Monaghan. Perhaps as a border county native, his character is so familiar to me as to be unsurprising.
There’s something in the Irish psyche, though, and it’s deeply unattractive, which relishes the chance to take lads like Robert Troy out. It’s a unifying pastime: Dublin is full of people in the chattering classes who adore the idea of putting a gombeen like Troy in his place. A jumped up bogger with houses here and there and a back pocket full of cash who didn’t make his money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it or fishing it out in sackfuls from the four courts. They’re thrilled at the idea of a fellow like that going on RTE one and being bamboozled by an educated, civilized host, spluttering and unable to answer the questions. It feeds their sense of intellectual and moral superiority. Robert Troy is what makes them superior to the savages. We can pretend that’s untrue, again, but it’s not.
And then there’s the other crowd: the people who make hunting people like Troy into a substitute for Fox-hunting, and love nothing better than the sight of their quarry on the run. “C’rupption!” they bellow. “Brown envelopes!” “FFG at it again”!
Here’s the truth of the matter: There is no evidence at all that Troy has enriched himself unjustly at the public’s expense. If we’re all honest with ourselves, his crime is simply that he has multiple houses when a lot of people don’t have any houses at all. And that’s what he himself appears not to understand: He can go on the radio and blubber all he wants about how he made a mistake in not declaring his eleven, or eleventy-two, or however many houses he owns. But that’s not what has people annoyed. Again, deny it all you want, but most people aren’t annoyed that Troy didn’t declare his houses. They’re annoyed that he has that many houses. The “did he declare them?” question is mainly useful because it gives us all an excuse to be annoyed.
If you want my opinion, it’s this: Robert Troy should be hounded out of office. Chased. Given the boot. Fecked out. Perhaps even made a national pariah.
But not for this.
No, he should be run out of town because inflation is approaching ten per cent. He should be roaded because the health service is a shambles, and – in my judgment of his record and character – he’d vote to burn every hospital in the country down if that’s what the Chief Whip told him to do. He should be booted unceremoniously because this winter, the country might face power cuts, and he’s voted mindlessly for every dumbass policy that led us to this juncture, because, again, that’s the way the Chief Whip said to vote.
He is, so far as I can see, a party man, a loyalist, a man who puts Micheál Martin first, and everything else second. He should be denied even a single vote because he doesn’t legislate, he just goes along to get along, and has voted for every single disastrous policy that has the country in the various messes that afflict it. He does not represent the people in Government, but, like so many of his ilk, seems to think it’s his job to represent the Government to the people instead. I’m not sure he’s ever had an original political thought. Like most backbenchers, he seems to think fancy-dan things like having ideas and policies is a job for them Europeans over in Brussels.
But he’s not alone in that. The problem is not Robert Troy, it’s the voters.
It’s that as an electorate, we don’t have any anger for incompetence, or fecklessness, or ineffectiveness in our leaders unless it impacts us very directly. We reserve our anger for any evidence of any kind that they might be richer or more comfortable than we are. You could fuel this country on the hotair bellowed about the Government Jet, or TDs expenses, or jobs for the boys, or who ate dinner where. But we don’t give a hoot about policy. Let’s not pretend to the contrary.
That’s why I struggle to blame politicians. I also wonder who, in their right mind, would want to be one. Poor aul’ Troy, I imagine, had a hell of a time of it on RTE radio one yesterday, explaining his personal finances and his stakes in various properties. Meanwhile thousands of fellas like him will have been chortling at home, listening to him, and thanking God that they don’t have SIPO to deal with.
It’s an irrelevance. We’re obsessed with irrelevance. Meanwhile, in an A&E somewhere in this country, there’s a woman watching her poor father entering his ninth hour on a Trolley, begging the nurses to give him a slice of toast.
One might come, in an hour or two, if she’s lucky. Maybe there might even be a miniscule single portion of butter on the side, and a plastic knife to spread it.
But Robert f**king Troy, eh?
Update: A reader writes, in defence of Troy:
“No more Denis O’Brien’s because Robert Troy helped get the perjury bill enacted. We worked with O’Ceidigh but Troy pushed it through. Also, the summary rescue process will mean thousands of business have a chance of surviving they otherwise wouldn’t have. The examinership process is only available over 3m turnover. He listened and we pushed through highly progressive pro small business legislation. He’s f*cked up for sure but I found him straight, thoughtful and he has a lot more steel in him that many may think.”