When there was some back and forth in the Dáil recently with regards to the €200 electricity credit that was announced by the government in order to alleviate the rising cost of living expenses, the reaction from the opposition was predictable.
Not enough, something something; billionaires something something; inequality and so on. It’s what opposition politicians do. Often with a neck as hard as the proverbials because there is a good chance that if they had ever been in government themselves, they had been at the receiving end of similar criticism.
The Labour Party is a case in point although you would be forgiven for believing that they only recently emerged from a decades-old guerrilla war against the forces of conservatism and lack of Orts Council funding for really cool installations by the indigenous people of Sallynoggin.
The oul Shinners take the biscuit on this one it has to be said, because despite Mary Lou’s passionate dismissal of the €200 electricity credit – which she said with some reason “will not make a dent” for a considerable number of people – is not dissimilar from a grant that Sinn Féin in Stormont recently announced as a only a great thing.
Indeed, the scheme in the north is even more restrictive as the once off payment of £200 is only available to persons in receipt of social welfare. The southern electricity credit will knock €200 off all bills, regardless of whether someone is working or on social welfare. Unlike the Dáil, when the Sinn Féin Minister for Communities Deirdre Hargey gave details of the scheme in the north there was no uproar or claims that it was insufficient.
As Aontú tweeted:
Sinn Féin operate on a 26 and 6 county basis. Depending on what side of the border they are on, they will support or oppose a particular policy.
£200 is good enough for the North apparently, but the bare minimum for the South #costofliving #FuelPricesMustFall pic.twitter.com/LbHwWgG84c
— Aontú (@AontuIE) March 2, 2022
One of the reasons is that there is no real opposition in Stormont on stuff like this. I assume that Gerry Carroll the People Before Profit MLA was not there or maybe couldn’t be bothered anymore. Even the younger Sinn Féin MLAs who enjoy Soviet chic and never-ending worship of Communist monsters see absolutely no relationship between all of that retro socialism and doing what any other boring middle-of-the-road party does when it has power.
The most laughable examples of the schizophrenia in operation among supporters of Sinn Féin is that some of them – in response to the above being pointed out to them – were tweeting that £200 is worth more that €200. Which technically it is I suppose. In the interests of clarity perhaps the Irish government ought to call their payment the £164.86 electricity credit?