Politics is now a profession, not a vocation, and in a profession the objective is to remain employed.
Though pragmatism might be what voters want, the opposition inside and outside of the Dáil is not incentivised to provide it.
Senators have no business commenting on people’s employability.
If you look at Ireland this week and see a madhouse run by weird quasi-religious obsessives, know that you are not alone.
Aside from offering generational change on the left, Cairns offers something else that nobody else can: Purity.
It’s an interesting conundrum, and one wonders whether the Soc Dems have really thought it through.
The natural choice.
Cromwell, were he alive, might have different views today. But he’d thrive all the same.
It all comes back, I think, to the biggest problem with this Government: They don’t actually know who it is that they are for.
We elected a Dáil – if it does not want to do its job and legislate, it should disband.
There is, you sense, a dawning realisation in Leinster House on this issue: We’re in trouble.
Is there any other law that the state actually rewards people for breaking?