Arrogance is not a good look for a government

Empires and administrations come and go. The Roman Empire ended for many reasons, but the arrogance of the ruling elite was a major factor. The great and the good of Rome had, in a word, lost the run of themselves. The decadence and high living of the rulers was all enjoyed at the expense of the common people, and that couldn’t last.

More recently, we’ve seen the same phenomenon closer to home, with Boris Johnson’s tenure as British PM coming to an end on the back of the so-called ‘Partygate’ inquiry that showed he had misled Parliament. Having gone into that government with an 80 seat majority, the Tory Party thought they were invincible, but they seem set to be wiped out in the next election. Pride goes before a fall.

Sovereignty may reside with Parliament, but it is a foolish politician that forgets it belongs to the people. The leaders are employed by the people, not born to rule them, and their job is to represent the best interests of the citizens.

Politicians from the two parties that have always ruled this State seem surprised by the rise of Sinn Féin. But the root of this surge in support for Sinn Féin doesn’t lie in the population suddenly wanting to be ruled from a bunker in Belfast, it is a predictable response to a sense of being ignored.

Following the financial crash of 2008, civil servants and others took cuts in incomes to help solve the crisis, and Minister Michael Noonan levied private pension savings three times to balance the books, a raid on the savings of some 750,000 people. 

Many affected pensioners are now paying much more in this pension levy than they are in property taxes, and it is a deduction from their incomes that they will pay until they die. In the meantime, civil servants (including Ministers) have had pay cuts restored, but Minister Michael McGrath last week announced that these sequestered savings will not be repaid.

During the Hepatitis C crisis, there was a well-founded suspicion that government was stalling the compensation of victims, waiting for people to die. 

The same mind-set seems to be driving this arrogant stance by the Minister; he knows the affected people are of a demographic that is dying off, and all the government has to do is wait and the problem will solve itself. 

Pensioners who live with ongoing and substantial deductions from their monthly incomes, from money they saved and scrimped to put by for their old age, can take comfort in the fact that the Minister takes an annual quarter of a million euro from the public purse.

But the people are sovereign, and the polls show they want that understood.