WE’RE MORE INTERESTED in the “gossipy aspect of our parliamentary politics, rather than the nuts and bolts of how we’re governing our country”.

That is according to Lucinda Creighton, former Minister for European Affairs, at a discussion at the MacGill Summer School in the Glenties in Co Donegal today. 

“At the moment, our system is not fit for purpose.

“Our national conversation, our news cycle, is all around, frankly things that are irrelevant, like who’s going to be in the Áras in November.”

She said that this is down to the “gossipy aspect” of politics. 

Creighton was speaking as Michael Flatley told RTÉ that he was considering a presidential bid after being “approached by some very weighted individuals”.

“Everything is, as far as I can see, government is completely strangled by the need to cover our backside and have multiple reviews about every single decision that’s ever taken,” said Creighton.

This leads to “little leadership or risk taking”, she added.

“We are completely risk averse, and I think that that is not serving us well.”

Creighton said this is “directly feeding into the fact that we have an ongoing housing crisis without any clear, logical solution”.

She also mentioned this was contributing to the energy crisis, “a massive problem” with the electricity grid, which “is not fit for purpose”, and unmet “renewable energy aspirations”.

“We’re not capable of delivering the sort of infrastructure that’s required.”

Contributing to this is the one-year budget cycle, with Creighton saying that long-term planning is not built into our electoral system.

“If we’re to get to grips with the sort of radical change that is happening around us right now, we have to think about how we change our politics, our system of governance, to respond to that, to educate our policy makers and to enable them and equip them to be able to deal with these challenges that are coming.”

‘Condescending’ centre left  

Later in the talk entitled ‘Why is Liberalism Failing?’, the former Minister said that “there is a lot of research now actually showing that politicians and political parties of the center, particularly the center left are very, very condescending”.

She said that this condescension is turning people to the far right.

“Take immigration, the elephant in the room. If somebody expresses concern about immigration, they’re labeled far right.

“And if you do that to your own voters repeatedly, well then you’ll convince them that actually maybe they’re better off with the far right.”

Creighton said that this “is an excellent example” of where some politicians, representatives, aspiring candidates, “listen and try and understand”.

“Instead of referring to voters that you disagree with as deplorables, you actually try to understand what’s motivating them.

“And usually it’s a sense of insecurity. It’s a sense of too much change, too rapidly, not understanding the world around them or just being displaced in the world.”

Support to dismantle ‘Triple Lock’

Creighton also raised the Government’s decision to dismantle the ‘Triple Lock’ for Irish military involvement in operations abroad. Cabinet approved this plan in March.

“I’m very pleased and proud of our government, actually, for taking the decision to try to dismantle the triple lock.

“It’s an ineffectual tool, and it is destructive, and it’s important that we take that step, and hopefully it makes its way through the Oireachtas.”

As it currently stands, Irish troops in groups of more than 12 cannot be deployed abroad without approval from Cabinet, the Dáil and a resolution from the United Nations’ Security Council. This three-step approval is known as the ‘Triple Lock’.

She said that “it’s going to be increasingly difficult in this world of authoritarianism and polarisation to get things done through” multilateral organisations such as the United Nations. 

“I hate to take a take a phrase from the time of the Iraq war, but ‘a coalition of the willing’ on certain topics is going to be essential.”