It’s been a deeply disturbing few weeks. The latest news coming down the mojo wire, day after day, has painted the country’s situation in an ever more precarious light. You thought things were bad? They are far worse than bad. All of the Government’s calculations have been proven wrong. So far wrong, in fact, that you wonder: how could they possibly have screwed things up so spectacularly? But they did.

For a start, the scale of the debts they have taken on in bailing out the banks is greater than anyone could ever have imagined. The black hole keeps getting bigger. The threats of swinging cuts have intensified. The Germans are already in the Department of Finance – or so we’re told. Our sovereignty is in jeopardy. To say that it is all doom and gloom is to understate the case. This is the end of the world as we know it. This is Armageddon time. Or so the news media keeps reminding us. They might even be right…
There is a lot of anger out there as a result and it is fully justified. We didn’t create the problem – an unholy alliance of politicians, bankers, bureaucrats and speculators took care of that – but everyone is being told that they’re going to have to pay and pay again to keep the good ship Ireland float. Dig deep, suckers. We’re all in this together.
But people don’t believe that – and they’re right not to. They don’t feel responsible for what’s happened for the simple reason that they aren’t. They are being bullied and browbeaten into accepting a share not just of the bill but of the blame. It is fundamentally unjust, an appalling travesty, and the ordinary people sense it in their bones. They get the picture now: we have been saddled with a mountain of debt while the so-called risk takers in the international financial marketplace walk away – some up, some down, but essentially as a collective unscathed. And they know that this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
No one is entitled to feel this more than students. The vast majority of them were in school when Charlie McCreevy went ape and the economic policies that gave rise to all of this were being shaped. They didn’t have a vote. In other words, they didn’t have hand, act or part in electing the politicians who were caught fiddling while Ireland burned. So they want to know: why are they now being expected to shoulder the burden? It’s a valid question.
For a long time, students in Ireland have been a dormant force – too focused on careers and money, years-out and life experiences, Bebo and Facebook and all of the rest of the bullshit, to make any effort politically. The Student Unions, by and large, seemed to have become a training ground for members of the college cumanns of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There wasn’t much evidence of radical thinking on campuses. ‘I’m alright, Jack’ seemed to be the universal creed.
Well, they’re not alright any more. The economy is in tatters. There are fuck-all jobs in the offing for graduates. For most students, on the face of it at least, the short-to-medium term prospects are bleak. A lot of those who graduate over the next two years will be forced to emigrate if they want to find work. And as if that wasn’t depressing enough, they are now being told that they’re going to have to pay vastly increased registration fees for the privilege of getting an education, which will at best enable most of them to apply for jobs as waitresses and barmen here.
The demonstration in Dublin against the increased registration fees was the biggest student demo in years. There was a feeling of defiance on the streets, and of pent-up energy being released. By any standards it was a good thing. It may be that during the course of the protest, the Gardai were taunted and provoked. Far from being a big deal, that is par for the course. And it is no excuse whatsoever for using excessive force. The Garda Riot Squad have shields. They have weapons. They have the backing of the courts. And they have vested in them the authority of the State. They therefore also have a responsibility to act with restraint. They must not allow themselves to be drawn into a street brawl. They must err on the side of care – and they must be seen to.
Would it have been possible for Gardai to manage the demonstration without inviting opprobrium? Of course it would. They could have maintained their good humour. They could have been pleasant and nice and downplayed and neutralised any hint of aggression. Instead they were captured on camera using palpably unnecessary force, beating demonstrators with batons, breaking limbs and dishing out bloody noses. They were not under physical threat at any time and they knew it. And yet individuals among them allowed their tempers to fray. Vicious elements within the force were enabled to have a lash. And, in the process, they demeaned themselves and the authorities they represent.
Anti-Garda sentiment, as a badge of honour, is puerile. When it comes to the kind of dangers and threats that exist on the streets, they are the people we turn to – and we expect them to put themselves in the firing line. And they do. I know a number of Gardai personally. They do a difficult job, and for the most part, as individuals they do it well. They are conscientious. They care about doing the right thing.
There are lots who are less scrupulous. The problems in the force have been well documented and only a fool would try to minimize them, with the shocking abuse of human rights in Donegal representing the most extreme example. Necessarily, the Gardai serve the system by which they are mandated. In many respects, they reflect the political and class prejudices of the agencies that control them. And the force is frequently very badly run, from the top down. But they also do good and essential work without which everything would be in danger of becoming completely unmoored.
And so, while individuals may have exceeded their brief in using excessive force against the student demonstrators, it is not enough to scapegoat the guys who swung the batons. Responsibility for what happened lies with those in charge. Whoever put those Gardai on the streets and failed to provide the preparation and training necessary to insure that they would act in a controlled and dignified manner at all times is at fault.
Which takes us back to the start. There is a problem in this country. It is that those in charge twist and turn at every opportunity to avoid taking responsibility. When there are hard decisions to be made they hide – until there is nothing else that they can do, except swing the axe.
There was a moment, going back over two years, when the Government had in its power the potential to take control. There might have been details of the disastrous situation in the banking sector that they were not yet privy to, but they hade the broad picture. I remember at the time thinking: if they stepped forward tomorrow and announced that the members of the Dáil were taking a 30% wage cut, then they would at least have claimed the high moral ground. They’d still have been relatively well paid. And they’d have been in a far better position then to quickly cut to the chase with all of the other vested interests and get the cost of running the country down. Meanwhile, they could have confronted the bond holders.
Instead they vacillated. They failed to show even a modicum of leadership. They allowed things to get far worse before they started to ring the alarm bells and take ineffective corrective action.
The message is this: stop blaming the foot soldiers. This is all about politics. Everything else is just an illusion…