Michael Brennan: If you want positive attitude, Taoiseach, try it yourself
Tuesday July 20 2010
IT was miserable across most of the country yesterday morning. And the credit ratings agency Moody's certainly added to the gloom by downgrading us.
It was enough to make RTE's 'Morning Ireland' host Aine Lawlor quip ruefully that it was raining and the country was broke.
But could this have been the comment that tipped Taoiseach Brian Cowen -- a keen 'Morning Ireland' listener -- over the edge?
When he made his first public appearance at the Department of Agriculture's laboratory complex in Backweston, Co Kildare, yesterday, he was quick to accuse the media of "pervasive negativity" in its coverage of the economy.
Mr Cowen is correct to say that the Moody's assessment was not all bad -- it also changed the outlook for Ireland from negative to stable, and said the country had turned the corner.
That may be one of his favourite phrases but simply repeating something does not mean that people are going to believe it.
It's hard to be positive if you're one of the 450,000 people on the dole -- and trying to find work when jobs are thin on the ground.
The owners of a new cinema opening in Gorey in Wexford reported recently that they had got 1,200 applications for just 20 jobs.
Some people might react positively to the announcement yesterday by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern of a new law which will allow them to stand their ground and fight off a burglar in their home without fear of legal prosecution.
But it's hardly soothing to think of taking on armed men in masks breaking into your house at night and it definitely doesn't qualify as a "good news story".
It is also hard to be positive if you examine the latest provisional suicide statistics -- 527 people dead last year -- a 25pc increase on the previous year.
One newly opened cemetery in a midlands town recently had its first three graves occupied by those who had died by suicide.
Mr Cowen may, of course, be sensitive at the moment to the interpretation put on official reports and documents.
His Government has been hammered over the past few days by the opposition following the publication of documents about the run-up to the state banking guarantee in September 2008.
He has been trying in recent months to be more visible in public -- with mixed results. There has been no sign of a heartfelt apology for the appalling breakdown in financial regulation which took place on his watch while he was Finance Minister.
Or the way he did not take away the punchbowl when the property party was at full swing. He just told people when he was going to take it away (by announcing the phasing-out of property based tax reliefs) and they drank even more and even faster.
But Mr Cowen has been around the country much more and a close ally spoke yesterday about the impact he was having on a community level.
He recently opened a special needs school in Ballina, Co Mayo, which had been built at a cost of €5m after a 25-year wait.
Mr Cowen spent two hours there with the children and was interviewed by the media afterwards.
They wanted to know about the Croke Park deal with the unions. So it's sometimes hard to get across the positive because there's always the negative as well.
Mr Cowen did his best to accentuate the positive yesterday by speaking about having a "can-do" approach and pricing ourselves back into the marketplace so we can have an "export-led" recovery.
But at almost the same time, one of his biggest political rivals was talking in far simpler language about why he wanted to take over Mr Cowen's job as soon as possible.
"The reason is that I believe that this is a great country. I think we have huge strengths and we are hugely optimistic about it," said Labour's Eamon Gilmore.
Mr Gilmore, of course, also maintained that he could achieve €3bn in savings in the public finances without introducing a water tax, a property tax, a cut in old-age pensions or almost anything that voters might not like.
Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin weighed in on the side of Mr Cowen last night in his speech to the MacGill summer school in Donegal yesterday.
He called for leadership which was willing to push ahead with the right decisions even if they are the toughest decisions politically (Mr Cowen always speaks about making the "tough decisions").
Mr Martin said what was not needed was "pandering or the pretence that general statements are as important as specific actions".
But while Mr Gilmore took his opportunity to get his positive message across -- Mr Cowen used his precious media time to lash out.
He would have been better advised to stick to stories like the one he told at the opening of the final stretch of the Dublin to Cork motorway near Portlaoise six weeks ago.
There had been a woman on RTE's 'Morning Ireland' speaking about the new business opportunities it would bring to the bypassed town of Abbeyleix, which would no longer be choked with traffic.
She was very positive, Mr Cowen said.
- Michael Brennan
Irish Independent
