More waffling, more dithering
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Friday January 08 2010
MINISTERS may argue that nobody could possibly have foreseen weather like this. Some, like the Defence Minister, place the blame for the chaos squarely on the local authorities, which, he says, failed to ask for assistance. Then it is pointed out that there is an international shortage of salty grit, for which the Government is gamely competing against bigger and stronger economies.
Indeed, as the soundbites pour forth, they sound more and more like the excuses we have heard for the state of the economy. As Dublin runs out of gritting material and the ice tightens its grip on roads and footpaths around the country, we should remember that the collapse of Lehmann Brothers is to blame for it all.
The fact is, by dithering and waffling and offering utterly transparent excuses for doing nothing, the Government has again turned a good opportunity to win the confidence of the people into a public relations disaster.
Green Party leader and Environment Minister John Gormley has been handed the job of co-ordinating the Government's belated response and, last night, he gave a reasonable account of the scale of the problem that he, and the rest of us, now face.
By contrast, the Taoiseach, who has been silent for the past three weeks about a growing national emergency, sounded uncertain, unconfident and uninspiring.
Appropriately, perhaps, Defence Minister Willie O'Dea came across as being all defensive when asked why the Army had not come to the rescue with its many 4X4 and 6X6 vehicles and its dozens of big, recovery vehicles. The local authorities had not asked for help, he said.
Therein lies the nub of the Government's abject failure in this chilly start to 2010. As the people cried out for help, central Government washed its hands of responsibility and looked around for someone to blame.
But why dwell on the public responses of the likes of Brian Cowen and Willie O'Dea and the absence of the holidaying Transport Minister? Because, battered and dispirited by the recession and the measures introduced to survive it, people are desperate for action, any action that shows the Government is alert to their problems and willing and able to address them with intelligence and vigour.
Irish Independent
