COMMENT: Maybe politicians will listen next time

SO WHERE exactly did it all go so horribly wrong for Labour/Fine Gael? The best brains in the political back rooms are currently dissecting the corpse of the outgoing coalition as the election postmortem continues.

Was the core message about keeping the recovery going wrong? Should Enda Kenny have been kept away from live television debates and sent off hiking to the wilds of Mayo until the last votes were cast on February 26? And perhaps Joan Burton should have reduced the amount of times she said “can I just say…”.

Did the constant media bashing of Sinn Féin actually have the opposite effect than what the scaremongers had intended? Clearly, the Irish electorate don’t like being lectured on how they should vote.

At the time of writing, we still have no Government and there’s a possibility we won’t have one in place for the 1916 Easter Rising celebrations. Ironic or what?

Much of the post-election fallout has focused on Irish Water. Just weeks ago, in the throes of the election campaign, politicians like Alan Kelly were reporting that water was not a major issue on the doorsteps.

Well guess what, Alan. It was a bloody huge issue; a game-changer in terms of the seismic shift in Irish voting patterns away from the establishment parties. Fianna Fáil may have experienced a recovery but it was from a very low base given the party’s mauling in the 2011 General Election. 

The Social Democrats look destined to occupy the moderate, left of centre space once held by the Labour Party. Renua simply failed to connect. I imagine there will be a few ‘renewal’ membership applications discreetly lodged with Fine Gael over the coming months. 

But here’s the thing: when tens of thousands of people were marching on the streets in opposition to water charges, surely it was incumbent on one of the Government’s well-paid advisors to point out the obvious and say: “Listen lads, every single person out there protesting today potentially represents a lost vote for our parties. Maybe we should take a look at this Irish Water thing again…”

The incoming Government has inherited the Frankenstein creation that is Irish Water. If it’s abolished, billions will have been needlessly wasted; if it’s retained, it will continue to be a running sore on the body politic.

Our newly elected TDs need to consider the matter carefully as they may have to face the electorate again sooner than they’d like. Maybe they’ll listen next time.