We will remember 2018 as the year that politics and people parted

It was always going to be a year to etch in history. At the start of the year it was obvious we would need certainty around Brexit, and around the future of our own government. (One out of two ain’t bad, but it ain’t good either.) We also knew the year would end with the commemoration of the 1918 election, which indirectly led to a border on this island and in which women made their first foray into electoral politics.
We could not have known then that the year would be so explicitly dominated by our women and the role they play in the world. The landmark political event of the year was the referendum on abortion, in which two-thirds of Irish voters decided that the contents of a woman’s womb were largely her own business and that her fellow citizens, or the State, should not retain the same influence over the nascent life within.

That was the obvious fusion of people and politics: there is no greater unity of the two than when they amend the constitution of their own State. But to a degree, that was the public pulling back control of the process. Remember, the Oireachtas cheerleaders for a more liberal abortion regime were few and far between. Only two years ago, when Clare Daly tabled a bill on fatal foetal abnormalities (albeit one which was likely unconstitutional) there were only 45 TDs in favour of it. Compare that to the 90 TDs who turned up to support the new legislation that Michael D Higgins signed into law last week.

For some years now there has been a drift between the political system, and the people they represent. This has worked both ways: in some ways it’s because politicians are simply behind the curve, but in the main it is because the public have pointedly left them behind.
There is no better example of this, and of the imprint of women in politics, than in the CervicalCheck scandal earlier this year. Politics decreed that, two years ago, the Government would abandon a pledge to put so-called ‘open disclosure’ – a duty of candour to inform a patient of their condition, or any errors in their care. A proposal to put such a duty on a legal footing was abandoned in a nod of recognition to the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, who informed the Government that such disclosures would flow more freely if doctors weren’t compelled to make them. (The logic of that one still eludes me.)

And so politics followed. The clause was omitted from the law in which it was originally an ingredient. The cost has been incurred by 221 women and counting, some of them the highest possible cost.
But politics, having created this problem, did not step in to amend it. If anything, it tried to compound it. Vicky Phelan was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement when the HSE and its client laboratories conceded that her smear tests had, and should not have been, misread. Had she assented, we might still not know. It was only because of her, and the likes of the late Emma Mhic Mhathúna, and Ruth Morrissey, and the heartbroken Stephen Teap, that we know the human costs of this.

Among the Government’s responses was a commitment to revisit this earlier lapse – and to put open disclosure on the statute books after all.
It hasn’t happened yet. Can we expect it to make the books this side of an election?

A last chance to clear the legal pipelines
For the last twelve months the legislative pipeline has ground to a halt because government departments were reluctant to put the energy into drafting and progressing a new legislation. Why bother going through all the legwork if the bill won’t be passed before the Dáil is dissolved, and when the next government might not pick it up again?
It seems that, assuming the UK doesn’t get a Brexit deal over the line at home, that much of the first quarter of 2019 will be devoted to legislating against a no-deal. Certain urgent legislation will be needed to mitigate the worst effects.
But after that, with the assurance of another year in power, maybe some of that legislation might now stand a chance. Other bills that have been dragged to death, like the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, have taken almost two years to filter through the lawmaking system. Maybe now with the guarantee of 15 months more time to get stuff passed, some of those more contentious or less-urgent laws have a chance of getting through.

That opens up some interesting prospects. Shane Ross’ most recent drink-driving laws took an age to get through the house, because of the obfuscation and stalling tactics of some rural independent TDs. There are plenty within his own Government who don’t want to see his most recent idea – where the size of penalty points and fines are linked to the scale of the speeding offence – but if he has a year to drag it through, there is now every chance of being able to make it into law. The extra year in power – especially without the constraints of a defined programme with Fianna Fáil – gives each minister a new lease of life. Instead of being paralysed by the fear of imminent eviction, they each now know they have a stay of execution in which they can dust down the ideas on the top shelf and bring them through.

Micheál will live or die by his gambit
All of which makes it even more bizarre that Micheál Martin did not present a shopping list for giving Fine Gael an extra year with the levers of power – and effectively granting his existential rivals another year of unchecked governance.
That’s now how Fianna Fáil will portray it. They’ll say the original deal still holds, with all of its quirks and conditions, such as when it comes to the next Budget – where Fine Gael were previously obliged to make progressive cuts to the Universal Social Charge. But are they? Fianna Fáil hasn’t been magnificently clear about whether the existing deal continues to apply for the future.

Speaking to the media after extending the deal, Martin told us that Fianna Fáíl’s focus was on delivery of the 2016 promises that hadn’t yet been delivered. The media asked what they were; the answers were vague and woolly – you might even say nebulous! – and dealt with housing and broadband – but even still, Martin noted, broadband was outside of the general ambit of the confidence-and-supply deal in the first place.
Martin is a curious figure. His party is far from the ‘disciplined force’ that Sinn Féin might be – one need only look at the epic leaked text messages from Marc MacSharry, the continued ambivalence of John McGuinness, or the rogue actions of Éamon Ó Cuív and Mark Daly, to see how such a broad church party can struggle to keep command on its members – but despite that, his leadership is broadly unchallenged. When he issues a policy decree, it is always accepted, even with a heavy heart. It’s a habit inherited from the previous Dáil, when the party was effectively placed in Martin’s sole trust. His handling in those dour times has meant he remains in effective sole command of the ship, even though he has 25 new colleagues behind him.

But it is remarkable that even such major discussions as this are left to his sole discretion. The party’s official policy is that it must hold an Árd Fheis of its members to decide if it will participate in a coalition government. At the very least, one would have expected a discussion among the parliamentary party before Fianna Fáil declared that a general election, originally imagined for 2019, would now be delayed until 2020. If he were to make that decision unilaterally, he might at least have outlined some demands in exchange.
But no: Fianna Fáil – or, rather, its leader – have made the decision that our democratic expectations should be suspended for twelve months or longer. A quarter of the electorate elected a third of the Dáil, whose parliamentary role is now diminished so much as to be a possible irrelevance.

The Brits Are At It Again
The reason is Brexit, the rationale that it would be irresponsible to have a change of government during the uncertainty Brexit will bring. Fianna Fáil simultaneously tells us Fine Gael are underdelivering in government, and that they don’t want to replace them just yet.
Is it worth it for Ireland? Only time will tell for Micheál Martin.
Is it worth it for Britain? Is the strain of untangling a nation from a complex interwoven set of international treaties, for the pretence of regaining sovereignty, worth the diplomatic, political, economic and fiscal sacrifice?

Perhaps it is. Brexit is easy to write off as a folly – and it largely is – but we shouldn’t forget why it happened. Those who voted for it may not have expected it to happen, but their basis for doing it wasn’t a flippant empty gesture. Brexit was the ultimate protest vote, of generations whose votes have never mattered, who feel that their lives are now more influenced by the tides of global corporations and nefarious interests, than by their own governments. Even changing government now can’t turn the tide of an economy or halt the loss of jobs. Brexit was an attempt, in an honest sense, to take back control.
It can’t be done. There are no nations any more, only threads in a global fabric, where we all consume each other’s food, drink and media. But if politics is to mean anything, Britain’s leaders now have to try and pull off the impossible.

The sad reality is that Theresa May, or whoever might come to replace her, has no option but to bring the UK out of the European Union with all of the chaos it will prompt. The likelihood is that, barring a giant change of heart, the UK will cut the cord in a departure that disrupts everything from food supply to energy.
She must do so, because it is what the people voted for. Anything otherwise might be in the country’s interest, but it is not in the public interest. There is no point in having a public if the parliament can ignore it. But there’s also no point in having a parliament if the public can overrule it, holding a referendum to undo what their MPs said.
Politics and people can’t keep drifting apart forever. This is the price that we have to pay.