John Kelly - Why I went to the backbenches

In the last while you have increasingly identified yourself as an opponent of big Government, against State enterprise and a champion of the entrepreneur, especially the small entrepreneur.

It's not that I'm against State enterprise: but that the more the State takes on itslef to be the provider of jobs and prosperity, the more it takes on itself to do these things, the more individuals and groupings of people, who would work efficiently with one another because they know one another, feel absolved from doing things for themselves. Since politicians are in the business of getting votes, and since they do it in this counrty by promising to make life easier, adter life had certainly been very hard for years and years, they tend to offer to relieve people of functions which perhaps they would be well able to carry out themselves, maybe not as individuals but certainly as commmunities. That tends to demoralise people and cripple their innovative capacity and make them all the more dependent on a centralised body. In other words, it is not an ideological liberalism, its not old fashioned Whiggery ...

Well it sounds very like old fashioned Whiggery. In a speech you delivered on December' 10 last you positively glorified the small time entreprenuer. You referred to such people as "this thrusting, forceful individualist is in a way the quintessential human being".

Actually, that is a speech which the Department in a fairly brave moment gave me. I may have delivered but I didn't write it.

Do you agree with the sentiments expressed?

Its point of emphasis is not one which I would have chosen. I don't glorify .the small businessman all such. I think the small businessman as such should be encouraged. But I think individuals, whatever their attributes, should be encouraged, whether they are trying to advance group water schemes, land reclamation, the conservation of their own district and so forth. I think they are more likely to make a better job of it than somebody doing it for them who will relieve them of the responsibility for its success and whom they will hold responsible for its failure.

Did you deliver the famous "Piglets" speech?

I didn't deliver that either; but I did write it. I had mistaken the occasion. I thought I was going to address the Claremorris Chamber of Commerce and found out only when I got there that I was opening a fe s tival! I was seated at a dinner flanked on the one side by the Festival beauty queen and on the other by Des O'Malley, and it didn't seem quite the right opportunity to deliver my thoughts on the malaise of Irish politics.

To which dinner partner did you devote most of your attention?

It certainly was a very enjoyable occasion but I wasn't going to deliver the prepared remarks in those circummstances. However the speech had been sent around to the newspapers. The speech was misunderstood, even by some of my own colleagues, some of whom disowned it publicly. They took it as an attack on the welfare state - it wasn't that at all and I don't think the word welfare even appears in the script. It was more an attack on' the frame of mind which I've just been describing to you, which tends to look to the Government to solve all its' problems and tends to blame the Government if it fails to do so, even though it may not be in the Governnment's power to do so. Governments make up for this by giving in, giving in to sectoral demands, some of them justified undoubtedly, but some of them very unjustified. That's why I was comparing the State to this vxhausted creature (a sow) being savaged (by its piglets). It was not intended as a reference to people who need help. I should add that I think I got more messages of approval and support for that speech, in spite of its perhaps unfortunate drafting, than for any other speech I ever made.

One of the instances you gave, I think, was of people demanding dental care from the State.

What I had in mind there - and perhaps it was unfortunate to let it hanging in the air - was a discussion that had taken place some time previously on what was the State doing about the dental health of children. Of course the first people who should look after the children's teeth are their own parents. The whole Haughey business of handing free children's toothbrushes was a ludicruous exemplification of this phenomenon of people looking to the

State in the first instance to do someething for themselves which they should be trying to do themselves.

Are you saying that the State has overrintervened in 'this whole welfare area?

No, I'm not. I'm simply giving this as an example of the kind of mentality which the State has permitted to develop. People now, instead of saying "my children's teeth are very bad, I must do something about it like making sure that they wash their teeth and don't eat too many sweets or whatever" - they are now saying "what's the state doing about my children's teeth".

You mentioned that some of your colleagues disowned the speech. One of these was Garret Fitz Gerald.

Well he didn't literally disown it hhe put a distance between himself and it.

Were you unhappy about Garret Fitz Gerald's remarks?

I was unhappy about being dissowned by colleagues. I never dissowned anything they said although both in and out of Government I strongly disagreed from time to time with things some of my colleagues were saying.

In a speech to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis on March 27, 1981 you said that one of the first priorities of Government should be to get down the rate of inflation and you said "this means refraining from imposing taxation or extra charges on goods and services which push up the Consumer Price Index and, with it, the level of commpensatory demands". You did the exact opposite in Government.

A phrase cannot kill an argument but I did at one time say when asked about this that when you finally catch up with a runaway horse you may finally have to run a few steps with it before you can slow it down.

You didn't really have to run with that horse. You could have resorted to a variety of other devices, including one which would seem to be more in tune with your philosophy: cutting public expenditure.

We pruned absolutely everything that could have been pruned, although perhaps we should have moved faster in cancelling Knock airport and we might not have gone ahead with the Whitegate project - I'm not offering a definite opinion on the latter but this has been argued by others.

Well there are a number of fairly obvious things you might have done. For instance you might have cut out the £60 subvention to third level education.

That wasn't seriously suggested, nor could it be. I myself think however that the subvention of third level education benefits primarily the recipients of it, and that they should later be required to pay back some of the cost of that education. I think there should be a system of loans repayable over a period of years.

How about the State subsidisation of private medicine. Why should that be continued?

I agree that people who take private hospital rooms should pay the full economic cost of that, and there should be no State subsidisation whattsoever. But equally they should be able to insure themselves against having to meet such a cost.

You would hardly have had any ideological objection to the means testing of social welfare benefits.

Means testing has always been highly unpopular, though why this should be so is a mystery, when income tax is based on a means test and all the information about people's means is now for the most part availlable on computer to the Revenue Commissioners. The fact is, however, that means testing has been regarded as anathema, and therefore I believe we shouldn't try to force it down people's throats. But I believe that something like that would have occurred if the tax on short-term social welfare benefits had been implemented, as we proposed.

From what you say I get the impression that the Coalition Government didn't apply itself at all to the broad canvass of public expenditure, which is rather surprising given, in particular, your own ideological outlook.

I think that's a fair criticism. All I can say, is that we simply ran out of time.

But you spent literally months disscussing the estimates for the January 1982 budget.

Yes, but time simply ran out on us.

Did you need to spend a lot of time, for instance, discussing the estimated post office charges for the Department of Defence?

I forget how long was devoted to this Department or to that Department but decisions on public expenditure ~ and they have always been made, so far as I known, by the entire Governnment ~ all I do know is that the estimates took up fantastic quantities of time.

Productively?

Others must be the judge of that.

We were under tremendous pressure because of the size of the looming 1981 deficit but also because of the colossal deficit that threatened for 1982. We didn't have the opportunity for the kind of long term thinking that you are talking about. The Government never really had the leisure to sit back and look at the broad canvass.

Your basic point about political parties engaging in auction room politics and giving in again and again to sectional demands and pressures raises very serious questions about the 1981 Fine Gael election proogramme, where there were over 100 promises, all involving additional public expenditure.

I would be hard put frankly to tell you what many of these policies were.

One of them was to remove the isollation of rural women.

I'd forgotten that. I'm not sure I ever even read it. I'm not trying to infer that we have not also been conntaminated by the malaise I've spoken of, but I think this has been very much less so than in the case of Fianna Fail.

As I understand it, your decision to go to the backbenches has to do with a perception that as a society we are headed towards economic bankruptcy, primarily because of the auction room politics which has taken over all parties and that unless somebody calls a halt from a position of some independence then calamity will befall us. But this stance is surely underrmined by your defence of what Fine Gael promised in June 1981, and indeed your involvement complicitly in that exercise?

I'll make a short end of this kind of questioning. I don't mind admitting that you'll find a large number of flaws and inconsistencies in that part of my life I've spent in politics. One just has to plug ahead as best one can, a lot of the time naturally constrained by loyalty to colleagues - and I still feel that loyalty.

I can't help thinking that your decision was at least precipitated by the post election manouverings by Garret FitzGerald when all of a sudden we discovered that the VAT on clothes and footwear and the abolition of food subsidies were no longer indisspensable measures if we were to get out of our economic difficulties.

That's not so. I've had this in my mind for a long time. I did say a great deal of what I have in mind in a speech in the Senate last October on a motion on Garret's constitutional crusade. My contention is that we shouldn't lecture people in the North about there being no differences between ourselves and themselves when there are many conspicuous differences, while in this State there are two large parties with very similar kinds of followers, fuelled by very similar ideology, at least on the economic front, divided by no chasm of doctrine about state ownerrship, private ownership etc., and yet these two parties can't get along. The reason they can't get along is because of what happened 60 years ago about issues which didn't mean a great deal even then and which mean absolutely nothing to people now. When we establish the national unity that existed prior to the 1922 split it will be time enough for us to start lecturing the North about their backkwardness and creating a unified society. They have much more historical differences to bear.

What do you mean by mending the split between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael?

I don't have any set pattern in mind at this stage. But both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail represent the centre of gravity in Irish politics, they are both pragmatic, they both believe in the mixed economy and together they represent over 80% of the electorate, probably more than the old Sinn Fein ever represented. We are competing with one another for popularity by letting people think they can have things without paying for them, though, as I say, Fianna Fail are far more reckless offenders here than we ever were. And we do that because each is afraid of being outbid by the other, or of having lies told about it by the other or, in conditions of near-equilibrium as we have at the moment, because each has to look over its shoulder at elements of the extreme left, whose electoral support is very small.

Do you think it desirable that the two parties would merge?

I think it would be a bit of a risk in some ways. But I think a national force, or a national movement, connsisting of both these parties would have no excuse for cowardice, would have no excuse for conciliation for that which should not be conciliated, no excuse for not telling the people the truth. It would be able to deliver perhaps an uninterrupted 10 years of reasonable prudent and effective Government.

Do you have in mind then some form of electoral pact between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael for a period of about a decade which you believe would get us out of the economic difficulties we are in?

I don't have anything particular in mind. I am just very unhappy about how the pieces are now laid out on our political chessboard, about the kind of alliances or the prospect of alliances which I now see.

How do you feel about the prospect of future coalitions with Labour?

I think I'd like to reserve my position about another coalition with Labour. This is not because I have any quarrel with the Labour Party, - I think I have always had good relations with Labour colleagues in Government, whom I liked and respected - but it's just that I'm not sure that thinking about such coalitions doesn't distract us from the more central reality Hthe common ground, common ideology on economic matters that exists between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

Do you have an ambition to some day lead Fine Gael?

No, I do not have any such ammbition. I would do the job of leading my party if I had to do it but I am not aiming for that position. Let me add, I don't think anybody in the party ðand that includes myself - could lead the party as well as Garret does it.

If Garret were to resign over the next two to three years would you be a candidate for the leadership?

I won't deal with a hypothesis. I'll say this much. I would quail at the thought of the job. I don't know how Garret does it - it's a job that seems to get more difficult every day - and I think his sustained enthusiasm, energy, and power to inspire are unique in Irish politics.

Are you going back to University life now?

I am. I'm going back to my chair at UCD as Professor of Roman Law and Jurisprudence, from which I was on leave of absence.

Were you happy in Government as Minister for Trade and Tourism?

I was very happy with these responnsibilities and I was sorry that I had to leave many things undone. I was very proud of and happy with the staff of the Department who were absolutely marvellous.

Were you disappointed to be deprived of the Industry portfolio?

No, I wasn't. However, I believed then and I still believe that it was a mistake to separate the responsibilities for Industry and Commerce and I said so. This wasn't because I was anxious to build an empire - I would have been perfectly happy for Michael O'Leary to have Industry and Commmerce. But I think that Industry and Commerce in a country like this do belong very closely together.

There was a lot of talk in the early days of the Coalition Government of a great deal of friction between you and Michael O'Leary.

Yes. It was one of these press myths. There was absolutely no foundation to it. When Garret Fitzgerald asked me to join the Government he told me simultaneously about the re-distribution of the Department's functions, which had already been decided on.

No rows about office accommodation?

Absolutely none. I did hear that he came into the building expecting to occupy the office which I had already moved into, but I never had any friction about that or about anything else. Don't forget that this distribution of Ministries was decided upon before the Government was formed in the common programme for Government negotiated after the June 1981 election.

Finally, do you plan writing any more fiction now that you won't be handling a shadow brief?

I'm afraid I won't have time. There is the second edition of my book on the Constitution which will have to cover the very many developments in Constitutional law that have occurred in the last three years. •