The Hunt Ban - a line we nearly didn't cross

We thought these Fianna Fáil people were without backbone. How we underestimated them.

At least we have got some clarity now. It is not so that Fianna Fáil TDs care about nothing. Nor is it so that the Labour Party necessarily cares about anything.

Our conviction that Fianna Fáil TDs were incapable of taking a stand on an issue that really matters when the chips are down has been shattered, well shaken. As has our suspicion that Fianna Fáil TDs don’t have the courage to threaten to defy the party whip. Well at least they spoke out, even if their defiance deserted them at the vote. These stalwarts are not known as soldiers of destiny for nothing.

We underrated them all along when they remained mute and the medical cards were at first removed for rich people over 70; when prescription and accident and emergency charges were increased; when dental treatment was withdrawn; when social welfare was cut; when the pay of public servants earning under €30,000 a year was reduced; when the Government gave billions to zombie banks at the expense of the welfare of future generations; when it emerged that their own leader had personally been culpable for the economic and financial collapse; when it emerged that children were dying of unnatural causes in the care of the State; when respite care is withdrawn.

We thought these were people without backbone. How we underestimated them. Just look at the determination in the eyes of the likes of Johnny Brady, Mary Wallace, Mattie McGrath and Máire Hoctor, when they spoke last Thursday, when, one by one, they rose to challenge their own Government at whatever cost to their political future, even to their expectations of ministerial elevation (or re-elevation in the case of two of them). Yes, I know they caved in last evening but their initial defiance was impressive – sort of.

Mary Wallace rose from her backbench seat to read a prepared script, carefully composed, perhaps by herself. It was not a usual sight to see Mary Wallace rise at all from the backbenches, but all the more valiant for that. Remember what she and the others were speaking against: a proposal to ban packs of dogs hunting domesticated farm animals. Courageously she insisted the hunted farm animals were not at all affected by the ordeal of the Meath Ward Union hunt, their wellbeing was in no way impaired by the terror of being chased by these packs of dogs for hours on end. Indeed the farm animals were not at all fearful of the dogs, for didn’t they live with them on the same farm and they were all friends. She didn’t explain, unfortunately, why these farm animals would bother fleeing the packs of dogs then.

Mattie McGrath opened with an ambiguous regret: “As a member of the Government party, I should have my hands around my two Green Party colleagues here, but, unfortunately, this is not the case.” He argued the people in the Ward Union and, presumably, other such organisations, have only the welfare of the animals at heart. They were animal-caring people. They should be left alone to chase terrified farm animals with packs of dogs whenever they felt like it from October to March every year.

Johnny Brady said the ban on stag hunting by packs of dogs would have a devastating effect on the economy of rural Ireland. “Hunting is part of the bedrock foundation of the €1.1 billion thoroughbred industry,” he said. With masterly defiance, he said: “As a rural deputy, I cannot stand back and witness the destruction of traditions going back generations. There comes a time to say enough is enough.”

What a pity that for Johnny Brady and other Fianna Fáil TDs enough is not enough when, for instance, the backbone of many deprived communities, the community development programmes (CDPs), that cost in total a few million, are done away with by Pat Carey, the Minister for Community, Equality and Gaelteacht Affairs. Pat, a decent man, gave these organisations an expectation that some compromise could be reached to save some of the CDPs. But yesterday the people in the community sector heard via a reporter that Pat had decided otherwise.

I inquired of a psychologist friend what it was that prompted Fianna Fáil TDs to revolt over the proposed ban on stag hunting, while remaining mute when such abominations have been done in their name. I was advised there is a psychological phenomenon known as displacement. Apparently, displacement operates in the mind unconsciously and involves emotions, ideas, or wishes being transferred from their original object to a more acceptable substitute (so says Wikipedia). It fits. These guys are unconsciously displacing the trauma that their Fianna Fáil leaders have caused them by taking it out on the Green Party. They should get therapy.

Therapy would make no difference to Labour. They are hell-bent on getting their feet under the Cabinet table with Fine Gael asap and are determined not to frighten the horses in the meantime, even if it means frightening the life out of the stags. It also means that they will sacrifice every inconvenient principle to achieve just that and so what if, again, in government, they achieve nothing at all that should matter to a socialist.