Drink and politics – Cowen no exception

Drink is more a feature of Irish politics than politics, writes Vincent  Browne.

On Tuesday of  last week, following Brian Cowen’s unremarkable radio interview, Ministers did their usual unremarkable thing pretending there was no issue. But now some of these same ministers are saying quite the opposite: that the interview was disastrous for Brian Cowen, for the party, for the government and for the country. And that Brian Cowen will have to shape up or else.

We now have a leadership crisis in Fianna Fail over yet another awful interview by Brian Cowen. The self serving vibes surrounding all this are repulsive – only when personal advancement is in the offing will a bit of truth be told, otherwise, the same old, the same old.

Brian Cowen has not done a good interview since he became Taoiseach. That snarling, hostility has been  present throughout, bolstered by denial and denial. There is a lot for Brian Cowen to be in denial about. He is the only public office holder that bears responsibility for the crisis we are in that still holds public office. All the others are gone: John Hurley, governor of the Central Bank;  Patrick Neary, the regulator; all the heads of the banks (but not all the directors which itself is a scandal). And Brian Cowen, arguably, is the most culpable of all.

As Minister for Finance it was he who bore primary responsibility for what is known as the pro-cyclical budgetary policy (ie boosting an already booming economy), it is he who presided over the banking crisis (if Patrick Honohan from the ivory towers of Trinity College could see there was an enfolding crisis in the banks how was it Brian Cowen did not notice from his more advantageous perch in the Department of Finance?).

But all along Michael Martin, Mary Hanafin, Dermot Ahern and the rest, all of them prattled the same mantra Brian Cowen was the man to lead the country out of the mess, even though he was the person chiefly responsible for leading the country into the mess. Awful interview after awful interview, including just two days before the awful interview and the mantra continued.

And it wasn’t that drink was not an issue all along either. Brian Cowen was not the only drinker in the cabinet. There are a few others who were putting a fair share of booze away night after night and coming in the following morning more than a little bit hoarse. And still the mantra continued: Brian Cowen and this government were the ones to lead us out of the crisis.

It was only when the twittering got out of control that it was discovered there was a problem here. Or rather it was only when the twittering created the possibility for self advancement that the mantra changed. If Brian and Mary Cowen are thinking these days that these born-again Pioneer Total Abstinence Legionnaires are in fact born again self-serving hypocrites, they can be excused for so thinking, for they would be dead right.

Drink is more a feature of Irish politics than politics, which, in truth, is not saying a lot about the drink culture, for there is hardly any politics in our politics. Everyone is agreed the bank bailout must go on, no matter at what cost; that the budget deficit has to be closed primarily by cutting public expenditure, no matter at what cost; that the rebalancing of wealth and income here is impossible and/or impractical, no matter at what cost. Yes, yes, we know most now agree the tax breaks have to be closed or modified and that will make some adjustment to the balance of wealth and income. But something more radical? No way!

So it’s more about drink than politics and it has been that way a long time. We’ve had at least one President who was a heavy drinker. Brian Cowen is not the first Taoiseach to have been fond of the booze. Because the role of TDs is largely meaningless (for the Dáil is largely meaningless) TDs haven’t much to distract them from the Dáil bar and certainly for a long time that was a problem for many of them – since I haven’t been in the Dáil bar for years (honest!), I don’t know what the situation is now.

And it isn’t just the TDs or wasn’t anyway. There was a serious problem with drink among the journalists who covered the Dáil but then drink was a serious problem in journalism for many years, less so now I think. Drink was a huge problem for many years in RTE. It was not unusual for people to go on air having had quite a few pints, maybe not the gallon which seems to be the test in some quarters.

Drink infuses so much of our lives and for so many has infused lives destructively. Micheál Martin made a name for himself in getting a ban on smoking in pubs to make pubs less harmful to health. But wasn’t a point missed in all that?