This year, I shall be mostly voting for…
So it’s general election time again. It’s been quite wearisome to see the country go through the ringer that it has had to over the past few years. I’ll admit, I bought into the whole Teflon Taoiseach era and was quite supportive of the regime when everything was on the up. But I couldn’t afford a house then and I can’t afford a house now (not that a bank in the country would give me a loan) so not much has changed in the overall scheme of things. Certainly, Bertie’s successor didn’t so much instill confidence, as slowly sap it further from our veins. I did my work experience in the Limerick Leader photography department in 1991, which is where I first encountered Brian Cowan, handing out awards to people who had completed Fás courses. The click of my camera caused a noticable disturbance in his address. I never took to the man at all. His continuing ineptitude in light of the financial crisis and (more damning I think) his lack of acceptance of responsibility for ANY decision making, or lack thereof, that got us into this mess, have been staggering.
This post though, is about changing this and changing the future. I have used a number of criteria to decide who I am going to vote for in the upcoming election. The first criteria is quite simple:
Are you Fianna Fáil, The Green Party, Sinn Fein or Independant?
Then forget it, I am not voting for you. The rest of the criteria are as follows:
- I work in the web development sector of the IT industry. Do you host your website in Ireland or use Irish web design companies for your website?
- Do you intend on introducing more taxes and charges (e.g. water) with no return to the populace?
- Do you intend on introducing third-level education fees?
- Two of my best friends are entering into a Civil Partnership, a ceremony I’ll be attending at the end of this year. Do you support same-sex marriage?
Based on these main criteria (of mine), you can count out Fine Gael and leave me with a half a point towards supporting Labour. My local Labour candidate is Ruairí Quinn, a man with some integrity (more than the current bunch) and a good reputation. So I suppose good ol’ Ruairí is getting my one and only vote. There will be no second choices, no transfers on my ballot card.
I truly hope that this period of going backwards in Ireland is over. I’m not like one of those daft American’s who expected Obama to come in and flick a switch to make it all better. I understand that it’s going to take time and I also understand that we may even need to go further back to finally start to go forward. But I refuse to support the current batch of crony’s who’s incestuous self support has let us as far down the rabbit-hole as we have come. I also refuse to support the hypocritical stance of the incumbents (one of Fine Gael’s 5 points in their plan is jobs, yet, as I have pointed out, not if you’re an Irish web design or hosting company).
You make your own choice and your own decisions. There is no perfect solution, but it is remiss not to vote. So all we can do is make the best choice we can, and hope that somewhere along the line, it contributes to a better future for us all.