From: tony@cactus.org (Tony J. Hurson)
Subject: Economist Article On Irish Election
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 01:52:56 GMT

Here's what the December 5th edition of The Economist said about
the recent Irish general election. It was sub-titled "Ireland's
Equivocal Break With The Past."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is good to see the Irish beginning to heave their politics out of the
historical ooze. In the general election on November 25th, they cut the 
share of the vote of each of the country's two big parties, Fianna Fail
and Fine Gael, by five percentage points, and doubled Labour's share to
nearly 20%. Nothing much divides the big parties, save personalities and
the memory of whose grandfather was on which side in the civil war of the
1920s. Labour stands for something new.

Labour used to be a small copy of its British counterpart, deriving its
feeble muscle and dim ideas from Ireland's industrial trade unions. With
some of the country's large employers of manual labour closed down, the
party started looking for a new role. It found it under Dick Spring, a
rugby-playing lawyer, who, from an untypical Labour seat in rural Kerry,
resolved to turn Labour into a thoughtful social-democratic movement.
His trade-union veterans are still there, would-be state capitalists all.
Despite their presence, the new wave is new indeed.

Mr. Spring has seen how to bring into politics the women whom Ireland's
parties used to confine mainly to tea-making. In 1990, he put Labour
behind a non-party candidate for the presidency, Mary Robinson - who won,
and has since become the public figure the country likes and respects
best. In the last parliament, Labour had 16 members, none of them
women. Now it has 33, of whom five are women. This is helping to make the
Robinson barley water a more common drink: parliament now has 20 women
members out of 166, compared with 13 last time. Patriarchy is fading.

So is the patriarchal authority of the Roman Catholic church, to which
95% of the Irish belong. On election day, in three linked referendums, 
the voters considered the constitutional ban on abortion which the courts
had declared was not a ban after all. The church, trying to look 
balanced, disliked all three propositions. Two were decisively carried:
one setting Irishwomen free to be informed about abortion services in
other countries (meaning England); the other establishing that those who
want abortions may travel abroad for them.

The third proposition was that it should be lawful in Ireland to end a
pregnancy only if the potential mother's life is physically 
endangered. The pro-abortion people said that was much too restrictive,
the church called it much too permissive. Holy and unholy votes 
combined to defeat the amendment. To replace the leaky constitutional ban,
parliament must now write the abortion law that it has always shied away
from, and may do so more liberally than the bishops would like.

The mood has changed. Politics has begun to change too, but only begun.
Despite their setback, the big two parties still rule the roost. Fianna
Fail - uncompromisingly nationalist, rustically nostalgic, led by the 
unpopular outgoing prime minister, Albert Reynolds - got almost 40% of 
the vote. Fine Gael - middle-class, moderate, led by the unpopular John
Bruton - got almost 25%. The coalition that must now be built will 
include one of them, and perhaps both. Labour will have trouble working
with either, or with the free-market Progressive Democrats (10 seats). 
The new government is likely to be neither radical nor firm. Firmness is
needed for an economy that looks grim by any but the EC's currently
awful standards.

Unemployment is touching 20%. The Irish pound is huddled behind painfully
high interest rates against rumours of impending devaluation. The
European Community will not dole out more than the current $850 per person
that it already gives Ireland in subsidies every year. Any government will
have to disappoint the voters who heard so many election promises. It 
would be gloomy if, having set out for modernity, the Irish were turned by
sour recession back into their old political habits. With luck the women,
inspired by Mrs Robinson, will prevent that; no gloom there, but a bright
new Ireland.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Disclaimer: Any opinions above have nothing to do with Ross Technology |
+------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Tony Hurson                        | Email: tony@ross.com   (work)     |
|                                    |        tony@cactus.org (home)     |
+------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Ross Technology Inc.,                Voice: 1-512-892-7802x257         |
| 5316 Hwy 290 West Suite 500,         Fax:   1-512-892-3036             |
| Austin, Texas 78735, USA.                                              |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic