Irish party-leadership is soo old!

Mr Pseudonym

Enda Kenny - 63
Eamon Gilmore - 59; potential successor Joan Burton - 65
Michael Martin - 53
Gerry Adams - 65

The average age of the cabinet is 58. There are only four ministers under that age – Varadkar (34), Coveney (41), Hogan (54), Howlin (57).

David Cameron - 47
Nick Clegg - 47
Ed Miliband - 44

Labour TD Dominic Hannigan said his party needed to "look to the next generation; to people like Alex White" - ie 55 y/o Alex White!

Why is Irish politics dominated by old-fogies?!

Eoghan Murphy, Damien English, Alan Kelly, and others are all impressive, yet largely unknown. The only "youth" Kenny has supported consists of Coveney and Varadkar (supposedly, he only begrudgingly agreed to have them in Cabinet - "Friends close; enemies closer"), and Simon Harris (who can always be relied upon to toe the party line). Hayes went to Europe because it was felt his chances of promotion under Kenny were non-existent.

I'm not calling for an Irish equivalent of Grillo's Five Star Movement, but it's preposterous to think that, by the end of the next parliament, Kenny could be seventy, and Burton and Adams seventy-two.

carpejugulum

Old people have most wealth and power in this country so this is also a reflection of that.
And old people tend to vote more than younger as well.

imitation

Doesn't help that the young representation you have there is Leo "I'd better say something controversial" varadkar

Manach

Age discrimination is generally frowned on from either end of the age spectrum. There is a reason why the Rome senate had its linguistic root from the latin "old"; as it should theoretically provide a depth and breath of experience of a life broadly lived.
Unfortuneately, this diversity of experience on how people live is not replicated in the career choices of politicians- publicans and teachers. To trend to a lower age in leadership would incline towards career politicians who've not experience except seeing the state as a milch cow.

Scofflaw

Possibly because politics, like many other people jobs, takes time to learn? And requires the building up of political connections over many years?

cordially,
Scofflaw

comongethappy

Had to verify that Varadkar is 35!

I'm not bothered by a candidates/leaders age.

Competence is the main KPI I care about.
I don't give a poop about the age of the individual concerned.

Agent Smith

Say what you will, Kenny's looking well for 63!

comongethappy

Agent Smith wrote: »

Say what you will, Kenny's looking well for 63!

He's a total TILF! :-)

Mr Pseudonym

comongethappy wrote: »

Had to verify that Varadkar is 35!

I'm not bothered by a candidates/leaders age.

Competence is the main KPI I care about.
I don't give a poop about the age of the individual concerned.

No one cares about the age per se. It's the consequences of that: Government policy on gay-rights, abortion, and other social issues, is being decided by people who grew up in Sixties-Ireland (which was very different from Sixties New York!).

I use the example of social issues as an extreme. There are other areas of policy where it is not favourable that the ages of most of the Country's decision makers are within five years of each other.

Sand

Scofflaw wrote: »

Possibly because politics, like many other people jobs, takes time to learn? And requires the building up of political connections over many years?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Hmm, except Kenny succeeded in politics by becoming a TD at the age of 23-24, with practically no experience of any kind at all.

The age profile of Irish leaders is down to the "pay your dues/loyalty first" attitude in Irish politics I think. A meritocracy would see a more even distribution of achievement. But in Irish political circles you have to serve your time to earn your turn, regardless of competency or otherwise. Varadkar is probably the brightest and best minister (in a sorry bunch) but you can see the bitterness he attracts, "speaking out of turn".

I recall a poster had an amusing but fairly accurate summary of an imagined politicians rise from joining the party to becoming Taoiseach a couple of months back. The main force driving the inevitable rise of this political titan was time served and being so invisible that nobody could think of anything objectionable about them.

Oblong Gata

Agent Smith wrote: »

Say what you will, Kenny's looking well for 63!

and Adams for 65! :eek:

NIMAN

Varadkar's had a tough paper round.

visual

NIMAN wrote: »

Varadkar's had a tough paper round.

Something to fall back on when he's turfed out

Riskymove

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

No one cares about the age per se. It's the consequences of that: Government policy on gay-rights, abortion, and other social issues, is being decided by people who grew up in Sixties-Ireland (which was very different from Sixties New York!).

I think that's a bit short-sighted

there are politicians who want to change the policy on these social issues who also grew up in the sixties

Riskymove

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

David Cameron - 47
Nick Clegg - 47
Ed Miliband - 44

Bertie Ahern became Taoiseach at 46 - any particular difference to governance?

Sheldons Brain

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

No one cares about the age per se. It's the consequences of that: Government policy on gay-rights, abortion, and other social issues, is being decided by people who grew up in Sixties-Ireland (which was very different from Sixties New York!).
.

I would have thought that growing up in Ireland was a reasonable preparation for understanding what Ireland needs. But obviously others think we are inferior and should just take our policies from elsewhere.

Icepick

Riskymove wrote: »

I think that's a bit short-sighted

there are politicians who want to change the policy on these social issues who also grew up in the sixties

Not in charge unfortunately

Icepick

Riskymove wrote: »

Bertie Ahern became Taoiseach at 46 - any particular difference to governance?

Also from the 60s-70s generation tho.

Dave!

I think we should introduce quotas to combat this domination of politics by older generations. I won't feel adequately represented until political parties are obliged to nominate at least 50% vicenarian black gay female travellers.

Mr Pseudonym

Riskymove wrote: »

I think that's a bit short-sighted

there are politicians who want to change the policy on these social issues who also grew up in the sixties

I don't contend that there aren't politicians in their sixties whose views are representative of the majority of the country. Just that there is far less likely to be, and that it could never be seen as favourable that 13 of 15 member of Cabinet are between 58 and 71.

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

I would have thought that growing up in Ireland was a reasonable preparation for understanding what Ireland needs. But obviously others think we are inferior and should just take our policies from elsewhere.

You appear to have entirely misunderstood my point.

Mr Pseudonym

Just a quick correction: the info I gave about the average-age of the cabinet was determined a few months ago. It has since changed slightly: the average age remains the same (approx 58.5 y/o), with Charles Flanagan (57) replacing Howlin as one of the four ministers under the average. Ten of the fifteen are in the 57-65 range, with the average of those in that range being 61 y/o.

Permabear

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Riskymove

Icepick wrote: »

Not in charge unfortunately

Labour are pro-choice, pro-divorce, pro-equal rights etc and have been in power on a number of occassions

Godge

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Three pay cuts and the pension levy later as well as reduced annual leave and increased working hours as well as a new pension scheme that is expected to reduce the long-term liability of the state by 40% is hardly protection for public servants.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Pensioners have avoided most of the cuts but public service pensioners have had their pensions cut in line with cuts to public servants generally.

Permabear wrote: »

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I agree with much of what you say, but including public servants in the rant does not match the facts.

Permabear

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Mr Pseudonym

I largely agree with Permabear's contributions, and think them very well made. However, I think the decision to not touch Croke Park/Haddington is because of a reluctance to deal with the reaction from those affected rather than a desire to protect them. Different story with pensioners, though.

Godge

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

(1) Cuts of up to 40% are not relatively modest.
(2) The pre-2008 issue was reversed in the Haddington Road Agreement, it is no longer an issue. Get up to speed.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Godge

Permabear wrote: »

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Agree with this.

Idbatterim

Totally agree with Permabear, the Government really did screw the young. I have made this point in the jobsbridge thread on afterhours on numerous occasions. Many of the young have emigrated, while the army of wasters here stays to feed off the teat of the state from cradle to grave... Sucking up over taxed marginal income workers and also as their "entitlements" cant be cut, it means less money for a jobs programme, increase in capital expenditure, continuing PS recruitment embargo...

I largely agree with Permabear's contributions, and think them very well made. However, I think the decision to not touch Croke Park/Haddington is because of a reluctance to deal with the reaction from those affected rather than a desire to protect them. Different story with pensioners, though.

thats an excellent way of putting. But they said their mandate was to get the job done and make tough decisions, I think they were cowardly in a lot of them, if you look at the cuts some of them were pathetic, for what are the genuine vulnerable the disabled etc, yet a huge amount of waste is still going on.

Dyr

Sand wrote: »

I recall a poster had an amusing but fairly accurate summary of an imagined politicians rise from joining the party to becoming Taoiseach a couple of months back. The main force driving the inevitable rise of this political titan was time served and being so invisible that nobody could think of anything objectionable about them.

Describes Enda to a tee, the Jim Hacker of irish politics

Sand

It's bothering me that I cant recall the poster, it was excellently written with just the right sort of mix of humour and cynicism. I think it was on some thread like "How to get elected?" or something a few months back. To the search tool!

Scofflaw

Idbatterim wrote: »

Totally agree with Permabear, the Government really did screw the young. I have made this point in the jobsbridge thread on afterhours on numerous occasions. Many of the young have emigrated, while the army of wasters here stays to feed off the teat of the state from cradle to grave... Sucking up over taxed marginal income workers and also as their "entitlements" cant be cut, it means less money for a jobs programme, increase in capital expenditure, continuing PS recruitment embargo...

thats an excellent way of putting. But they said their mandate was to get the job done and make tough decisions, I think they were cowardly in a lot of them, if you look at the cuts some of them were pathetic, for what are the genuine vulnerable the disabled etc, yet a huge amount of waste is still going on.

Cuts have tended to be salami-slicing (a bit off everything) rather than address structural issues. So while project x, which is a complete waste of time, has had its budget cut, so has project y, which isn't.

I won't claim that targeted and meaningful cuts are easy, but was there ever a better time to do them? Waste of a good crisis.

On that subject, of course, you'd have to see Labour's recent kicking as really rather unfair. The extent to which they've defended structures which benefit their constituency is much larger than is appreciated.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Mr Pseudonym

Scofflaw wrote: »

Cuts have tended to be salami-slicing (a bit off everything) rather than address structural issues. So while project x, which is a complete waste of time, has had its budget cut, so has project y, which isn't.

I won't claim that targeted and meaningful cuts are easy, but was there ever a better time to do them? Waste of a good crisis.

On that subject, of course, you'd have to see Labour's recent kicking as really rather unfair. The extent to which they've defended structures which benefit their constituency is much larger than is appreciated.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The below blog post comes to a worrying conclusion: "The implicit trade-off of austerity was pain now, prosperity later. Yet as growth in advanced economies picks up, many civil services seem no more streamlined than before."

The times they aren’t a-changin’ - Civil servants and austerity | The Economist (blog)

SupaNova2

Sand wrote: »

It's bothering me that I cant recall the poster, it was excellently written with just the right sort of mix of humour and cynicism. I think it was on some thread like "How to get elected?" or something a few months back. To the search tool!

Is this the post?

Originally Posted by touts
Traditionally the path seems to be be born into a family with strong party heritage. Join the local cumman and the youth organisation at 15. Spend 5 or 6 years your way up through the ranks of the local committees. Then spend 5 or 6 years making your way through the county and regional committees. Stand for the National Youth Committee as a spritely 25 year old. Become known to party HQ the party. Serve 5 or 6 years on national committees and such. Get selected for a council election as a young and ambitious 30 year old. Lose. Spend 3 years on the party committees. Get co-opted onto the council to fill the seat of some old party member who just died tragically young at the age ot 79. Spend two years on the council. Stand to retain your seat. Scrape in and at around 35 you are the youngest member of the council.

Serve 4 or 5 years on the council. Stand for in the convention to select the Dail candidates. Lose the selection to the son of the outgoing TD and grand son of the first TD elected for the party in that constituency back in 1933. The 42 year old "Junior" may never have served on any council but sure his granddaddy was the best Junior Minister the county ever had. If you are unlucky Junior wins and you have to wait 20 years for your next shot at the Dail. If you are lucky Junior will be so obnoxious he will lose the election and the family stranglehold on the seat is gone. Serve 5 years on the council and at 45 win the nomination to run in the general election. Scrape in on the final count without reaching the quota just ahead of the local bankrobber turned good.

So now at 45 you are one of the fresh young faces in the party and the Dail. Serve 5 years on the backbenches trying to fight your way into pictures beside the Party Leader at events that will get your picture into the local newspaper back home. 5 years later the party wins the election on the back of disgust at the behaviour of the previous lot and a bunch of promises everyone knows are bull****. At 50 you get made a Junior minister and are paraded through your local town on the back of a trailer pulled by a tractor before making a speech infront of a fanatical crowd of supporters most of whom you have never seen before but who all believe you now owe them a favour as they are personally responsible for getting you to where you are now.

Spend 5 years doing the Morning Ireland - Pat Kenny - Drive time Circuit. Pray you never **** up enough to be punished with a stint on Vincent Brown. After 5 years the party just scrapes in to win a second term. However the junior party in the coalition loses heavily and that includes a 72 year old minister who loses his seat at a tragically young age. He also happened to be your constituency rival. That leaves the Taoiseach in a difficult position. At 55 you are still a bit young and inexperienced by Irish political standards but the constituency is a marginal one. So you suddenly end up as Minister for the newly created department of Sport, Marine, Children and the Gaelteacht. You arrive into your home in your new Merc. About 500 meters from the truck trailer that is to be the stage from which you will address the masses you are pulled from the car and carried shoulder high along the street with people hooping and hollaring.

You spend 4 years as a loyal but effective minister and as the next election approaches and the polls show a wipeout of the party in the next election there is a cabinet reshuffle to bring young and vibrant faces into more prominant positions. At 59 you watch as the 75 year old party heavyweights one by one all announce they are not seeking re-election in order to spend more time with their families or to pursue a new career opportunity. You sit anxiously by the phone waiting for the call from the Taoiseach's office. The phone rings and you are summoned. You take the long walk silently praying "Not Health, Not Health, Not Health, Not Health". You walk into the Taoiseach's office. He greets you with a big smile and a handshake. It's Agriculture! AND deputy leadership of the party! You've made it to the big leagues.

Unfortunately for the party the reshuffle isn't enough and you are swept from power. However as the first minister the county has had since 1976 you top the local poll and increase your votes. As the 24 remaining deputies meet after the election you suddenly find your self as party leader. You've made it.

Azwaldo55

Michael Collins was 31 years old when he was virtually a dictator between 12-22 August 1922 when he was Chairman of the Provisional Government, Commander-in-Chief of the National Army and Minister For Finance. Arthur Griffith had just died as President of Dáil Éireann and his position was no filled until the following September. Had Collins not been shot in Co. Cork he might well have become an Irish Franco.

Sand

SupaNova2 wrote: »

Is this the post?

Thats it - thanks!

Mr Pseudonym

Sand wrote: »

Thats it - thanks!

It's excellently written. I do so hope it took him ages!