The latest cynical Fianna Fail u-turn:abortion

In a world of constant change, one thing remains reassuringly consistent: Fianna Fail’s total lack of anything approaching principles, ideals, ideology or beliefs. As a party they only stand for one thing – take power and cling on to it by any means necessary. In the last 40 years they have destroyed the country’s economy twice with the only economic “policy” they have – throw money at everyone to buy votes and keep doing that until the economy crashes and burns. As far as the other burning issues of the day are concerned, their strategy is simple: avoid adopting any position if it risks alienating any of the voters. Lie, spoof and evade the question wherever possible. Thus we have a party who can sign an agreement with the Troika to introduce water charges and, once out of power, can then pretend to be opposed to water charges without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

The latest flip flop of course is on abortion. A recent survey of TD’s showed that Fianna Fail are alone in opposing any change to the current position. Seeing which way the wind is blowing, Micheal Martin is now panicking and has decided that they’d better at least pretend to be a liberal, progressive party as opposed to what they really are: backward reactionaries who have sided with the child rapists of the Catholic Church on every single social issue of the last 40 years.

For those of us who want to see Ireland maintain a stable economy and continue to develop as a modern nation, these recent developments are great news. Hopefully Fianna Fail will now tear itself apart and be sufficiently weakened to fight a strong campaign at the next election. They will, of course, go into coalition with Sinn Fein after the next election if that’s their only option. In which case we may all leave the country while they turn our economy into something resembling pre WW2 Germany, with wheelbarrows of Euros necessary to buy a pint of milk.