Sean Gallagher seems set to be Ireland's next businessman King. To me this is simply inextricable, I can't think of one single endearing feature about the guy. But over the last few days I have tried to speculate what exactly is the attraction of the bullet headed salesman. And I have narrowed down to three USP's (thats "unique selling point" for anyone not as familiar with business cant as myself and Sean)
1. Sean Gallagher is a successful businessman.
2. Sean Gallagher will use his business expertise and the office of presidency to help "create jobs".
3. Sean Gallagher is an ordinary, decent Irish bloke from Cavan, he isn't a poet or an intellectual or a celebrity, he is someone ordinary Irish people can relate to.
Lets assume for a second these three reasons are good reasons to vote for someone. Well all three are completly and utterly inaccurate. Lets take the first; "Sean Gallagher is a successful business man".
Sean Gallagher is not a successful businessman, many of his companies are experiencing financial difficulty since the credit crash and in 2010 Gallagher was only able to pay himself an income of 250 euro per week (which is below the minimum wage).
Gallagher is in fact a spectacular representative of a failed business culture, a get rich quick Irish style plutocracy that grew up during the Celtic Tiger that owes nothing to innovation and everything to a highly fortuitous and imprudent political climate that was created by a cosying up to the ruling party (Fianna Fail). To give this man the Presidency is to reward incompetence, failure and stupidity.
If Gallagher was such a wonderful business man he would have given you or a friend of yours a job. The sad reality is is that a considerable amount of young Irish people are employed by American multinational companies like Microsoft, and whatever you say about people like Bill Gates it is innovation driven enterprise.
Sean Gallagher is not an imaginative entrepreneur, he didn't create a useful product that makes life easier. Gallagher's type of business is very different. William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, once remarked to his shareholders "the bank had profit on all the moneys which it creates out of nothing." Creating money out of nothing, a sort of monetary creatio ex nihilo. I think Patterson's devious sounding little oxymoron could be the adage of the Celtic Tiger period.
The Industries the Irish government favored with their policies, like banking and property, use capital to make more capital, either by selling debt or selling property, neither really add to what is called the "real economy" but feed off it, the debts and mortgages are highly dependent on people having money to repay. And that sums up the sorry state of Irish entrepreneurial culture (which Sean Gallagher is a representative part), devoid of innovation, unethical, cronyist, favoring macho unsustainable industries like property over creativity and imagination.
So, lets move on to reason no. 2.
2. Sean Gallagher will use his business expertise and the office of presidency to help "create jobs".
I'm afraid that is simply untrue. And if a presidential candidate suggests the president can create jobs then they owe the Irish people a detailed explanation of how exactly they will achieve this rather than feeding them vague and unfalisifiable newspeakisms like "atmosphere for growth".
And No. 3?
3. Sean Gallagher is an ordinary decent Irish bloke from Cavan, he isn't a poet or an intellectual or a celebrity, he is someone ordinary Irish people can relate.
I generally avoid passing moral judgement on politicians, they should be judged on their abilities as public servants not their personal sanctity. For instance Bertie Ahern was a bad Taoiseach but that doesn't necessarily make him a "bad person".
But at the same time assertions of moral fiber shouldn't just be accepted uncritically. Why isSean Gallagher"decent"? In what sense is he "decent". Gallagher has not adquently explained why he loaned himself 80,000 euro from one of his companies. Which leaves the possibility open that he could have done it to avoid paying PRSI. Which makes him less than decent in my estimation.
Gallagher also denied he played a significant part in organising the Fianna Failfundraiser inDundalk, this directly contradicts the testimony of Hugh Morganowner of Morgan Fuels(one of the business men invited to the Dundalk dinner by Gallagher. When Morgan's testimony was made publicaly know Gallagherdismissed the man as a "fuel smuggler and convicted criminal", seemingly overlooking the contraction that if this man was such a venal criminal why did Gallagher see fit to personally invite him to a five grand a head bash with theTaoiseach.
The idea that Gallagher deserves a vote because he is an ordinary man of the people is the worst kind of self-pitying and hypocritical drivel. And it says something about the Irish psyche doesn't it, that we might consider someone like David Norris (the person I voted for) part of the "rueling class", because he lives in a Georgian house, is a member of the Anglican church and speaks well elocuted enlgish while someone so spectacularly, so venally, so corruptly part of an elite as Sean Gallagher sells himself as an ordinary Cavan bloke who loves his roots.
Ireland does have a ruling class, but it doesn't seem as faddishly interested in horses and 18th century houses as it once was, or drinking hot port, or wearing pinstripe suits, or even fox hunting, which is probably perceived as ascendancy flakiness, its interested in attending five grand a head dinners in Dundalk with Brain Cowen.
No comments:
Post a Comment