Henry Eviston provides his analysis of the student political party debate in UCD.
Last Thursday evening the auditors of all UCD’s student political parties participated in a panel discussion, jointly organised by the Economics and Philosophy societies, to discuss their party’s policies in view of the upcoming general election.
Paula Campbell was representing Fine Gael, Mark O’Brien O’Reilly represented Fianna Fail, Liam Van der Spek of Labour Youth, Oisin McCann of Sinn Féin and Alan Byrne of the Socialist Workers’ Party/People Before Profit. Other parties, like the Greens, Renua and the Social Democrats are still seeking official recognition on campus and were therefore not invited.
Housing and the homelessness crisis unsurprisingly took up the first part of the debate, with speakers anxious to distinguish themselves on what has become a central issue in this election.
While all speakers pledged to increase the number of social housing units (Campbell by 25,000, O’Brien O’Reilly by 45,000 and McCann to 200,000), McCann and Byrne advanced the most significant proposals. Byrne emphasised that “a great number of TDs are landlords themselves”. He said: “we should take properties from NAMA and give them to people, restructure existing council houses and stop evictions for people with rent and mortgage arrears.” McCann proposed creating “a mechanism for landlords and councils to cooperate locally”.
The first real blunder of the night came from Fianna Fáil’s O’Brien O’Reilly as he proposed the creation of a national agency to borrow money on the bond markets to help first-time buyers. In response to Campbell, who criticised the plan as “open to international fluctuations”, he replied that Irish bonds were so secure that they were trading at a negative interest rate. When pressed by the audience to clarify to which bonds he was referring he was unable to answer.
Discussion on education was unfortunately limited to recitations of policies, as the speakers tried to avoid confronting each other on the details of their funding models. Campbell simply said “fees will remain – I won’t lie to you”, as O’Brien O’Reilly promised Fianna Fail would freeze fees for the next five years. Both McCann and Van der Spek said their parties had committed to reducing fees by €500, while Byrne said he would abolish fees and increase funding for student grants. Byrne failed to clarify precisely how he would fund the abolition of fees, however, limiting himself to saying “we should stop paying back bank debt”. It was one of the PBP’s strongest issues but he failed to convey a clear message.
When pressed by the moderator, Van der Spek admitted Ruairi Quinn’s notorious U-turn on his promise to freeze student fees “was made on the basis of a Labour majority government”. It was a poor defence, and raises doubts over which promises on Labour’s current manifesto are subject to the same conditions, given that it is polling at around ten points beneath its 2011 results.
Campbell stumbled on the topic of non-denominational schools, calling the situation “unfair” but saying “we have to accept it, it is not a massive issue for us”. McCann continued his strong performance by vowing to abolish denominational schools, while Van der Spek said Labour would “double non-denominational schools”.
Van der Spek, McCann and Byrne all agreed there should be a referendum on the eighth amendment, while O’Brien O’Reilly and Campbell proposed putting the question to a judiciary convention and a citizens’ assembly respectively. Byrne was the most vocal on the issue, pointing out the PBP’s credentials as an advocate for women’s rights and criticising the hypocrisy of the current system, saying it puts at risk those who can’t afford to travel to England. “We need to provide safe access to abortion for all’, she said. Van der Spek was in trouble again as he failed to give a definitive answer on whether Labour would support Fine Gael’s proposal to put the issue to a citizens’ assembly.
The discussion heated up when the floor was opened to the audience. Both Campbell and O’Brien O’Reilly were in difficulty when asked if their party would commit to decriminalising drugs, the latter admitting he did not know and the former saying Fine Gael had increased spending on health services. Discussion then turned to Ireland’s foreign policy. All speakers agreed that Ireland can settle more than 4,000 refugees, and Campbell came under attack from McCann for the Government’s performance on the issue; she accused the E.U. of making the process too slow but finally admitted “there is a lot of bad sentiment around refugees and we cannot openly advocate taking more.”
It was not her only unfortunate remark on the issue, however; as Byrne was criticising the length of time it takes for a refugee to obtain their paperwork, she interjected and, to boos from the audience, asked “what if they are a terrorist?”
The mainstream parties’ lack of preparation on foreign policy was on display, as Van der Spek said he was “not in love with the idea” of American military planes stopping in Shannon airport. McCann and Byrne criticised it as a violation of Irish neutrality and O’Brien O’Reilly, Van der Spek and Campbell failed to answer a question from an activist in the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign on whether they would support Ireland’s ending its arms trade with Israel.
The Economics society had already organised a debate with senior party figures in November; what the auditors’ debate lacked in the quality of discussion it made up for in honesty. On occasion, when the speakers were caught off guard, their answers were clearly not rehearsed. A question on Gerry Adams’ suitability as a leader led to McCann’s only hiccup of the night: having started with a strong defence of Adams’ role in the peace process in the North, McCann then said “I would like to see Mary Lou as leader because I want to see a female Taoiseach – to be fair, Gerry is 66 or 67 and I don’t feel any public servant should be exempt from retirement rules”.
While stances such as these are not official, they provide some interesting insights into the thinking of the parties’ youth wings. This may have been the most important service the debate did to those still trying to decide which way to vote on election day.
Advertisements