My eye-opening doorstep chat with a caller seeking my vote

SO that’s what they were.

Plastic eyes.

Personally, I don’t see the point, but if someone with lots of time and nothing to do with it thinks it’s utterly hilarious to trot around sticking plastic googly eyes on election posters around Cork, that’s their own problem.

I began, however, to see the method in this madness during a home visit from one of the candidates seeking election recently.

To save his/her blushes, I won’t identify the candidate, who handed me some leaflets and, to begin with, chattily asked me if I was somebody else.

I politely said no, they must have the wrong house; I wasn’t that other person.

Then I attempted to highlight some of the issues which are of consequence to anyone in this country with a brain in their head.

I asked if the candidate could explain why on earth the Irish government was continuing to welcome in so many asylum-seekers and refugees in the face of our glaring inability to help them effectively anymore; that the state is splitting and cracking at the seams in the face of ever-increasing demand for accommodation, yet our government inexplicably behaves as if we have an endless well of resources. (I had read some weeks previously that a meeting of the Public Accounts committee was told that more than 5,000 asylum-seekers landed here between January and March - a 75% increase on the 2,900 arrivals here in the same period last year.)

I got no coherent answer to that.

I then expressed concern about the lawlessness, the crazy speeding, and the carnage on Irish roads. 

My only answer from the candidate was an almost imperceptible shuffle backwards in the direction of the waiting car.

I began to suspect what the election-poster-plastic-googly-eye miscreants were trying to tell us.

Suddenly he/she straightened up and mumbled something about backing supports for certain cohorts of society. Yes, I agreed enthusiastically, crucial sectors of the labour force like fishermen, farmers and gardaí had apparently been abandoned by the current government. What was to be done?

That one went nowhere too.

I pointed to the worrying lack of morale in the gardaí, the Force’s problems with retention, the long-term disappearance of gardaí from our streets and roads, not to mention those gruesome T-shirts they’re being forced to wear?

Nada. Zilch.

The candidate’s impatience to be done with me in order to continue driving around handing out more leaflets was embarrassing; he/she seemed to think that shoving a bit of coloured paper into the hand of the electorate was itself enough to secure a vote.

I gave it one last go.

Had he/she any thoughts about the worrying closure of so many small businesses both now and, potentially, in the future, who are increasingly unable to cope with rises in costs - I’d read that they face a projected increase of 37% in labour costs over the next few years.

Nope. No interest in discussing the rising energy and staff costs and the interest rate hikes which have hit SMEs so hard.

This, despite the growing warnings about the potential impact of a raft of new, government-driven labour costs, including increases in minimum wage and statutory sick pay entitlements, which many in the business community feel is a sign that the government is not only being extremely generous with their money (while not stepping up to the plate itself), but also that it seems to believe that small employers can absorb whatever costs the government throws at them.

Yet it’s becoming increasingly clear that the recent increase in business failures demonstrate that employers in the SME sector do not have the capability to handle all of this.

By now, the candidate was virtually pressed up against the door of the get-away car.

The thing is - and by all means stand me up against a wall and shoot me for saying this - I think we have very serious issues we need to confront on the domestic level and this candidate wasn’t up for discussion on any of them.

Not with me, anyway, and not on my doorstep.

‘Come on,’ I felt like yelling. ‘Seems to me yiz are all hat and no cattle, standing up and shouting about this and arguing about that, but when it comes to a face-to-face on the doorstep, it’s all sizzle and no steak?’

‘All bluster and no muster?’

Of course, I didn’t say any of that, but I was left underwhelmed.

If this was an insight into the quality of the candidates who are looking for our votes in the local and European elections this Friday, then I really fear for our country’s future.