Sad and all as this is, you have to appreciate the irony. Fianna Fail, the party of Dev, is the party that is negotiating the de facto end of Irish independence. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those Eirigi/Coir sovereignty nuts: Sovereignty is only any use if you can do something with it, and in this case, trading sovereignty is what’s needed to stabilise our country’s banking system. So be it. But the fact is that it is happening on Fianna Fail’s watch, because of Fianna Fail mismanagement. I wonder is this going to be the thing that finally tips FF over into being, like, say, the Irish Home Rule Party, a symbol of a past Ireland that needs to be moved on from?
In fact, is there an argument for the new non-FF government to begin a process of DeFiannaFailisation, like denazification in Germany, or debaathification in Iraq? Supposing we banned all FF Oireachtas members from holding office, like bankrupts, and made FF a proscribed organisation, like the IRA or UVF? True, it would probably take a constitutional amendment, but even that would be a fun day out.
Even if FF appealed to the Supreme Court, there is certainly enough evidence about to at least make a reasonable case that FF is, if not a de facto criminal organisation, certainly a threat to the continued existence of the state. The interesting thing is that given the make up of Fianna Fail (10% idealists, 90% gougers, hucksters and sticky fingersmiths) even a temporary ban on the party would disperse the gougers to the political winds as they found another political dog to infest. At least they’d be less concentrated in lower doses.