Fine Gael and Labour show us their real (and ugly) face on political reform.

If I were a member of Fine Gael or Labour today I’d be resigning on hearing Phil Hogan local government “reforms”. Both Fine Gael and Labour in opposition called for an elected executive mayor for Dublin, yet now in power they have adopted the exact same policy as Fianna Fáil in government, yet another policy they criticised in opposition. What’s really grating is the excuse they are using, that an elected mayor will cost €8m a year, yet we can afford €16m a year to pay for county council seats which are effectively subsidised candidate platforms. Using that as an excuse pretty much demonstrates the dull, unimaginative and complete lack of strategic thinking that dominates this government. Such is the staid intellectual vacuum within the government, it has never occurred to them that an elected mayor of Dublin, held specifically responsible to the voters of Dublin for setting the rate at which they will pay the property tax will spend every waking hour trying to reduce waste in the local authority in order to cut that extremely unpopular tax. In short, this decision shows that not only are Fine Gael and Labour dishonest, but they’re not even that clever. God f**king help us.