Is it not reprehensible – the height of hypocrisy in fact – that Simon Harris the leader of the Irish Government – has the audacity to accuse Sinn Féin in recent weeks of ‘duping’ people when it expelled several party members for substandard social behaviour?
The Cambridge dictionary definition of dupe is ‘to deceive’ and if anyone is guilty of deception, it is Harris and his colleagues in the coalition Government of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party.
Over the last four years since being in power – and for many years before that – these parties have been nothing less than ‘repeat offenders,’ constantly deceiving the ordinary hardworking people of Ireland with false promises of a quality lifestyle as befitting a nation that is one of the earliest members of the European Union, then called the European Economic Community, or EEC for short, back in 1973.
Instead, however, we have one of the most disastrous health systems on the continent, with people waiting years for life-saving surgeries, often dying before they receive it; we are awash in homelessness and poverty, with an estimated people 30,000 living on the streets, including thousands of young children and infants; we have a forsaken, forgotten, forlorn State where retirees and newlyweds alike are unable to afford the rent of a simple home, never mind the financial resources to even remotely consider buying one to end or begin their lives together in a modicum of comfort.
Not only does the Dishonourable Duke of Duping continue to deceive people that after all these years he’ll one day consider putting a roof over our heads, but he himself basks in the lap of luxury in one of the most expensive and elitist places in Ireland, the scenic coastal town of Greystones in county Wicklow, where he was born, where he lives and where houses cost up to two million euro, and more.
But is it not somewhat harsh of us to criticise the Dishonourable Duke of Duping for his lack of common decency? Is it not unfair to ask a man of such Royal blood living in such a high falutin’ environment to understand the plight of so many desperate Irish people? Is that not akin to asking King Charles of England to make his own cupán tae once in a while?
Shamefully, while the wealthy in Ireland (many of whom are the Dishonourable Duke of Duping’s closest neighbours) while away their days in decadent lifestyles with fancy homes in fancy places or travel in environmentally-damaging private jets (which the Dishonourable Duke of Duping does frequently) and indulge their whims in ostentatious holiday homes abroad (which the Dishonourable Duke of Duping often does), modern Ireland suffers the worst housing shortage in its entire 100-year history.
Studies show less than a third of 30-year-olds own their home. Over half of all newly-built homes in greater Dublin alone were bought or developed by global vulture investor funds, thus locking countless people out of ever attempting to buy one. These ‘vampire funds’ don’t buy homes to sell, they buy them to extract high rents in perpetuity. In other words, they suck the lifeblood out of decent Irish society.
And to make matters worse, the Dishonourable Duke of Duping and his cadre of Government lackeys allowed a temporary no-fault eviction ban in Ireland to lapse last March, thus opening the floodgates for more than 15,000 notices of termination to be issued last year, making the number of evictions higher than it was during the Famine in the mid-1800s.
For centuries, gutless, greedy, often absentee, landlords, have been the scourge of Ireland, rich, ruthless people who with the click of a finger, a scribbled signature on a sheet of paper, thoughtlessly tossed hungry families out into the ditches.
Now it seems the same is happening all over again in modern Ireland, this time under the dictatorial rule of the Dishonourable Duke of Duping and his ignoble entourage.
Instead of urgently dealing with these major social and health issues that are making the lives of so many Irish people intolerable, Harris and his well-to-do cohorts, including Government coalition leaders, Micheál Martin of Fianna Fail and Roderic O’Gorman of the Green Party, are pointing their grubby finger at Sinn Féin, an oft-used political ploy to distract popular attention away from the real issues, and their own failings on them.
In doing so, however, these ‘I’m-better-than-you’ leaders fail to realise something important. While the bitter winds of winter howl at our doors, while Storm Ashley batters the coast this weekend, Irish people are not bears. They are not hibernating. They are wide awake. And fearful. And hungry. And cold. And they remember the empty promises made to them from on high four years ago, and for many years before that.
Maybe, just maybe, we should ask Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to re-tell the story of these empty promises once more, to remind us how easily we were taken for fools. And in doing so, help us make sure the Dishonourable Duke of Duping and his Royal patrons don’t sneak back into power through the back door and make jesters of us for another four years in their Court of Failure.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ve learned our lesson and are wide awake enough to elect Sinn Féin, the ‘Party of Change’ and improve things for the better. For each and everyone of us, our parents, our children and the generations who come after.
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Sean Hillen 