The first television debate of the Irish presidential election campaign took place on Monday 29 September, with a consistently reactionary framing colouring much of proceedings. Appearing was independent left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly, alongside the conservative entrants Jim Gavin and Heather Humphreys chosen by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael respectively.

Undoubtedly aware – as all broadcasters are – of the serial-position effect, Virgin Media One host Kieran Cuddihy kicked off the discussion by attempting to hammer Connolly on comparisons she drew between present-day Germany’s ramping up of military spending, and similar priorities in the 1930s. Speaking at University College Dublin (UCD), Connolly had said:

We’re increasing our spend all over Europe on the military industrial complex. They’re absolutely championing the cause of the military industrial complex in Germany, as a booster for the economy. Seems to me, there are some parallels with the ’30s.

Be nice to Germany while it’s on its third genocide

The former deputy for Galway West has since been pilloried in the press for the entirely appropriate remarks, notably by Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times. In his piece, O’Toole opines that we should refrain from criticising a nation currently participating in its third genocide of the last 100 or so years, on the basis that it might hurt their wee feelings and they might not be nice to us anymore. Questioning the wisdom of massive war spending in a nation with such a chronically barbaric political class should be seen as a meritorious act, rather than one deserving of opprobrium. The same nation’s thugs in uniform brutally beat Irish people when they attempt to introduce some sanity into a fundamentally defective political culture.

Connolly robustly defended her remarks, reiterating the dangers of a runaway military-industrial complex, before going on to emphasise dialogue as a means of warding off any alleged threat from Russia:

We should be using diplomatic approaches, we should be trying for peace. We’re a neutral country…we should be using our voice to push for peace.

She went on to reference the cost to public wellbeing from arms expenditure:

We see countries reducing their welfare budget…while poverty rises.

The selected topics and how they were framed by host Cuddihy largely followed a similar pattern, putting the debate on terrain that ought to be more favourable to the two centre-right candidates:

Irish defence spending is too low and we need much more of itImmigration discussion must always be more salient than health, education, housing and countless other issues that affect every Irish citizenCrime is supposedly everywhere and it’s very scary

Latterly candidates were at least invited to comment on housing, the hosting by Croke Park of a National Football League (NFL) match and their stance on a united Ireland.

Ex-soldier Gavin scaremongers with spectre of Russia

Gavin was pushed repeatedly on where he stands on “the deterioration in our defence forces”, with Cuddihy particularly preoccupied with naval “ships mothballed in Haulbowline.” Ireland has this week failed to follow Italy and Spain in sending a naval ship to assist the Global Sumud Flotilla on its way to provide aid to Gaza. Former soldier Gavin emphasised a need for increased spending:

…when [Irish troops] are overseas in peace-keeping roles, you need to have armoured vehicles, you need to have mine-clearing equipment. We need to invest in our people.

He also questioned the triple lock, saying:

…if you follow the policy of the triple lock that we have now…we won’t have any peacekeeping

Given such a stance, there is a very real danger of a bolstered army being dragged into more than peace-keeping missions. Gavin scare-mongered about a faraway conflict unlikely to envelop Ireland unless it willingly gets involved, citing a “war on the eastern border of Europe” before saying “What choice do they have?” in relation to Germany’s arms spending.

The discussion moved to immigration. On those railing against newcomers to Ireland, Connolly said:

Well, first of all I think they’re a small group of people that are extraordinarily loud and vocal. I think it does not reflect people in general in Ireland who are very welcoming.

Sadly this small group is given endless airtime by a complicit media, always willing to air the “legitimate concerns” of a racist minority. To their credit, none of the candidates sought to feed far-right sentiment, with Humphreys saying:

There’s prejudices out there. The president has a role to bring people together, to break down those barriers.

Eloquent Connolly excels against bland rivals in Irish presidential debate

When the debate finally shifted on to a matter materially affecting the lives of people every day – housing – Connolly excelled, saying:

The problem has arisen because we utterly based our solutions on the market on a neoliberal ideology and when that failed we brought in various schemes to back up the market. We utterly failed to build public housing on public land which is part of the solution.

Now we have a myriad of schemes which is like a jigsaw of pieces without an overall picture. It has become complex because of the various schemes but it’s actually quite simple in…that we need first of all to realise that it’s a fundamental human right to have a home.

Humphreys responded by claiming:

Catherine said it was simple. It’s not simple. It’s anything but simple. If it was simple to solve the housing problem it would have been solved.

This conveniently ignores the fact that in a capitalist system straightforward solutions to simple problems are often not adopted due to where power lies, rather than what logic calls for. A tiny minority of the wealthy being able to exercise excessive control over the political process frequently produces perverse results for the majority. In the case of housing, that has meant prioritising the interests of landlords over tenants.

On a united Ireland, Connolly was the only candidate to straightforwardly give a potential timeline for unification, saying:

I would hope that there would be United Ireland in my term as president.

Gavin and Humphreys both focused on building a nebulous culture of ‘unity’ prior to any border poll. The former spoke of “unification of people first and foremost”, with Humphreys giving a similarly milquetoast response, saying:

We need to work towards uniting people first and that’s the most important thing as John Hume said, you must unite people, you must build those bridges, you must break down those barriers.

Not only was Connolly expressing a better set of values to her opponents, she expressed herself more eloquently in general. Her uninspiring rivals frequently failed to string a coherent sentence together, leaving the independent candidate a clear winner in fairly tepid proceedings.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

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