The Last of the Gang of Three

Margaret Thatcher has been out of office since the early 1990’s, yet her imprint on Britain and Ireland has outlived her premiership by two decades.

Thatcherism’s fan club in Ireland – The ‘Progressive’ Democrats and all who they influenced in both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael – only lasted in office from the late 80’s until, well, yesterday.

The announcement that Mary Harney is to join the growing list of deserters from a sinking government signals the end of the physical presence of Thatcher’s’ children in government.  Whether it marks the end of Irish Thatcherism is up to the electorate.

Although there were many others who could be held to account for the neo-liberal abhoration that led to the huge disparity between rich and poor and the removal of all meaningful regulation allowing banks and big corporations to let loose, there are three characters that probably represented the ideology best.

This Gang of Three were Charlie McCreevy – the only one to stay within the mother ship of Fianna Fail, Michael McDowell- born of Fine Gael aristocracy and last significant leader of the PD’s and last, but by no means least, Mary Harney – champion of privatised health care and facilitator in chief for the corporate sector.  Whether they held undue sway on Fianna Fail or were just convenient mouthpieces for an agenda that suited FF in any event, is open for debate.  Certainly, they had little or no difficulty in merging the identities of both FF and the PD’s to promote a common tax cutting, deregulation and privatisation agenda.

Like Thatcher, this neo-liberal gang, discounted the concept of society and promoted the individual.  The strong survive in this world.  The weak have to learn to survive or fall by the wayside.  The Boston over Berlin go get ‘em system where, to paraphrase the singer Lily Allen, we all become Weapons of Mass Consumption.

And that’s their legacy.  Any attempt by this gang to point to the creation of the so-called Celtic Tiger, thus writing themselves a worthy chapter in the history books, needs to be vigorously challenged.  Look around you.  This mess is theirs.

Good riddance Mary Harney.  I hope that you can sleep at night.