They say that we get the politicians we deserve.
Well if that's true we're a right shower!
In fact if I take that one to its logical conclusion why I'm bothering to write this to you lot is beyond me, but then if I'm also part of the Right Shower, then perhaps I wouldn't know that we were a Right Shower....
Dail Eireann went on safari this week to the West.
Sometimes I think I moved from Scotland to California in 1996 and not Ireland-such is the lack of irony among our rulers.
The same insensitivity they showed with their mercs going up to Armagh they swan down in their palatial mercs to a part of the country where people struggle to have any car.
Coming from Scotland I see right through this rubbish right away.
All of the Clyde's shipyards went in my boyhood-or nearly all- what did they do?
They gave us a garden festival-nice.
That makes up for mass unemployment-doesn't it?
This state has retrenched itself around the line of the M50 the way that British Imperialism retrenched behind the Border after the Tan War.
We have a City State whose boundary is roughly similar to that of the Pale.
We are natives once again.
One thing is clear whinging will get us nowhere.
It will only allow the likes of Dempsey to swan up to an open something or other and then seem irritated by our complaints of suffering from decades of de-investment.
The only thing a politician takes any notice of is power.
Well, there is also brown envelopes stuffed full of cash, but some of them just put them in their sideboard and don't even remember you-especially if it's a poxy fifty grand.
What they crave is power-they'll do anything for it.
Donegal and my native Scotland have this in common -both places have suffered for its location and the electoral loyalty of its people.
We can't change our location, hundreds of miles from Dublin and handcuffed to Sammy.
What we can do is to become volatile electorally.
This has already started and the election of Tom Gildea-as an independent on a single issue was positive.
All of the main parties must fear for their seats here unless they deliver.
At the moment they don't lose a night's sleep over it.
I think we should turn them into insomniacs!
Anyone you vote for must pledge their first loyalty to Donegal and not their party.
Few will do that-or be in parties that are hungry enough to care.
IFF is no force outside the county-though Harry Blaney does his best.
The Labour Party is a joke-they can't even hold their own guys.
The main party TDs aren't worth mentioning-they toe the line.
This is why Dana was a shot in the arm for the whole process if only to say don't take our votes for granted.
Since that shock to the system I don't see that Leinster House & the main parties are doing much to prevent a re-run.
This is the way forward for Donegal.
We need strong people -who don't fancy a career in politics- but who realise that they'll have to step forward.
I've always believed that wanting to be a politician should ban anyone from any public office for life.
So we need folk who don't harbour that the obscene type of ambition that you saw dripping from under Mary Robinson's caring mask as she headed for the Park.
"Come dance with me" she cooed.
Well we turned up to the ceili, but got stood up coz she went line dancing at the UN with a rich fella...
What we need is a Donegal Manifesto.
It needs to be drawn up by you.
Over the next few weeks I'll try and sketch what we need-just headings.
However this is yours.
This is something NO politician will ever ask you and mean it.
Your letters will start to fill in the gaps of what I've sketched.
The only newspaper that is up to the task is this one.
Once we have our Donegal Manifesto all of the candidates must sign up to it.
That will be easy for the likes of the independents, but for Fianna Fail & Fine Gael OUR manifesto might well run contrary to their M50 world view.
Its not that I don't trust these people you understand, but when you look at how easily Fianna Fail dispensed with the referendum pledge on PfP then you have to wonder about them.
The Dublin government treats us like we were a foreign appendage awkwardly tacked onto their nice 25 counties.
Well, perhaps its time to act awkward.
If all of the TDs in Donegal were independents, who had signed up to the Tribune Manifesto, then Donegal would hold the balance of power in any future Dail.
The balance of power in any future Dail......
Working together in the county and convening regular public meetings here in the county to be consulted as a group then your voice would actually start to be heard in Kildare Street.
Voting for any of the main parties is to consign Donegal to further de-investment, further decline.
Not that I'm proposing a Donegal secessionist movement or anything like that, or a Donegal party, no no no.
Tut tut.
Perish the thought.
However, faced with that possibility then the big boys might find that they weren't such cute hoors after all.
The balance of power in any future Dail.....
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
