With a general election looming, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin appear to have a grip on the youth vote. But Kathy Sheridan discovers a constituency so disillusioned by politicians and seduced by consumerism it is more interested in Mé Féin than party politics.
'He means Business" says the slogan on the campaign poster, below a picture of the clean-cut candidate reading the Financial Times. A PD on the hustings? AIB shareholder on the warpath? Nope. It's a pitch for the presidency of DCU's students' union.
Is it a joke ? A jibe at student youth hurtling to hell in a conservative, careerist handcart? Maybe, sighs a faculty member, a self-described "old lefty", but maybe not. Either way, it is a telling commentary on a student population in north Dublin city and how that population is perceived by one of its own.
In another university, four of the five Students Union (SU) officers turn out to be dyed-in-the-wool Fianna Fáilers. As serving officers, they have to talk off the record, but it is clearly no idle flirtation.
"I'm a nationalist," explains a young woman from the mid-west. "My family still hold the old romantic view of Ireland. I think Bertie and Parnell share a lot of characteristics."
"The next 30 years in politics is going to be the most exciting since the foundation of the State," says a young Dublin man. "The majority in the North will be Catholic and what's going to have to be created is an inclusive society for Catholic, Protestant, Dissenter, Muslim . . . Oh yes, there will be a united Ireland, it's going to be exciting."
"I agree with Fianna Fáil's stand on the National Question and their work on the peace process. They're still the Republican Party," says another. "And I'd like to have a part in influencing what is the biggest political party in the State."
"I'm very worried about this country going down the liberal path," says a male from the west. "There could come a time when Fianna Fáil becomes too liberal for me. I can't understand the result of the abortion referendum."
Significantly, the fifth and only non-Fianna Fáil person in this SU office, a soft-spoken, socially-aware female, has been inching towards Sinn Féin. "No, I don't think about the people who went missing or the bodies that were disappeared or things like that. It seems to me that Sinn Féin is into local, social issues and I always vote on that basis."
The political make-up of this little gathering is no fluke. FF members or fans hold the SU presidency in six of the State's largest third-level institutions, it is believed. The national USI president, Cork man Richard Hammond, is Fine Gael according to sources, but these young Fianna Fáilers are confident that they and Sinn Féin are the only show in town.
"Sinn Féin is seen to be open, growing and has vacancies," says one with a grudging admiration for their canvassing strategy. "They have an anti-establishment appeal so they attract a lot of young people who don't normally vote. But it's easy for them to be on the outside. The longer you're out, the more interested people will be in you."
It could be true. Matt Carthy, a 24-year-old Sinn Féin member of Carrickmacross town council, is confident the attacks from the "establishment" serve to strengthen the party's appeal. "The young do get excited about voting for a party that the establishment politicians are telling them not to vote for." They see the tribunals and the stale politics that Bertie Ahern and the rest of them have to offer, he says, and if the party with an alternative on offer is being attacked by them, then young people think that it must be doing something right.
And as the generations move on, neither FF nor SF has a shortage of young blood coming up behind, to judge by a National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) 2001 survey of secondary students. Of the 74 per cent who said they would vote if they could, one-third said they would vote Fianna Fáil; Sinn Féin came next with 24 per cent.
The Green Party, the one usually associated with idealistic youth, could muster only five per cent. The radical left, The Workers' Party and the Socialist Party, garnered just 5 per cent between them.
To anyone attempting to read the runes of Irish youth, why they vote or - more likely - why they don't, all the old pre-suppositions are up for review.
A quick trawl through the bar of Maynooth university confirms it. Arvin Everard, a 24-year-old science student from Thurles, cast his vote for Michael Lowry in the last election - "just because of what he was doing about funding for the terrible roads down there. I wouldn't be an anti-globalisation protester; I'd be more into the politics of Ireland."
Catherine, a 21-year-old student from Longford, voted for "the local guy that the family knew, for the type of community work that he does. And he came around himself and explained what he would do, where others just sent people around".
Charlotte O'Callaghan, a 20-year-old from Cavan, "voted once, because my Mam said I should. I think one of the TDs told her he would do something about students grants. But I don't know anything about politics. Anyway, they're all corrupt - all out for themselves. There's nothing special that would make me vote".
Niamh Melinn, a 20-year-old Dublin woman, was within reach of home to vote No in the abortion referendum. "I feel I would be too ignorant to vote properly in a general election and I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting someone in power that I didn't know. To me, the North is the only major, major issue that affects Ireland."
ANDREW Connell, a 24-year-old, final-year, computer science student, is worried about his job prospects and longs for a "New Labour" type sweep-out in Ireland. "As it is, I see very little difference between the parties. There's nothing new. Bertie was talking about a new telecommunications network but nothing has happened."
Further trawls among other students revealed not a single anti-globalisation activist, nor anti-war protester, nor environmental revolutionary.
The activists are there, said a student in a Dublin university, but in tiny numbers, though "they can make a disproportionate amount of noise. You'd count all the activists here on one hand. There was an anti-war protest here and I think there were 40 max on it".
In Maynooth's students' union office, there's an air of weariness among the half-dozen officers in the room.
The little group that began the year on a tide of energy, enthusiasm and can-do spirit - and did succeed in making the union more approachable, set up an AA group, tripled charity revenue, more than doubled the attendance at council meetings and persuaded 200 students to register for the vote - is nonetheless a tad chastened by the experience.
Frustration with the pace of change and an ongoing battle against apathy have taken their toll. "If you'd come at the beginning of the year, you might have heard different," says Aisling Gargan, the SU vice-president with a brief in student welfare.
They are highly critical of politicians telling them what they want to hear, and only accepting invitations to speak during election year. But they admit that even within student politics, apathy is the killer.
"Last year, just 1,300 out of 5,000 voted in the SU election," says Seaghan Kearney, this year's president. "The age of radical student politics is gone," says Miriam Colum, the joint vice-president. "In the age of the Tiger, they're too lazy to get on to the streets, have too much money, too much else on".
The general view is that people have got too comfortable. "It's how much money is in your pocket that matters, who's going to give me the most," says Michael Geary, finance officer. "Students are either lazy people or happy enough with what they have. If they weren't, they'd mobilise."
The Old Lefty notes that in his college computer rooms - "stuffed with students surfing the Internet, with its huge American agenda" - "you don't see them pulling up the websites of anti-globalisation groups or Amnesty. They will usually be about music and clothes."
Students, say faculty members, are much more narrowly focused now on careers. "It's not their fault but it is disconcerting if you're trying to teach them things that don't have a utility value. You might be talking about post-modernism or something, and they will actually say 'we're paying you all this money' - which they're not, of course, nothing like the real cost - 'and look what we're getting'. What you get now are not so much students as fledgling customers. But it has to be said that universities themselves are being run more like businesses anyway."
The truth is that for many of these "fledgling customers" and their working peers, voting doesn't look like a paying proposition.
The statistics tell a story. An analysis by a Swedish institute shows that the Republic has the lowest turnout of first-time voters among
15 EU countries. Belgium, where voting is compulsory, tops the list at around 97 per cent. Britain, where it's not, shows a respectable 75 per cent. Ireland manages 40 per cent.
The reasons given are drearily predictable: they can't get to the polls, or all politicians are corrupt or the issues aren't relevant to young people.
So, take an issue that was both straightforward and definitively relevant to everybody: the Good Friday Agreement. Although 75 per cent of the 55-64 age group voted, only 38 per cent of the under-25s bothered to do so. As for the sleaze factor: after only 35 per cent of the under-25s came out to vote in the 1999 elections, an NYCI survey found that only 2 per cent had been put off by cynicism. By far the biggest reason for not voting, according to that survey, was that people weren't registered to vote. That accounted for 30 per cent. Another 20 per cent were either away, or working, or involved in college/exams.
The practical impediments to voting are deemed by many to be the real reason why the young don't vote. In a current USI survey, over more than one-third put their failure to vote down to non-registration, or to the location of the polling station. The most remarkable finding, however, was that well over half of those who hadn't voted said they had experienced no impediment.
Apathy or what? Maybe, but with mitigating factors, if USI president, Richard Hammond is to be believed. The same survey suggests that "at least" 65 per cent of students do not believe they have an influence over decisions taken by Government.
Asked if they cared about decisions taken by Government, 89 per cent said they did. "If they believe they're irrelevant to Government, it comes as a feeling of exclusion from the democratic structures rather than apathy," says Hammond. "If 65 per cent believe they have no influence over decisions, yet 89 per cent of them care, how frustrating can that be?"
So whose fault is that? The Minister of State for Youth Affairs, for one, clearly doesn't think it's his. "At the moment, it's considered hip not to vote," says Willie O'Dea. "And people are just cynical. The attitude is 'they're all on the make, they're all the same, so why bother?'."
He accepts that politicians have "to clean up their act and make sure that justice is seen to be done in the wake of the tribunals". He also believes voting has to be made easier and more attractive, using technology and allowing polling stations on campuses and in supermarkets. "You're going to have to remove any excuse for those who say they were too far away." But as for weekend voting - touted as the ultimate answer by virtually every interested body, not to mention the fact that Sunday voting is routine in 11 of the 15 EU states - he is not at all convinced. "There is no conclusive evidence that it will increase the turnout. For the Tipperary by-election, we decided to go for a Saturday vote to see if it would increase the turnout and the fact is that it didn't." But the total poll was up by three per cent. "The youth vote was still down abysmally. I was in charge of Tipperary town on the day and I went around and saw any number of young people around the town, including students. The pubs were packed and I met them in various venues and when I asked them if they were going to vote, they told me directly, to my face: 'No, go away. We're not interested'."
The other problem, he says, is that both the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland expressed reservations about Sunday voting when consulted by the Minister for the Environment four years ago and observant Jews would object to voting on a Saturday. "It was all to do with the erosion of Sunday and the Sabbath," says Father Martin Clarke of the Catholic Press Office. "It hasn't been considered since 1998 and that was simply in response to an inquiry from the Minister."
In any event, the Minister should note that no one is wedded to Sunday voting. The idea of a two-day vote, over Friday evening and all day Saturday, seems to be catching the imagination of many but not, it seems, this Government. "What are those guys afraid of?" wonders one observer.
Meanwhile, as many in the voluntary and education sectors have noted, the election participation initiative - including a voter education programme - promised under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness has failed to materialise. While the Government is considering its latest effort - using footballer Niall Quinn - to pull in the apathetic and the undecideds, voluntary groups such as the Vincentian Partnership for Justice, in the person of Sister Bernadette MacMahon, have taken the hands-on approach, running voter participation courses in marginalised areas all across the State. "We have no official funding, it's totally voluntary," she says.
Ironically, one beneficiary of the Government's inaction is Sinn Féin.
Its highly personalised drive to get people to register - "Your vote is your voice" - and telling them how to register, has been a major feature of their year-round canvassing strategy. According to Sean Crowe, the Tallaght-based Sinn Féin councillor, the party targeted first-time voters in 1997 because no one else seemed to be doing so. They did this simply by comparing the 1997 register with the one from the previous election, and, says Crowe, identified some 5,000 new voters. "The polls indicate now that the largest bloc of votes coming to Sinn Féin is in the 18-24 age group," he says.
Maybe so. But the question is, will they manage to drag themselves to the polling stations come election day in May?