I'm delighted to hear that Enda Kenny has detected "a palpable mood for change" among the electorate, writes Frank McNally.I thought it was only me, but he's absolutely right. It's the little inconveniences that annoy people and the difficulty in getting change these days is definitely one of them.
There are few things so maddening as going to an ATM, when you only want to buy a newspaper or a cup of coffee, and finding that the machine dispenses nothing but €50 notes. You're grateful on the rare occasions when you get something as small as a twenty. But more often you're stuck with fifties, and have to endure frowns from shop assistants or buy things you didn't want to take the bad look off it. Instead of just the coffee, you have an expensive cake as well. If you're in the newsagents, you're tempted to buy 20 cigarettes along with the paper. And you only after giving the damn things up.
At a time when even some of our schools are multi-denominational, the output of ATMs is a scandal. The Church of the Fifty Euro Note reigns supreme, with obvious macro-economic consequences. By forcing us into unplanned purchases, the banks artificially boost retail profits, increase inflation, and exaggerate consumer confidence. That's aside from the personal inconvenience caused, which is considerable. As if we're all not busy enough, we have to spend our time carrying out unpaid money-laundering operations for the finance houses.
So the message for bank executives is this. Listen to Enda Kenny! The people want change, and they want it now.
All right, all right, I know what the Fine Gael leader really meant. I'm sorry for scoffing. It's just that, as we enter the final nine months of the election campaign, fatigue is setting in. Also, I'm worried. When I look at Enda's fresh, trusting, just-up-from-Mayo face, I fear that he will invest too much hope in the public's mood for change, which is notoriously subject to change itself. Remember poor Michael Noonan? Checking the archive for his pre-2002 election speeches would be too much like intruding on private grief, but I'm sure he detected a mood for change too. And he was right, in a way.
Once the coalition had been safely returned, there was a violent mood-swing against it as the electorate suffered from an extreme case of buyer's remorse. This reflected the equally dramatic metamorphosis of the Government, which before the election had been dispensing money like an ATM machine full of fifties but immediately afterwards was transformed into a sarcastic bus-driver who didn't give change. In any case it was too late to save the then FG leader.
There's always a mood for change nowadays. It's compulsory. Change is the buzz concept of our times, from business (where it must be managed successfully) to the peace process (where unionists must not be afraid to embrace it). There's such a stigma attached to the status quo that even people who secretly like it would not dare to say so in public. (Curiously, this also applied to the rock group of that name, and yet their records sold well.)
Palpable as the mood for change may be, the current leader of the opposition does not seem so confident in it as to specify what exactly will be different after next June, apart from the Government. The only major principle on which the State's largest parties appear divided is what could be generously termed the "ideology of competence". Fianna Fáil believes that, of the two parties, it can run the country most efficiently. Fine Gael believes roughly the opposite.
Apart from this historic difference of opinion, both seem to regard ideas, like certain housing estates, as things to be avoided or left to the niche parties. This only reflects the Irish electorate's innate conservatism. Choosing a government in this country is like mixing paint. The moody but instinctively cautious voters take the base colour, which is either Fianna Fáil (white) or Fine Gael (whiter than white), and then add a small amount of red, blue, green, or whatever. We end up with a nice pastel shade, which will do us for another five years, when our mood may have changed slightly.
Even so, I wish Enda would take a chance and throw out a few policies. I know most of Michael Noonan's blew up in his face - who can forget the doomed Eircom shares refund? Yet something more modest, such as forcing banks to stock fivers and tenners in their ATMs, might catch the popular imagination. Sadly, I suspect Enda's handlers are advising him just to sit tight, keep smiling, and wait for the Government to have an accident. From a purely tactical viewpoint, they may be right.
On this note, I see that during the recent PD leadership non-election campaign, Tom Parlon was reported to be limping, a fact he attributed to "a kick from a cow". The motive for the cow's action is not known, and until it is, it would be rash to say that hers has been the most coherent attack on the Government so far this year. But I detect a palpable sense of anger among the country's bovine community which, God knows, has been milked long enough.