OPINION/Miriam Donohoe: Welcome, dear readers, to a land of knee-jerk reactions and a country full of politicians who don't have the bottle to carry through unpopular decisions. We love having the reputation of being the hip nation of Europe, but we are not very cool when it comes to pioneering change.
Check out the Dublin traffic fiasco this week. Before the radical plan to ease congestion was allowed to kick into action, the knee-jerkers were out in force. They included opposition spokespeople, hackney drivers, the Small Firms' Association and commuters, who all howled because they could no longer clog the city centre at peak times.
Leading the charge was none other than our Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, who had not even unpacked his shorts and T-shirts after his holidays before he was doing knee-jerks in a drive around Dublin to see the signs erected by Dublin City Council.
I only became aware, as did most people, of the council scheme to ease traffic congestion last week when a colour brochure landed in my front hall. I accept the signs are difficult to understand, and the initiative will prove an inconvenience to some, but it is a bold move that will benefit us all.
In one of those ridiculous compromises we've become used to over the years, it has now been agreed to proceed with the traffic plan, but to scrap those complicated signs at a cost to the taxpayer of €200,000.
This was all decided before the Minister and his fellow objectors had given the plan, and the signs, a chance. Once again, the knee-jerkers of Ireland have won a victory, of sorts.
The Dublin City Manager, John Fitzgerald, is one of our brightest local government officials. Remember the outcry when, under his stewardship, the Corporation introduced clamping as a way of freeing up parking in Dublin centre? He managed to withstand the pressure and it is now possible to get a parking space when you drive into town.
Instances of knee-jerking go back more than 10 years. I recall the outcry when Mary Harney, as Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, announced she was going to ban smokeless coal from Dublin.
Coal merchants predicted they would be put out of business and consumers said they would be forced to pay higher prices for environmentally friendly coal. To her credit, Ms Harney didn't flinch and the scheme was a roaring success.
And how about Michael Smith's move. when he was Environment Minister, to reduce the drink-driving limits in 1994? Remember the outcry from rural publicans, led by Jackie Healy-Rae, who insisted they would be ruined?
But Mr Smith didn't back down and that legislation did more than anything else to change Irish people's attitudes to drink-driving. Rural pubs, by the way, are still flourishing, and the law resulted in the birth of a thriving new business in Ireland - that of the rural hackney driver.
Noel Dempsey, too, with that portfolio, more recently ignored the knee-jerkers and proceeded with one of the most successful "green" initiatives - the plastic-bag tax. Shoppers go enthusiastically now to the supermarket with their long-life bags and boxes, although at first they moaned and groaned and said they could never possibly manage.
Unfortunately, Mr Dempsey is not going to be as brave when it comes to the reintroduction of third-level fees, even though their abolition has not resulted in more disadvantaged students going to college. Mr Demspey tested the waters on this issue recently, but the knee- jerkers, and Mr Dempsey's own fears for his political future, have put paid to the reintroduction of the fees. The Minister and his Fianna Fáil colleagues, don't want to face the wrath of the middle-class voter at the next election.
Our problem is we are not prepared to buy into the notion of "no pain, no gain". Politicians tend to go down the safest route. Instead of far-reaching, enlightened decisions, we are getting committees, task forces, reports, reviews and consultancy studies. Powerful interest groups are partly to blame, but politicians are even more culpable for giving in to them.
What suffers is the quality of decision-making, with those in power afraid to put their head above the parapet with something new, for fear of the knee-jerkers.
What you end up with are farcical events such as Dermot Ahern's public forum on television coverage of major sporting events. This side-show was prompted by the fact that the knee-jerkers had a field day when it emerged Sky Sports had bought the exclusive rights to broadcasting Ireland's European Championship soccer qualifiers. Shock horror, we may have to actually pay to view the games on TV.
The main sports bodies in the country - the GAA, the FAI and the IRFU - didn't even bother to attend the forum in Dublin Castle last Monday! Farcical or what! Having lived in a communist country for 18 months and seen the other extreme, where public opinion is not tolerated, I am more than ever conscious of the need for an amount of consultation on certain issues. But we must draw the line somewhere.
I found it encouraging to hear the Environment Minister, Martin Cullen, hint that he might take some planning powers away from local authorities to ensure we have a smoother and faster planning process.
That would represent one small victory against the knee-jerkers - if the Minister has the bottle to go through with his plan.