Can This Man Bring The PDs Back From The Grave?

More than a few political pundits were surprised, to put it mildly, when Ciaran Cannon was elected new leader of the Progressive Democrats.

The reason for the outbreak of rampant head-scratching is simple: Cannon’s transparent lack of political experience. He only ventured into the political arena four years ago when he joined the PDs and, from his base in Athenry, County Galway, immediately secured a council seat at the local elections. However until his elevation to the position of party leader he was, to all intents and purposes, unknown, having failed to win a seat in East Galway, in last year’s general election. His saving grace was when Bertie Ahern appointed him to the Seanad as one of the Taoiseach’s nominations – a result of the PDs' decision to support the FF-led coalition government.
Senator Fiona O’Malley, whose father Des was a founding member of the party, might have seemed like a sure bet for the leadership post vacated by Michael McDowell.
But she lost to Cannon by the narrowest of margins. It appeared that Cannon’s rallying call to rebuild the PDs resonated strongly with the party’s remaining grassroots members.
In fact, Cannon, a 42-year-old publican, makes light of his lack of profile during this, his first major in-depth interview.
“They were saying, ‘Who’s he?’” Cannon notes. “I think John Drennan (Sunday Independent) described me on the Matt Cooper show as ‘Mister-what’s-his-name’(laughs)!”
Obviously Cannon will be hoping to have the last laugh. The general election was a disaster for the PDs, with most of their big hitters – Michael McDowell, Liz O’Donnell, Fiona O’Malley and Tom Parlon – being roundly rejected by the electorate. Even Cannon acknowledges that if there is a similarly disastrous outcome at the local elections next year, it would be the death knell for the party, which is currently languishing at 1% in the opinion polls despite its disproportionate media prominence.
But, for now at least, Cannon is in the humour for some spirited fighting talk.

JASON O’TOOLE: You started out in politics relatively late. Why?
CIARAN CANNON: Five or six years ago, I was like any other typical mid-30s person. I was a bit disillusioned with the disconnection between government and its people. I really felt that at a local level in County Galway, where we have these local elections every five years and we had 30 people elected. Now some were doing an excellent job, staying very much embedded in their own local communities. But I felt the vast majority simply turned up on the doorsteps and asked for your vote and then went off the radar for five years and then reappeared five years later. That’s why I decided to get involved.

How do you respond to the argument that you don’t have enough experience to be the leader of a political party?
It [his inexperience] offers us an opportunity – because I am reasonably unknown – to somehow create a new image for the party. I’m a new canvas on which the party and the members of the party can paint their vision of the Ireland of the future. I was not involved in the party in the past, even though I am very proud of the legacy it left us. But having a new name will allow us to re-engage with the electorate again. I have experience in life. I am 42 years old. You do not need to have spent a lifetime in politics to be able to have a vision for your country and to be able to enthuse a group of people around you to be able to deliver that vision.

It must have been very disappointing for you not to get elected at last year’s general election?
It was. But certain people were saying to me, ‘Let’s do this and put in a foundation base here and we’ll get you elected in five years time’. I can’t think like that. If I see a target, I want to literally go for it. I thought I did reasonably well, considering that the tide was going out nationally for the party. Only the very strong survived – Mary Harney and Noel Grealish. I got almost three-and-a-half-thousand number ones. It was a fair mandate from people in East Galway.

The general election was a disaster for the PDs. There seems to be a real lack of enthusiasm amongst party members now.
One thing that was really an eye-opener for me was the amount of people we have in the party who have huge expertise and knowledge and experience in so many different facets of Irish life, who are more than willing to roll up their sleeves and offer advice and help us in shaping the new policies that we do urgently need. I’m in regular contact now with a number of those people and we will be having some policy workshops over the next couple of weeks to begin that process.

What will happen if the party has a disastrous outing at next year’s local elections?
Well, we’ll need to sit back and take stock and ask ourselves, internally, is there still a place for us in Irish politics? The local elections next year will be the test for us. I’m confident we’ll do well, but equally so, you have to be honest in saying to yourself and to the members, if we do have that kind of election then yes, perhaps, we may need to look at winding up the party. You can’t be unrealistic and insist that you must continue on, like a wounded animal. You’d have no credibility.

Some PD councillors have defected to other parties recently.
Over the last couple of months, Mary (Harney) was a stand-in leader and she was finding it very hard to devote any time to the job she has, as Health Minister. So, we were described – quite rightly – as rudderless. When you are a member of a crew and you can see no discernible leadership, it is understandable that you might want to depart if you see other options being opened to you. I don’t blame the people who left. I wish them well. I think now with a new leader in place we have effectively stopped haemorrhaging. I’d be very surprised if we lost anybody else between now and the local elections.

Will you dispense with the President and Deputy Leader positions?
Certainly the President position. There’s a sense that you could have a lot of chiefs and no Indians. I want us to have a more inclusive style of leadership, where the parliamentary party and our councillors and perhaps our constituency offices around the country will communicate and meet on a regular basis and get the kind of feedback from the constituencies that wasn’t being filtered through to the leadership before. In the past, we may have sat in our ivory towers here in Dublin and decided what’s best for people without actually consulting them.

It must be very disappointing that many of the prominent members of the party have left during the last 12 months?
It is. They were almost like iconic figures in Irish politics. It was very traumatic for us to lose those people. But they are still members. They are still communicating with us. I have no doubt that if their advice was sought on issues in the future they would offer it freely, but I wouldn’t see them playing any major role. But we are where we are. You could argue that those we lost were around when the party was formed 20 years ago and that they were part of the beginning of the party – and that we are looking at a new kind of rebirth now, with different people and perhaps even a different approach.

Some pundits would argue that Michael McDowell’s personality hindered the party during last year’s general election – that he came across as being very arrogant.
It’s funny. There were two Michael McDowells. There was the public persona and people had this image of him being arrogant, aloof, dictatorial. But if you met Michael at a personal level that was not him at all. I had him down with me in East Galway on a few occasions and without exception every single person who met him – and some of them actually turned up quite reluctantly because they heard he was coming – came back to me afterwards and said, ‘Hang on a second, why don’t we see that side of the man in public?’ They found him warm and friendly and affable. Somehow we never succeeded in getting that across. Unfortunately, the media wanted to portray him as this kind of Rottweiler, Hitler-like persona, which he wasn’t.

His infamous pre-election spat with John Gormley must have compounded this perception.
Yeah. And then there was the issue with Richard Bruton (when McDowell likened the Fine Gael deputy leader to a Nazi figure). I think perhaps Michael, looking back on it, might have approached those issues differently. But he was so passionate about what he wanted to achieve. He left a very lucrative career in law to become involved in a slightly less lucrative career in politics. He gave an awful lot of himself over the years and it must have been a very difficult time for him and his family, that rejection he received – particularly the very nasty atmosphere in the RDS that night (when he was eliminated during the count to the sound of jubilant cheering).

How do you feel about Enda Kenny’s recent call for Brian Cowen to sack Mary Harney from the health ministry?
It’s a cheap shot. Mary Harney was the first politician to ask for the job of Minister for Health. No other politician from any party has had the courage and the tenacity and the sense of doing the right thing – and that’s what Mary Harney’s been all about.

Has her position as Minister for Health worked against the party?
It probably has. It was put about that Mary Harney was trying to privatise the health system and feather the beds of private health care in this country. That was never what she’s about. She's trying to put in place a public health system where you and I and every other person – irrespective of their means – will have access to world-class public health care.

There's a widespread view that she has been a failure.
She has achieved so much in that three-and-a-half years. We have been unsuccessful as a party in letting people know what she has achieved. That’s a fault within the party. Our communications have not been very effective and that’s something I’m looking into resolving at the moment. She’s getting a raw deal and part of my job is to re-address that.

Do you think the voting in the university panels of the Seanad needs to be reformed? At the moment, non-NUI graduates from the likes of DCU can’t vote.
Yes. If you are a graduate of any third-level institution in this country you should be allowed to vote.

Did you go to university?
I spent a year in Trinity studying computer science and then decided at the end of the year that this is not for me (laughs). It didn’t click. I didn’t find anything rewarding from it. I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted to be a teacher. My mum’s a teacher. She taught me in school, which was a bit of a disadvantage because I could never get away with not doing my homework! I think I have the personality and the make-up to be a successful teacher, but my career guidance teacher in 1984 told me there was no future in teaching. ‘You don’t want to be a teacher, you want to be in IT’. In ’84, IT was everything. It was the new nirvana. Everything was going to be IT driven. She was right in one sense, but not everybody fits into that mode. After I left, I began working with Dublin County Council in the planning department.

Did you see first-hand any corruption going on during your time with the council?
There was a sense that there was something going on. Poor Frank McDonald [Irish Times’ environment correspondent] was trying to unearth what he probably knew was something rotten in the state of Denmark. The whole ‘Section Four’ thing was gone off the wall. We used to have special ‘Section Four’ meetings where councillors would effectively award planning permission to a plethora of different applicants all over the county. And that continued on for quite a period of time. You did have a sense that something was not quite right.

On which theme, what are your thoughts on Bertie Ahern’s resignation?
With Brian Cowen now at the helm and the new cabinet he has assembled around him, I think you are looking at a new departure within Fianna Fail. They are the children of the ‘60s and ‘70s now. The sort of links they had with the whole Haughey era and the distorted sleazy aspect is effectively gone. It’s over. There are no question marks hanging over anybody. It’s going to be refreshing because we are now going back to talking about actual policy and actual progress and moving forward collectively as a government, rather than having this Mahon tribunal and all the other issues hanging over our heads. We are about to enter into a pretty difficult time economically and to have Brian Cowen with his economic experience at the helm – and to be in a position to begin talking about the real issues again – is going to be very beneficial.

What is your stance on same sex marriages?
I would be supportive of same sex marriages. Perhaps the phrase I would use is ‘civil partnership’. There is no question that I would support the fact that two people should be able to – irrespective of their sexual preferences – live together, love each other deeply and share a household, share a life together. Absolutely. The faster it happens in this country, the better.

Do you think prostitution should be legalised?
I think it should. It would afford protection to the women involved in the industry – and that’s the only reason we should do it. They are operating in a very seedy, shady and criminal environment, and it is not good. It’s the oldest profession in the world. It will always be there and we should take the responsible approach and legalise it and bring the women involved in it into a safe environment.

The majority of the prostitutes here are actually foreign nationals.
They are. And they are being exploited. They are being brought in here with promises of successful lifestyles in Celtic Tiger Ireland, and the next thing they know, they find themselves in this sort of environment. But again, to sweep it under the carpet and to try and criminalise it out of existence is never going to happen. It will always be there as a profession, so we have to acknowledge that and bring it in within the protection of government and within the protection of the Justice Department. Legalisation has happened in other countries and has been successful, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen here.

Should abortion be legalised?
This is my own personal view: I have huge sympathy for women who find themselves in a position where they feel there is no other option other than an abortion. Thankfully now – at long last – because of the supports that are being put in place by the Church and by the State and the change in the public perception of children outside marriage – the horribly difficult time we gave young women 20 or 30 years ago is thankfully gone. I think women no longer feel the need to have abortions. And the numbers going to England are dropping at long last. That’s a good thing. But if you’re asking me if I’d support the full legalisation of abortion on demand in this country, I wouldn’t. I think even in the countries now where they do have abortion on demand, there is a change of mindset, particularly amongst the medical fraternity. I’m not comfortable with the idea of simply deciding to terminate a child’s life purely because it’s an inconvenience.

Would you describe yourself as a religious person?
I would be bordering on the agnostic. I have regular conversations with a very good friend of mine about this and I believe that humans – humanity as a species – have within us an innate desire to be loved and to love. That’s something that is part of what we are, right? I believe that’s there as part of our genetic make-up and we have evolved to that point where that’s what we need to do. My friend, who’s very religious, would argue that this is the essence of faith – that’s God working within all of us. I find that hard to believe. I just think that’s what makes us human and what makes us unique. And we agree to differ on that.

So, you wouldn’t believe in an afterlife?
I would be sceptical. My dad died 11 years ago. I loved him deeply and he loved me deeply. I don’t particularly believe that somehow he is now present in another universe or another place because my dad would certainly be making attempts to come back and say ‘hello’. I certainly hope there is more to life than 72 or 75 and then you go into a hole in the ground and it’s all over. I do hope – but I remain to be convinced.

Should soft drugs be legalised?
Part of me says ‘yes’ and then the parent in me says ‘no’. That conundrum is there, you know? A lot of our Garda resources are diverted into tackling the soft drug phenomenon, right? When, in actual fact, if it was legalised, they could be concentrating on the far harder end of the market. But research seems to show that there is a tendency there – if you become involved in soft drugs and if you have a kind of an addictive nature – that it can lead you on to harder drugs. I have an 11-year-old son who I care deeply about – as any parent would – and it would be my gut instinct to restrict his access to any kind of drug. My gut instinct would be not to legalise it, to be honest, but at the same time – like it’s done in the UK – possession of a small amount isn’t a huge issue, criminality wise. I think that an awful lot of our Garda resources should be moved away from the soft drug end of the market and into targeting the harder drugs.

Have you ever tried marijuana yourself?
No. I wasn’t in any kind of environment where it would be available to me. I take a few drinks. A few pints every now and again.

What do you make of the proposal to make off-licences stop selling alcohol after 10pm? It’s like we’re turning into a nanny state.
I don’t agree with early closing for off-licenses. We’ve had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction over the last year or so. We are penalising the very large percentage of people in this country who enjoy a drink on a social occasion.
I’ll tell you this – my wife and I own a pub in Galway, so whether you think my opinion is coloured by that somewhat is up to you to decide – but I have a bitter problem with grown adults sitting in my pub on a Saturday night, having a pint, having a chat, and then being told that they have to leave and go home by a member of the Gardai. These are people who work hard, contribute to our economy and our country’s success. They are more than capable of making mature decisions as to what they want to do socially – and, yet, we tell them all they must go home at half twelve, or even at half eleven on a Sunday night. That’s one end of the spectrum, but then you have the other end which is the binge drinking.

Would you agree that there is an exaggerated hysteria about binge drinking and that it is case of demonising teenagers?
We all binged I suppose, to a certain extent (laughs) when we were younger, you know? But I do think it’s happening more now. Perhaps the reason is because young people have more money than I had 30 years ago. We’d be scraping together the money to get into the nightclub. You’re right, we don’t give young people enough credit. The vast majority of them are very responsible and an awful lot more tuned-in to the problems that alcohol can cause than we give them credit for.

Have you any theories on how to reduce road deaths?
Again, it’s about education. We should have – both within primary school and post primary school – education on road safety. It needs to become very much part of what is taught in our schools. In Transition Year we should have driving lessons in a controlled environment, in a very large car park where you can have roundabouts and traffic lights and so on. An awful of accidents take place because people are simply impatient and they want to overtake because they have to be somewhere at a particular time. There is a perception out there – and perhaps one that is justified – that setting up a speed trap on a dual carriageway, that has a speed limit of 120km per hour, and catching people that are doing 130 on a perfectly straight stretch of road does not serve to reduce road deaths.
Look at the Autobahn in Germany – they have no speed limits and they have one of the lowest accident rates in the world because people are focused on the task at hand, which is driving efficiently and safely. Road safety is all about education.

What type of music do you like?
Paddy McAloon is god (laughs) I think Dave Fanning described listening to Prefab Sprout as the closest thing you’ll get to heaven living on this earth. Even last night I was listening to the Steve McQueen album, which is the first CD I ever bought, on the iPod. I just find it uplifting. Steely Dan and Donald Fagen are good. I’ve seen Steely Dan twice live now. I saw them in The Point 10 years ago and in Hamburg last summer. Growing up, my musical tastes would have been a bit off the wall at the time in comparison to what most other local people were listening to. In those days, that whole Mod culture – The Beat, Madness, The Specials. That was alien to what everybody else was listening to, but they were great bands. I was big into that culture – Quadrophenia and Sting. Two or three of my friends would all dress the same in the Mod gear.

I understand you play the piano and guitar?
I play the piano and a small bit of the guitar, not a lot. I was in a few bands over the years. I suppose the most successful from my own musical tastes point of view was a band in Galway about 10 years ago called The Rhythm Method (laughs). We did gigs all around. The King’s Head and The Cellar. We made no money from it, but it was a good time to be growing up.