The most passionate man in Irish politics

What’s so funny about Michael D? He has been variously described as an eccentric and an oddball. His name has been used as shorthand for a negative political stereotype. In some of the more scurrilous newspapers, he’s been mocked for his hair, his voice, his arty concerns and his left-wing politics. Yet he’s one of the most articulate people, let alone politicians, you will hear speaking in Ireland today.

He’s respected world-wide for his ceaseless campaigning for human rights. While Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht he set up TG4 and galvanized the Irish film industry with the new Film Board. In the same period he abolished the ludicrous Section 31 legislation, which prevented interviews with, or statements by, some of the groups involved in the Northern conflict being carried by broadcast media.
He’s been Mayor of Galway twice, as well as a Senator and a TD with a seat in the Dail since 1987. He’s lectured in political science and sociology. He is a published poet and columnist. He’s recently instigated the only serious political attempt to have hostage Ken Bigley freed from captivity in Iraq. And he just missed being the only viable challenger in the 2004 Irish presidential race that never was.
So what’s so funny about Michael D.Higgins?

Any preconceptions about a soft-spoken artist are demolished by the no-nonsense style of a man who’s just met with the Palestinian ambassador and currently has some rather more pressing concerns than poetry.
Kenneth Bigley’s Irish-born mother provided a basis for Higgins to appeal directly to his captors, via an interview with Al-Jazeera television. The Liverpool man’s fate is still uncertain at the time of writing, and Michael D. is all too aware of how fragile is the link he’s provided. Yet at least an effort has been made, with Bertie Ahern and even Yasser Arafat following his lead and doing what Tony Blair has remained unwilling to do.
The only positive thing to come out of the situation so far for Higgins is the evidence that Irish people seem to have retained their spirit of compassion. Hopefully more positive news may follow – but for now that at least is encouraging.
“This office has been snowed under with messages regarding Ken Bigley,” he explains. “Not just concerning any efforts I have made, but full of suggestions and constructive comments. Irish people have an integrity which abhors such situations.”
He’s not so sanguine about our current government’s response to Iraq. As Labour spokesman on Foreign Affairs, he plans to pose some difficult questions to members of Bertie’s new cabinet.
“Brian Cowen was very damaged by the Iraq war and the imprecision of Ireland’s stance. He wasn’t assisted by the Taoiseach’s position. It will be interesting to see how Dermot Ahern gets on. Iraq won’t go away. One of the first questions that will be put to Dermot Ahern will be about the provision of Shannon to land American planes used in abductions.
“There are people operating on the periphery, who have been involved in leasing planes, abducting people and bringing them to Guantanomo, a place with no guarantees of due process. These planes have been landing in Shannon and using our resources, whilst operating entirely outside of international law. Is this acceptable?
“I would like to ask our female cabinet members, Marys Harney, Coughlan and Hanafin, where they stand on the issue of female prisoners in Iraq? We’re not simply talking about the two most prominent ones, we’re talking about people who’ve been gathered up in household raids and are in prisons in indeterminate locations. Do we support this?”
Is the Government out of step with the public when it comes to the larger political and ethical issues?
“Undoubtedly. What is fascinating is that there is a huge ethical impulse in Irish people of all ages, which isn’t being harnessed. There is a decency here. But not in government. As an example, you could ask yourself what kind of people would be afraid to become involved in the race issue? You know what the answer to that is: an enormous number of people in Leinster House. They think the less said the better. But it is a huge issue. Multiculturalism and anti-racism is a pressing issue. When I go out and meet young people they realise this and are full of generosity in this regard.”
Higgins doesn’t see much to hope for in the cabinet reshuffle, particularly when it comes to Justice Minister McDowell’s portfolio.
“The IBEC neo-liberal narrow-minded version approaches a problem like crime thinking only of prisons. I suspect the road McDowell is going, is to privatise prisons. I can see that happening in the next few years. I don’t believe most Irish people desire this. Look at the revulsion here for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanomo Bay. Look at the large body of support for groups like the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
“There is a responsibility to the dignity of human beings who are in your charge in prison. You would be pushed to find any of these issues spoken about in the new cabinet. What are they afraid of?”
Have Irish people given up on the political process? Michael D’s face wrinkles in disgust.
“Look at the tribunals. Haughey’s case couldn’t be completed because of the Tanaiste, who shot off her mouth about him deserving to be in prison, thereby saving him. So, yes, of course you’ve a loss of trust in politics.”
That loss of trust could go further. Higgins believes there is a widespread fear of ideology abroad in Government and beyond.
“The new Minister for Health says she is not ideological, yet she brazenly favours private over public investment where she seeks to reduce matters of citizenship to the realm of competition. The universality of certain basic rights – education, health, housing, security – is currently under complete assault.
“It isn’t that we are conquered by an army. It isn’t that we are being forced. It is that we have been completely overtaken by a commitment to an extreme individualism. Anything idealistic is a pain in the neck. That’s the official Sunday Independent philosophy.”
The rise of individualism seems to be catching.
“I’ve been around for so long, but this may be the most interesting period in Irish society yet. Ignorance is being offered as an alternative to everything. Many younger people are beginning to sound like well-kept parrots. The young audience of Questions and Answers comes out with these right wing opinions – ‘The economy is the thing. We can’t do anything to endanger the economy’. And they’re just prats! They have no knowledge of economics nor do they have any intention of getting one. They are simply young, boring, right wing people.
“People say they’re not ideological, they just believe in the market. Well I believe in the market too - as a tool for giving choice to consumers. But what happens when you reduce education to the marketplace? Harney says you owe it to the economy to be useful – and it becomes a national problem if all the right people are not taking all the right courses to suit IBEC. IBEC wants the State to subsidise everything – they have a simple slogan – socialise the costs and keep the profits growing.
“Mary Harney thinks we shouldn’t retire at 65 but perhaps at 70 – and even then your pension mightn’t be secure. In 70s and 80s I attended dozens of conferences on the problems of the leisure society. People were going to be going out of their tree because they’d nothing to do. They were supposed to take up all kinds of hobbies. But suddenly there’s no time.”
But isn’t that the acknowledged trade-off for other rewards people receive?
“But look at us. We have made it impossible for people to have a house! We are second lowest in Europe in social protection in areas like childcare, social housing, public parks. The education system is another battleground. Already the utilitarians are demolishing the concept of a broad education, particularly at 3rd level. We should put vast resources into pre-school and junior schools because it is there that inequalities begin.
“Irish people are wonderful but they have an insatiable capacity for punishment. They are punished by banks, by rightwing politicians; they sacrifice their children, they abandon the right to having any housing. They put up with a shabby health service. And every now and again everyone from the President down tells them they’re the richest, most attractive, envied people on the face of the earth. And they say aren’t we wonderful! We are indeed a source of wonder.”
So it’s our own fault?
“You see, there’s a whole series of people capitulating within the system. You have university Presidents, who on occasion think they they’re CEOs. They’re dying to call themselves chief executives. Chief executives of what? They have a responsibility to education – they aren’t drivers for the slaves that are needed for one version of the economy.
“And their neglect of the creative society, which it turn makes possible the myriad forms of the knowledge economy, is disastrous. Because by fitting the education system to one version of the knowledge economy, you are creating obsolescence and unhappiness, as well as damaging the nature of the universities.
“Just think about what happened in telecommunications. Denis O’Brien got a State asset for next to nothing and made a fortune out of it with ESAT. And than after a disasterous flotation of Eircom, Tony O’Reilly was allowed to buy what was left of the company – and make hundreds of millions out of it.
“And, now, we now have one of the least efficient telecommunications systems in Europe – as is demonstrated in the roll-out of broadband. Greed, ignorance, robbery, asset-stripping and dishonesty are at the core of things in Ireland, yet they are not discussed. I’m proud to be in a democracy, but there is something shabby about our existence.”

Could it be that we are living on borrowed time? That young people in particular will have to face the consequences later?
“They are paying the price right now. You can feel the loneliness that is at the heart of our culture. Look at the fact that among young males between the ages of 15 and 30, the principal cause of death is suicide. Look at the use of alcohol as a social anaesthetic. This reveals a kind of neurosis in society, and a reduction of social skills and capacities.
“I wrote a column from ’82-’92 hotpress and I know what it is to meet exciting, contrary, creative and imaginative people. I’m not anti-young people but I feel there’s such a pressure on them. There seems to be so little time for things like friendship, conversation, choosing their own style, being free.”
Is there anything good about being young now?
“There are good things – it is easier to travel, even though you must now be fingerprinted and scanned before setting foot out in the US. What I am saying is that the version of the economy in which young people are trying to function, isn’t serving them at any level, be it from housing right down to being ripped off in a nightclub.
“Young people are ripped off in relation to the commercialisation of music. The suits in music are ripping off young bands. Managers who couldn’t manage henhouses are taking slices from young groups. People are being screwed at the door, made to prove their identities to a gang of bouncers and then charged a mark-up of 50 to 100 percent on drinks after a certain hour.”
Current trends in legislation may make it even less fun to be young.
“I feel sorry for young people, for the way in which public order legislation has been directed against them and is so comprehensively abused. With these instant fines, which we’re now promised, we are drifting to the right all the time. A very comprehensive politics of fear is being created and young people are stuck in the middle of this.”

It’s quite clear that Michael D.Higgins is doing everything he can to live his own highly singular version of life. His indication that he might be prepared to go forward as Labour candidate for the Presidency appealed to many. Then, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte decided not to put forward any candidate, even though almost half of Labour’s National Executive Council disagreed.
Whether to avoid a large spend or to focus on other coming elections, this decision effectively prevents Irish people from taking part in the democratic process. It gives Fianna Fail candidate Mary MacAleese an automatic second term, and put a premature end to the intriguing vision of Michael D. Higgins as first citizen.
So is he bitter?
“That’s over now. There’s no doubt that the nomination process should be changed. The idea of needing 20 deputies or four county councillors or confining it to incumbents and former incumbents should be changed. There should be a way of putting people forward based on a certain number of signatures from the public and a lesser amount of Deputies or Senators involved. I’ve been very encouraged by the large number of messages that I’ve received. I encourage myself by saying that I am still very young at 63!”
Would you have gone for the Park?
“It’s something I thought long and hard about and in the end the nomination didn’t work out. There were constraints and tactical issues to be taken into account such as the brevity of the campaign, the fact that the incumbent mightn’t have been available to take part in debates – and very particularly that it was right at the last minute that the goverment released the information regarding the refund of costs of the campaign should you reach 12.5%.”
What would you now say to Mary MacAleese?
“I think the distance between the Presidency and the government of the day is very important. The neglected discourses are more important than the glamorised ones. There are issues in this country more important than us regularly repeating mantra-like ‘We are rich, self confident, self assertive and all those poor countries around the world could be more like us and then they would be as wonderful as us too’. I find that offensive outrageous, narrow and wrong.”
What’s the future for the Labour Party?
“The huge question for the Labour Party is what vision of society you are inviting people to share in. I would say to younger people that politics will never run exactly as you’d want and there are times when it would drive you out of your tree altogether. But one hangs in because it is possible to make a difference.
“I remember the many referendums in the last 20 years, the enormous debates we had. It wasn’t the case of us driving on any liberal agenda. Those were serious issues of the times.”
But without those types of issues around today, how can the Labour Party energise voters?
“We need to deal more with the experience of women and minorities. We need to establish an ongoing discourse rather than lashing a policy together at the last minute because there are elections taking place. Liberal parties do best when they’re campaigning parties. We need to build up support as widely as we can. In favour of peace rather than war. In favour of economic alternatives. In favour of citizenship.
“For the first time we have the resources to deliver security to every person from the moment they are born. But we have been appealing to those whose only instinct is to speculate. That acquisitive instinct is like a cancer running through society. We must conquer it.”
How can Labour appeal to the young?
“It may be old-fashioned, but we should be providing opportunities for political education. The suggestion is that only about two or three people in the country understand economics. So you have George Lee and about two others. The Trade Unions should be running seminars on economics and equality for their members. Why should we lie down and allow Michael McDowell to tell us that inequality is necessary to give a spur to the economy. That’s an 18th century view.”
Has Sinn Fein stolen some Labour votes?
“I don’t think they’ve received as much of the vote as perceived. They are getting a totally alienated vote. If asked what precisely they would do on housing, on waste management, on the environment and so forth, we more than hold our own. But the assumption that Sinn Fein are the natural choice for young or poor communities doesn’t hold up, even though it’s something Sinn Fein would like us to believe. It’s a media myth, and those propagating it in the media haven’t been seen in such poor communities in the last 20 years.”

The answer to the question posed upfront is simply this. Michael D.Higgins is a serious man, one who takes the problems of the world very seriously. But he is also self-deprecating with a sly sense of humour. And most importantly he loves what he does.
His third collection of poetry, An Arid Season, is just out and might tell us more about what makes the man tick than many of his political speeches. In between his political duties it took him only ten years to write.
“This third book is more about trying to hold onto a set of aspirations and being regularly confronted by their defeat in the name of pragmatism. I really believe that even if the prospects aren’t good, it is worth it to articulate the sense of possibility.”

An Arid Season, published by New Island, is on sale now