If there's a David tackling multiple Goliaths in the Naas Area local elections, it's Martin Byrne, writes Brian Byrne. His budget is €800, he doesn't have a large party machine behind him. He's a baby in political terms. And he's campaigning while making a living working on IT contracts from his home and minding his daughter half of the week.
The odds are stacked high against him. But you have to admire his guts. And hope that the experience doesn't blunt his idealism. We always need idealists.
Originally from Baltinglass, Martin has travelled. After stints as a barman and gardener in Ireland, he worked in Germany for a while. From there he went to Greece, crossing the former Yugoslavia during the war there. He saw stuff that still upsets him today, especially when the current situation in Ukraine comes on our TV screens. But that's not what he came to talk to me about.
After his travels he went to college, got a place in NCAD and qualified in graphic design. He was employed in that area until 2005, when companies began outsourcing their design work. Now he works for himself across the internet, on freelance IT contracts as far away as Canada. Local politics happened gradually. He did some work for Sinn Fein when he lived in Dublin. Came down to Naas two years ago with his girlfriend. Now, though, he's a single father, sharing the work of rearing their little girl.
He voted Labour in the last general election, but has since become frustrated with the Government ("they've gone back on everything"). He was talking to another candidate, who suggested that councillors shouldn't really give too much of the power back to the people who elected them. They might not make the 'right' decisions'.
"It was the way he said it, made me feel there's this class of people who consider themselves to be the ones who should make the decisions. That it's their own opinions that really matter. That day I decided to see if I could get a nomination from Direct Democracy Ireland."
Martin had come across DDI on the internet. He was impressed by the movement's Ben Gilroy. "He seemed like somebody who was fighting back, standing up for the people with no interest in anything for himself." He got the nomination to run for Kildare at a small meeting in Sallins last September. Since then he's been wearing out shoe leather on the doorsteps. On his own, mostly. "There are a couple of friends involved, but one is ill, the other has a small business to look after. DDI in Dublin handles the online, organises the leaflets and posters."
He has to pay for the campaign materials himself. He could only afford 6,000 leaflets ("so I have to be careful how I distribute them. I was able to put two posters in Kilcullen"). On the doorsteps, if there's somebody at home, he gets about a minute on average. "They don't know about Direct Democracy. On four RTE political programmes recently, we had candidates in the audience, but they got a total of about 40 seconds exposure."
The biggest issue he hears about is water charges. So he brings with him a DDI campaign petition which hopes to raise enough signatures to seek a national referendum on the whole water charges thing. There's also the matter of hardship. "We need a food bank in Naas. I've had three different people knocking on my door looking for food for their children. These were ordinary people, red-faced because they have to ask strangers. People shouldn't be going hungry here in this day and age."
Direct Democracy candidates work on the principle that they don't represent a party with particular policies. "Our policies are what people tell us are the issues that directly affect them locally. Those are what we will represent them on. If I'm elected, my job will be to make sure that people will be kept informed about any decisions coming up which will affect them. I'll take their feedback, and vote in terms of the majority of those who provide that feedback."
Maybe the whole DDI thing seems too loosely based. Ephemeral, even? Idealistic but impractical? After all, people will always push their self interest rather than the common good? Martin Byrne points to Switzerland, where in individual cantons people have been known to vote for higher local taxes because that's the right thing to do, even if personally painful.
DDI is small, set up back in the latter half of 2012. "But we're growing pretty quick. We have 19 candidates, for local authorities and Europe." And who'll vote for him and his fellow candidates? "People who are disaffected by the current system, which is too easily manipulated by the political interests. You don't join DDI to further policies, or for financial gain. We believe we have a system that works for the people, and that is at odds with the main political system."
In the end, it will come down to whether people going about their everyday business and struggles will be interested enough to back something that would require a lot of research, and subsequent direct involvement.
So far, in Martin Byrne's case — and presumably his fellow candidates around the country are facing the same things — the Goliaths have the arena. Where DDI goes in these elections might well hinge on whether there's still enough grá for the underdog. Still, the biblical David did defeat the Philistine enemy, and went on to become King of Israel.
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