John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new," said Tennyson, in a poem which begins, "So all day long the noise of battle roll'd", capturing the turbulence and soul searching which great changes often bring. The trouble with Ireland, unlike Camelot, is that the old order is taking too long to change, despite the noise of economic battles, and introspection is not providing radical alternatives. Neither is Fine Gael, in the person of its spokesman, who seems bent on presenting to the world an image of this country which is damaging, dismal and disingenuous, the product of a mind and a party more concerned with political point scoring than national advantage.

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