Almost 40 years after she first became politically active Catherine Murphy says “there are things that haven’t changed at all, in that I’m still complaining about the same things that got me involved in politics”.
The former Social Democrats co-leader says of her start in public life: “I found myself giving out about things that weren’t working properly.”
In the 1980s “we’d moved to Leixlip and there were lots of houses, but a lot of the services were absent”, she says. “There wasn’t much point in me giving out if I wasn’t willing to do something about it.”
It was the era of mass protests around taxation and the burden on PAYE workers, followed by the introduction of service charges for water and refuse collection, campaigns that raged through the 1980s.
“One of the biggest issues was emigration because of the high levels of unemployment. It’s happening now because people can’t afford to live here – but particularly young people, and housing is a central part of that.”
Having now retired from the Dáil, Murphy reflects that she has represented an area with “strong population growth” over recent decades. “The problem is that the services lag very far behind, if they arrive at all,” she says.
The former TD says “we seem to have this focus on development as opposed to planning”.
“Planning is about not just building the houses, which is incredibly important, but it’s also about delivering services that go along with those houses,” Murphy says. “That’s one thing I think we’re still doing very badly wrong.
“There’s a lot of positive things that happened too over the years. We are certainly a much wealthier country.” However, “even on a modest salary, you were able to buy a home in the 1980s and 1990s”, she reflects.
This issue that “will undermine society”, in her view, is if people do not have a secure roof over their heads. “I think we’re storing up awful problems into the future if we don’t crack that one,” she says.
Murphy never had the opportunity to be a government minister: “That’s the way the cookie crumbled.” But she would have “relished” being a minister in “a combination of housing and transport”, she says, “because I think they are interlinked. If you’re going to have housing, if you’re going to have industry, you have to think critically about how people are going to move around.”
A co-founder of the Social Democrats in 2015 with Róisín Shortall and Stephen Donnelly, Murphy says her previous experience of other parties was useful “when we were talking about the kind of culture that would underpin the politics of the party”.
After an initial foray into campaigning, she joined the Workers’ Party; when it split she went with the newly formed Democratic Left. She reluctantly stayed when in 1999 the party merged with Labour but four years later “I just felt that too much of my energy was being taken with internal wrangling and life was too short, so I left and went Independent”.
Directly after the merger came local elections – and an unfortunate change in local electoral areas.
“There were three sitting Labour councillors in a four-seater. So somebody was going to lose out and I think they wanted me to lose out,” says Murphy. It was a tough election but she came out on top.
“To be perfectly honest with you I didn’t get involved [in politics] to be involved in internal conflict. It just saps your energy. It’s not productive. And when that happens you’re better off to sever the ties.”
Political culture tends to be dismissed as unimportant, she says. “But how you work with people is really important.”
What is her view of her party co-founder, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, who left the Social Democrats shortly after its foundation and went Independent before joining Fianna Fáil, and who lost his Dáil seat in the general election?
“Clearly he wasn’t compatible with the Social Democrats,” says Murphy.
In 2007 she lost the seat she first won in a 2005 byelection, so she is aware of what Donnelly is going through.
“It feels like a public hanging and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I got on fine with him afterwards. What’s the point in settling scores? It just takes too much energy.”
Highly respected by her peers, the polite but steely Kildare North TD was a heavy hitter on the prestigious Public Accounts Committee, where she took a forensic approach to costs and efficiency.
She became embroiled in controversy when she told the Dáil about the €119 million loss the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) incurred in the €45 million sale of troubled building services company Siteserv to businessman Denis O’Brien. A subsequent inquiry ruled the deal was so tainted by impropriety that it was not commercially sound and was based on “misleading and incomplete misinformation”.
[ Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy defends her actions in Siteserv affairOpens in new window ]
The inquiry also faced “real difficulties” investigating claims by anonymous sources. Murphy, who refused to identify her sources or testify at the inquiry, still defends her approach and said she had given a commitment from day one that she would not reveal her sources.
“I wouldn’t have had the information I had if I hadn’t given that commitment,” she says.
The Siteserv saga and the sale of other distressed assets including property being bought for less than it was worth were the kind of things that “absolutely drove me bonkers” and contributed to the foundation of the Social Democrats.
Others included the universal social charge, the household tax “and the straw that broke the camel’s back was the water charges” and “where it fell on the austerity ladder”.
Her party looked at other countries with very good public services for ideas, particularly the Nordic states. There was an “anti-corruption agency that we were impressed with in Australia, and an electoral commission in New Zealand”.
And so the party was founded. “You start up and then our next objective was to scale up,” says Murphy.
What about Labour’s interest in a merger? “You might think we’re rebuffing the Labour Party the whole time. The Labour Party has never spoken to either myself or Róisín in all the years we sat beside them about a merger. They talk to the media about a merger. They talk about us. They don’t talk to us.”
But they are not interested in a merger. “There was at least as big a resistance to it by our membership. Just as it’s valid for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to be independent political parties in their own right, it’s valid for us to be a party in our own right with our own ambitions, just as it is for the Labour Party.”
She is “very proud” of the determination, energy and effort involved in establishing the Social Democrats. “I don’t think people appreciate just what it takes to found a political party, develop a policy platform from nothing, then cold call people and ask them will they contest elections where you don’t have any money and you don’t have any staff. It’s not for the faint hearted.”
It was also “very helpful that Róisín and myself operated as co-leaders because we shared that workload which was really quite extensive”.
Current party leader Holly Cairns, who is on maternity leave after giving birth on the day of the election, “is a signal to women that you can be involved in politics”. Women make up just 25 per cent of the Dáil and “a more balanced Dáil is a better Dáil”, says Murphy.
She will remain an active member of the party and at present is director of elections for the Seanad. The Social Democrats are running Patricia Stevenson, a Carlow-Kilkenny general election candidate, and Fingal Cllr Joan Hopkins who ran in Fingal East.
The Social Democrats are “very determined to give people an alternative to vote for”, says Murphy.
She says the State has money but money does not equal wealth. “A wealthy country is one where your public services are very good and where people have a security that I don’t believe they have at the moment,” she says.
In terms of the next government, she sees Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael opting for Independents to make up the numbers.
“Verona Murphy being backed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael [for Ceann Comhairle] suggests that they have an absolute preference for Independents and a lot of those independents effectively come from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael originally so they’re compatible with them,” she says.
“The important thing in the next five years is to really focus on scaling up, to give people the option for a completely different type of political offering the next time around.”
Christmas AMA, part one: your thorny political questions answered
Jack Horgan-Jones, Jennifer Bray, Harry McGee and Pat Leahy join Hugh for part one of our annual "ask me anything" session. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Thanks also to all who listened to the podcast in 2024. Happy Christmas from everyone on the Inside Politics team.
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