The remarkable thing about Ireland is not just the authoritarian nature of its government, but the fact that this is largely unopposed. There exists a uniformity between government, opposition, government-organised non-governmental organisations (GONGOs), and mainstream media. This has led to an alignment of the various sources of power where there should be checks and balances between them.
The political consensus has come about because the political parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have, at leadership level, adopted left-wing positions on every issue. While these parties used to possess socially conservative and/or economically liberal ideas, and continue to retain members who hold such views, they have funded GONGOs indistinguishable from left-wing activists over the last 30 years.
These organisations serve as quasi-official advisory groups, their various causes helped along by the tax-funded, far-left propaganda broadcaster, Radió Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). While these parties created and support these GONGOs, they are also browbeaten into embracing the ever more radical policies which these organisations demand, particularly because of propagandising by RTÉ.
RTÉ is known to have been controlled by Marxist activists since at least the early ‘80s and, among other things, broadcasts the cultural Marxist culture of California to a captive audience. These parties have also introduced the state-funding of political parties, which has turned them into branches of the state. These tax-funded parties, GONGOs, and RTÉ now exist independently of any accountability to the public.
Within the Irish parliament (Dáil Eireann) there are now three distinct ideological blocs. The first is composed of the three current government parties: Fine Gael, Fiánna Fail, and the Green Party, as well as the three largest opposition parties: Sinn Fein, Labour, and the Social Democrats. This illiberal liberal bloc supports permissiveness, multinational corporations, the European Union, mass immigration, and ‘hate speech’ laws. This bloc encompasses approximately 82% of the Irish parliament if one includes backbenchers who will ultimately follow their party whip.
The second bloc—and main opposition to the first—are the sixteen members of parliament found among three opposition caucuses, who are either independents or in the Áontu or Independent Ireland parties. This patriotic, pro-family bloc favours the family, small and medium enterprises, a welfare state that distinguishes between deserving and undeserving recipients, and opposes crime and mass immigration. This bloc encompasses 13% of the Irish parliament. The third parliamentary bloc is composed of the Solidarity-People Before Profit party and a few like-minded independents. These make up approximately 5% of Dail Eireann.
The illiberal liberals are supported by the mainstream media such as RTÉ, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, while the family-patriots are supported by Gript Media. The main hostility in Irish politics is not to be found among the fake alternative parties within the illiberal liberal bloc but rather between it and the family-patriot bloc. This can be seen in the mainstream hostility towards Gript Media.
This real division in Irish politics was demonstrated in the recent referendums pertaining to the family and to care, during which the illiberal liberals in government and opposition all supported the proposed amendments while the family-patriots provided the sole opposition.
The consensus within the first group can be seen in all major policy areas such as having high taxation and high public spending, mass immigration, and permissive social policy. What matters is not which of the mainstream government or opposition parties are in office but rather the growth of a real opposition. The mainstream parties do not represent or even purport to represent the Irish people but rather the interests of GONGOs, multinational corporations, the EU, and the U.S. government. Decisions are therefore done to—rather than on behalf of—the Irish people.
Expressions of opposition from the public are ignored and will now be suppressed by means of the new ‘hate speech’ bill, which will criminalise the expression or possession of facts or opinions with which the government disagrees. The impending Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill will, based on a list of “protected characteristics,” criminalise inciting “hatred” against persons or groups; preparing or possessing material thereto; or condoning, denying, or grossly trivialising genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. Controversially, the bill has self-referential and nebulous definitions of “hatred” and “gender.”
The general tenets of the bill are the transposition of EU law—Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA. Additional elements have been added by Ireland’s extremely illiberal Justice Minister Helen McEntee, such as that if a person possesses material that is deemed likely to incite violence or hatred, they will be presumed to be in breach of the law unless they can prove their innocence. Another provision stipulates that a private citizen will be required to give a police officer the password to their computer on request.
This bill entails the emergence of an openly totalitarian government which views the public as serfs. The state realised during the COVID lockdowns that many Irishmen are spiritless people who will believe the crudest propaganda and who welcome their own servitude. A state which criminalises the expression of opposition to its authoritarianism leaves available to the public only direct action.
There will likely be more riots in opposition to government policy, particularly in relation to mass immigration during the current housing crisis. The Irish political and media establishment are so self-absorbed and self-entitled that they demonise any right-wing government that is elected anywhere in the West as being authoritarian and unacceptable, while priding themselves on how progressive they are notwithstanding their own authoritarianism.
Ireland endured among the most draconian restrictions in the world during the COVID panic. This was in spite of the fact—or perhaps because—it had among the highest rates of vaccination in the world. It was clear that the more people acquiesced to restrictions on their liberty the more restrictions there would be, and this was what then happened. These draconian measures were not opposed by the main opposition parties, who only complained that the restrictions were not even more severe.
Likewise, there is total unanimity in support of the Ukrainian war effort, with a seeming ignorance of the fact that this is a U.S. proxy war and despite the strain that hosting upwards of 100,000 Ukrainians has placed on the country. Irish politicians and media are remarkably uneducated which produces a self-absorbed class which knows just what to think about everything, so long as these thoughts are wrongheaded. From global warming to COVID lockdowns, and from mass immigration to the Ukrainian war, the political and media class invariably adopt and promote the next big thing.
Ireland has thus become, in effect, an authoritarian one-ideology state, enforced by a media-controlled government, and devoid of serious parliamentary opposition. Lacking the consent of the governed, it remains to be seen what will be the outcome of this confrontation between an increasingly authoritarian state and a supposedly freedom-loving citizenry.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/how-ireland-has-become-an-authoritarian-state