As we enter the last days of Election 2016, it is already clear that Irish politics is entering a new era no matter what voters decide next Friday. Not only has the campaign failed to ignite idealism and vision, but all the main parties seem to have badly misjudged the public mood. No matter who wins, all emerge as losers.
As different opinion polls show slight swings both up and down for each the four main parties, none of them has managed to make any decisive impact on voting intentions. So, it appears that many voters are left with a decision between the least worst option as they see it, possibly swayed more by fears than by hopes.
This election, then, marks a failure not just of different party campaigns but of the whole political system, unable to understand an electorate that wants a lot more from its politicians than they seem able to offer. In offering nothing more than a spate of confusing promises about taxes and subsidies, reliefs and abolishing charges, all the main parties are seriously misunderstanding the level of knowledge, the real concerns and the public values of most citizens.
It seems doubly ironic that just as we are involved in a public conversation about the ideals of 1916 and what kind of society its participants aspired to, our political parties have been so deaf to the deeper questions raised by the centenary celebrations. How revealing of the paucity of social vision of our political class!