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The Leader Interview..with Joe Kemmy, PRO of Limerick Labour Party
THE last time we saw Joe Kemmy, it was an ungodly hour still shy of dawn on June 6.
The Labour Party director of elections cut a mild, satisfied figure around City Hall amid the mad flavour of the local election count.
Labour had just retained the four seats they won in 2004, bringing in two new councillors in the process.
There was uncertainty in that campaign; a lingering worry that the party could take its base and its issues and the will of the electorate for granted and lose its place as the discernible Other in Limerick city. Many brows cracked and heads dropped that night, but not Kemmy's. It was a night to be content.
Nearly three months later and the mind is still working. He never let it stop. Kemmy's blocky frame and scratchy, snow white beard are squeezed into the tiniest of corners in a cafe that can hiss and clank with the best of them. But the noise and bustle never once knocks his words on housing policy and NAMA and health care and Sinn Fein off plumb. An old socialist has had to agitate against worse.
"You see two children walking in the street today, and they're both wearing the same clothes. But you don't know where they come from. Ireland has become superficially a class-less society. But class still raises its head on a nod and a wink basis. People who were educated in Rockwell understand the difference between them and others. Our old battles have been won before, but we're moving on to new ones."
His brother, the late TD Jim Kemmy, still casts a long shadow over every newsletter or policy meeting or cup of coffee shared among Labour people in Limerick. More than a decade since his death, Kemmy remains a working man's leviathan, a silent guide for everything his brother and his party do.
"Jim was a student of history and he drummed it into us that he never wanted to see in Limerick what happened in Artane when Noel Browne died. Jim at all times made clear to us that we could only be successful if in the event of him dying or standing down, that the seat would be retained. It was retained, but not by someone who had Jim's profile at the time. But Jan (O'Sullivan] and the local organisation have proved that his work can be carried on."
A former builder, Joe's socialist fabric was carved through the struggles of his back and the will of his hands. Today, that chooses to manifest itself through advice and ideas as the local party PRO, but he is more. The radical edges of the 70s may have dulled, but he is still ready to pick apart the state of the nation and those who would seek to set the tune for our recovery.
"The Chamber of Commerce president Harry Fehily, who I know quite well, made a most interesting statement recently. He called for a 20 per cent cut in wages for workers - that means nurses, gardai, shop assistants, and builder's labourers if there are any left. But he ignored the vast profits made by his own colleagues in the legal profession. He didn't call for a 20 per cent reduction in the fees paid by tribunals. He made no reference to the huge expenses Judges charge to the State. He made no reference to consultants' fees, many of whom earn a week's wages for a five minute consult.
"This, to me, represented old privilege coming to the surface again. People like Harry, who I am friendly with, come out with statements that a person with the most limited education could dismantle. His solution affected only the lowest paid. This just goes to how what we do in a time of crisis - the privileged few calling for wage restraint on the lowest paid. That is class politics."
As minds and opinions begin to look beyond the current Fianna Fail-led government, Kemmy believes that Labour can and will prove themselves able to lend a new morality to Irish leadership.
"Labour's role will be to point the way forward, as we have done in the past. The last time we had a Labour Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn, he handed over an economy that was creating 1,000 jobs a week. He didn't throw money at different things. We didn't lose the run of ourselves in government then, and we won't lose the run of ourselves in government again. It would matter too much to us now. The State may find itself unable in a year or two to pay its bills unless something is done. We cannot stumble along anymore."
His take on each of his chosen issues rolls off with little prompting. Regeneration is "all but dead"; a good idea consigned to irrelevance because it came ten years too late to receive any meaningful resources. Housing policy in Limerick that sees the Council pay market rates for private homes rather than invest in more modern public housing developments, such as at Sarsfield Barracks and Gerald Griffin Street, is costly and short-sighted.
"Joe Leddin fought to stop the sale for a paltry couple of million by the Council of a perfectly good site on Edward Street. Why don't we now build 100 houses there? If properly planned, it would be self-financing. How much are we paying out every year in rent allowance to private landlords? By building the number of houses we need, we obtain rents and start to clear the 2,000 people on the city housing list."
He doubts that the Green Party, who he considers "a disgrace", will seek to bring down the Government over the NAMA legislation, as he doubts that they have a proper grasp of it anyway.
"We know the banks are short of money, because they came to the Government in the middle of the night and said they were short of money. But why can't the State do what the banks do to us when we're short of money? Why can't we give the banks a mortgage? Why do we not lend the banks, over the next 30 years, an agreed amount to be drawn down as required, and the banks pay us the ECB interest rate plus a small profit for ourselves, rather than commit ourselves to something we don't understand?"
As a man who suffered a brain haemorrhage last December and "nearly snuffed it", he speaks even more personally on health reform. He supports a model of universal health insurance, in which mandatory contributions would be made by every man and woman working in Ireland towards a national health service.
"This happens in Canada and some Nordic countries, and it happens quite well. When you are in a country with a full health service, nobody minds paying a health contribution. It would be easy for us to deduct the minimum contribution you'd pay to VHI or Bupa, €500, through €10 a week.
"Mary Harney keeps saying that the health budget keeps increasing. Of course it does. But where is the money going? How much of it is actually being spent on patients? We have less hospital beds today than we had in the 1980s. Why? There are layers and layers of bureaucracy in the HSE that drain money away from front line services."
When a recent op-ed article by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, in which he calls for an "alliance of the left", is raised, Kemmy does not bristle as much as one might expect.
The development of the Irish left has for decades been hampered by the national question, after all. In 1968, as students set fire to Paris and laid siege to the Democratic convention in Chicago, civil rights protestors were rioting in the streets of Derry. But he feels that Sinn Fein supporters, who are starting to drift from the party, are not as removed from the traditional left as one might think.
"There is no doubt that many Sinn Fein supporters would be likely Labour supporters who had differences on the national question. But I would welcome any moves for unity on the left. I believe there will be some movement from Sinn Fein people who may find that now that the 'war' is over, and Adams appears to be losing control, there will be a big shift from Sinn Fein in the south, as they seek to normalise their politics."
But he does not expect that anyone will be able to let go of inequality and poverty just yet, not while Fianna Fail propose to cut social welfare rates and stockholders in suits continue to speak of laissez-faire and the market.
"I was at a dinner with Ed Walsh one night, and he said in a speech that one time when he was a child, his family were driving through Cork one day in winter. He saw boys running barefoot through the streets, and he asked his mum and dad why those boys weren't wearing shoes.
"That was his naivety as a kid. Ed is a classic example of a man of his own class. He cannot tolerate trade unions or socialists. We can understand these people and deal with them. But Fianna Fail are fudge merchants who have blurred everything. But people are beginning to see through that.
"My brother Jim used to say to me that you must nail your policies straight on, and if you do people will respond to you. I often said that Jim got elected despite being a socialist. Many people who voted for him couldn't go along with everything he said, but they sensed that the whole of the man was good rather than bad, so they forgave him for being anti-church. He wanted to break down barriers and help give people a chance in life."
Factfile
Position: PRO of the Limerick Labour Party
Home: "120 yards from Young Munsters"
Favourite book: 'The Plastic Tomato Cutter' and 'Sing!' by Michael Curtin
Favourite food: "I think I have too many! I do like a good Indian though."
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