The nature of Irish politics is such that the first thought from a newly elected TD is often how to keep their seat.

Politics can be transactional and for some politicians that can translate into a fear of the electorate and the punishment that awaits them at the next election.

There is, in all walks of life, a tendency to transfer onto the population at large, an individual or organisation’s own fear of taking risks. This can then be justified as being reflective of the public view. There are fewer downsides to playing it safe but it can often be an underestimation of the public.

An underestimation in terms of what they believe in and also what they will accept if it is put in front of them. As Henry Ford may or may not have said, “If I’d have asked people what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”

Holly Cairns puts it another way in her interview today which can be listened to in full on the podcast.

“There’s always a presumption there that the electorate feel a certain way.”

This presumption doesn’t always tally with the facts, Cairns says,

“When I first got engaged in politics, it was very much in relation to the social referendums, you know, marriage equality, and abortion rights. And people would always say to me , there’s no way that will pass in West Cork, in your constituency. It’s such a conservative area, it’s rural. And, sure, I knew from knocking on all the doors in those referendums, that wasn’t true. There is these often false presumptions about areas, and I find it particularly frustrating in relation to rural Ireland, because there’s a kind of presumption there, that we’re all conservative by default. And I don’t know, unable to understand facts or engage in meaningful debate. And that is not only very insulting, it’s actually just simply untrue.”

Cairns has held on to this belief during her first year as a TD, calling the government and agencies to account on a wide range of areas including the Mother and Baby Homes report as well as covering her Social Democrats brief as spokesperson for agriculture.

Her background is in farming and she has a MS in Organic Horticulture and she became engaged in politics through canvassing for marriage equality and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

“I had a lightbulb moment during the Repeal referendum that knocking on doors and asking people for votes, actually affects massive, massive, massive, massive positive change. And obviously everybody knows that, but it was still a lightbulb moment for me. And that’s when I decided to get into politics. Finishing school during the recession in Ireland – l finished my Leaving Cert in 2008 – I thought that the words ‘political party’ were like dirty word, that they were all corrupt and I just never would have ever considered joining one. But with that realisation from the referendums, and I looked into it and looked into different parties, and I suppose in reality if it hadn’t been for the existence of the Social Democrats , I would have felt lost in terms of where to go. Because Irish politics doesn’t listen to young people or hear them or relate to them at all. And I think that suits them, you know?”

Those ideas of a sustainable agricultural policy and an Ireland which is fairer for its people brought her election as a councillor in 2019 and then a year ago, the final seat in Cork South West.

The nature of the constituency is such that there will be times when she takes stands that alienate constituents but that is the risk she’s prepared to take.

“You never know how long or short your career is going to be in politics, that’s up to the electorate. And, one thing that I’d really like to come out of it with is knowing that I really did stick to my morals and my original plans and not to fall prey to the norm that I don’t think is necessarily a positive norm. And I would see that as quite a big personal failure.

“People putting up broad welcomes for funding streams on Facebook as if they’ve had some part to play in getting people that funding and it’s disingenuous. And I do think that there’s a serious underestimation of the electorate there.”

“People elected me with the promise that I would do that so I find it very easy to stick to that. And I think it’s really, really important. And at the end of the day, I think that people always underestimate the electorate. And there’s kind of the presumption there that if you’re not engaging in the kind of parish pumps politics, that people won’t re-elect you. And the reality is that most of the electorate can see that parish pump politics doesn’t actually do us that many favours in the long run. And there are so many positives to the kind of style of politics we have in Ireland, in some ways that it is great. People can have actual engagement with their representatives, and it’s really important to stay in touch with them. In that sense, it’s not about saying I don’t engage with people in the constituency, not at all, that is an essential, essential part of the job.”

Some of it is essential, too, because of how Ireland works, but other aspects are done because it’s how politics at some level has been understood to work.

“I suppose the thing that has always bothered me about it is that politicians kind of say what they think the electorate wants to hear, rather than what needs to be said,” she says.

“People putting up broad welcomes for funding streams on Facebook as if they’ve had some part to play in getting people that funding and it’s disingenuous. And I do think that there’s a serious underestimation of the electorate there.

“I think we all understand that there’s many positives to the Irish style of politics, and that engagement with your representatives is so important, and that’s something that we definitely keep up. But there’s a very thin line between doing your job and doing what people perceive to be your job. So, I always make this example that I find it very perplexing that a lot of what people expect of us to do. things like put in representations on behalf of people to get medical cards, housing, bumped up hospital waiting lists, and things like that. And I suppose the reality is that perhaps some TDs’ offices what they end up doing is, they’re helping people to navigate a dysfunctional system. So you’re not bumping anybody up a list or getting them a house over anybody else, you’re helping them to navigate a system that’s very difficult to use. And that’s good, and that’s helpful.

“But then what you have is TDs actually taking the credit, ‘I got so and so a house’ or ‘I got so and so a medical card’. And if a TD can do that for somebody, then there’s something very fundamentally wrong with that because how much you’re entitled to a house or medical card or where you are in a waiting list should not be to do with knowing somebody who can pull a string to get you bumped up a list, that’s something that I disagree with it on a very fundamental level.”

When she supported a ban on pair trawling, she says she received a number of aggressive messages.

“They were kind of saying, do you realise how stupid you’re being? How much this will damage you with the polls,  you’re going against your own community and the people who’ve got you elected. This is so important for West Cork, and kind of basically inferring that I was being making a big mistake, and I would pay for it. To cop on and stop being stupid.”

Would it bother her if she lost her seat?

“I’d love to keep my seat. And I’d love to stay in politics, I find it so fascinating and so interesting and so important, I think it’s a really important role to be in. But I’d rather lose my seat and stick to my morals than the other way around. If the people who work South-West think she’s banging the wrong drum or whatever, then that is completely up to them. And I’d rather I’d rather not get re-elected than change the approach that I have at the moment.”

Another area where there is a clash, a false clash she believes, is when it comes to climate change and agriculture.

“You know, they’re not two things in opposition to each other, they’re two sides of the same coin. And climate action and a successful agricultural sector are two sides of the same coin for Ireland.”

“What we see a lot of is politics for the next election, rather than the next generation. Climate change is a really good example of this. So, you know, we have to reduce our overall emissions, and, you know, as a country and as a globe, that is why we have a Paris Agreement. Ireland needs to be fulfilling its obligations under that agreement. But none of the actions that need to be taken to do that are seen as politically expedient in terms of the next election because it requires quite big structural change in our economies, and in the way we do things in different sectors. And because there’s a five year – or less – cycle of government of every election, people always have their eye on that ball rather than the bigger picture or the long term goals. The reality is that a lot of parents, I think, would rather politics for the next generation. When you consider how we’ve responded to this emergency in the last year. We declared a climate emergency. Well, in advance of this, you can see, when you compare how we’ve responded to COVID-19 versus the climate crisis, we haven’t responded in an in a state of emergency at all, there’s no urgency. And a lot of it is lip service, things like greenways, which I’m all for, everyone loves a greenway. But that’s not actually taking the real meaningful action that we need to take.”

The agriculture sector has been made to feel most under pressure. “The reality is that the sector that will be most affected by climate change is now the most afraid of climate action. And that’s not real leadership, that’s looking at the next election, convincing people that actually, if we change our government or anything like that, you’ll see the decimation of Irish farms.

“You know, they’re not two things in opposition to each other, they’re two sides of the same coin. And climate action and a successful agricultural sector are two sides of the same coin for Ireland.”

The consequences of Ireland’s third wave in the pandemic may have ended the economy versus public health debate, at least for now, but while the Social Democrats believe in pursuing a zero covid policy, they don’t pretend that it would be easy. “We need an actual coherent plan,” Cairns says and points to schools and special schools in particular as an area which needs addressing.

“If we could all work towards getting these numbers down, and there’s actually a plan in relation to reopening, like other countries have done, then keeping kids at home from school for longer would be easier. But doing that when we’re not working towards anything is really challenging for Irish people.”

This would be the incentive too for other stringent measure like mandatory quarantining. Cairns has family, including her father, living abroad, and she acknowledges how tough it is for immigrants or people with a lot of family abroad to consider another year without seeing them.

The Social Democrats would find it very hard to go into power with Fine Gael, she says, because “we believe in public services and we don’t believe in the privatisation of them and Fine Gael have the absolute opposite ideology.”

Holly Cairns

“In relation to Fianna Fail, I’ve yet to actually hear from anybody what they do stand for. I’m still not entirely sure what it is Fianna Fail stand for, nobody’s ever been able to explain it to me. So perhaps a government with a party like is more feasible, because they kind of seem to wait to see what way the wind is blowing. And they’ll go along with that.”

Her own relationship with a Fianna Fail TD led to her trending on Twitter last year and underlined the sexism which remains in the country.

“One of the fascinating things about it is that you have my name being the top trend on Twitter for 24 hours in Ireland. And in relation to criticism for his beliefs. When you just look at that one piece of information, that’s quite fascinating, because his name wasn’t trending in Ireland for his beliefs. It’s quite incredible. And it’s something I’d almost become used to, which is awful to say, during canvasses and stuff like that, during the elections. I would be consistently challenged on my authenticity. And did I really believe what I stood for? Because of my relationship at the time, and it is really frustrating. And I guess it’s like, we talked about society, it’s still there.”

“The presumption was never to doubt his authenticity, you know, and that’s quite frustrating, especially, the way that I’ve come into politics is not that I sort of fell into it.”

Her engagement with social issues drew her into politics and The Mothers And Baby Homes Commission report has, she believes, compounded the hurt for survivors.

“The way that survivors has been treated has been a continuation of the abuse they’ve suffered and to disregard their statements, like you spoke about the audio has been destroyed, it’s disgraceful, that in itself is just a national disgrace. And I think, you know, we saw the Taoiseach’s apology, in relation to the findings by the Commission recently, I think we’re going to have to see another state apology for the dealings that we’ve had with this commission’s report.

And then there was an apology that blamed society, so not a real apology. And all that the government is actually offering now is a medical card as if this is some form of redress for survivors.”

Cairns understands why society must have some responsibility, but she feels it is more complex than has been allowed.

“I think everybody knows that society played a part but, when you break it down. For example when I was canvassing for abortion right, it was quite fascinating for me, you know, we’d knock on doors – and so often women, older women in Cork South-West would step outside the door, close it and say, ‘You don’t need to tell me, I know, the damage that this law has caused to people in my life, my cousin, my best friend, my sister, my aunt’. And then in the same canvas, we’d knock on the door, and you get somebody saying, ‘I couldn’t vote for that, young ones going would be out every weekend sleeping around, and then having an abortion on a Monday’. So it’s even still there in our society, this desire to control women and their bodies and the lack of trust in women controlling their own bodies. It is very much still there in our society, it was obviously more endemic at the time when many of these abuses were carried out, 100 per cent that needs to be acknowledged, we also need to acknowledge that society and government and religion are all very intrinsically linked, and society was very impacted by the fact that we had a church and state-run country.

“And at this late stage, when we’re apparently, coming to terms with what we’ve done as a society and to not actually take the necessary steps then to do as much as possible to right those wrongs. We continue to abuse these people as a state. And that is the saddest thing.”