Ireland, Anarchist Lens: The Clare Daly Affair - Ireland's parliamentry Left in crisis by Kevin Doyle

Clare Daly?s was elected to the D?il in 2011. A founder member of the Socialist Party, 
Daly was initially hailed as a bright new voice for Ireland?s parliamentary Left. But in 
strange and controversial circumstances, Daly left the Socialist Party in 2012 on foot of 
her defence of fellow TD and tax fraud, Mick Wallace. In this first post from the 
Anarchist Lens, Daly?s about turn is examined from an anarchist point of view. ---- Irish 
parliamentarian, Clare Daly ---- In early September 2012, Clare Daly, one of two Socialist 
Party TDs in the D?il (the Irish parliament) resigned her membership of that party citing 
irreconcilable differences. Re-designating herself a member of the United Left Alliance 
(ULA) (1) , she declared that it was time to ?prioritise the building of the ULA? which 
she described as an ?an alternative political force, that can present a real challenge to 
the establishment parties?.

(2) Daly?s statement implied that she had undertaken a re-assessment of the possibilities 
for the Irish left and in so doing she had discovered that the Socialist Party (SP) ? her 
political home for twenty-five years ? was sorely wanting. She implied that in recognising 
that it was not possible to change the SP from within, she had reluctantly taken the 
decision to move on. The ULA was a much wiser venture.

On a superficial level Daly?s explanation of her decision to migrate to the ULA made some 
sense. However it was far from being the full story and almost anyone who had taken any 
interest in the matter knew this to be so. In the months prior to her departure from the 
SP, Daly had become increasingly linked to the independent D?il TD, Mick Wallace. A 
controversial figure with Left leanings, Wallace had also won a seat in the Irish 
parliament, at the same time as Daly, for the Wexford constituency. Unusually ? given his 
views ? Wallace was also a building contractor and a property developer. (3) During the 
Celtic Tiger period he had amassed a significant empire that he subsequently lost in the 
financial crash and economic meltdown that began in late 2008. Emerging from this with a 
good deal of his personal wealth intact, Wallace successfully traded on his reputation and 
misfortunes and resoundingly won election to the D?il in 2011.

However, in the early half of 2012, Wallace?s past caught up with him. The Irish Revenue 
Commissioner took proceedings against the Wexford TD accusing him of failing ?to make full 
tax returns on apartment sales over a two-year period?. (4) Wallace?s company, MJ Wallace 
Ltd, had collected monies from individuals and families it sold its apartments to but it 
had not subsequently passed this money onto Irish Revenue even though Wallace continued to 
collect a generous salary as director of MJ Wallace Ltd. The sum of money demand by the 
Irish Revenue was ?1.4 million (5). It also emerged that on another occasion he had 
withheld pension contributions totally nearly ?50,000 that had been deducted from his 
employees in order to maintain his companies in credit (6). In due course Wallace pleaded 
guilty to charges put to him. M.J. Wallace Ltd was fined a substantial sum by the Irish 
Revenue but the original sum of money owed to the tax department along with the fine were 
never to be recouped as Wallace?s building company had become insolvent (7).

TECHNICAL

The complications for Clare Daly were not initially of her own making. Her party, the SP, 
were bound together with Wallace in the D?il in a practical arrangement known as a 
Technical Group (TG) (8). The TG had no common political programme and was little more 
than a ship of convenience used by its members to make more efficient use of certain D?il 
services based on the number of members it contained. TG participation allowed its members 
to propose and promote D?il Bills and put questions to the Government etc; the TG also 
received a certain amount of administrative and financial benefits due to is size.

Wallace was adamant about continuing as a D?il representative despite his past business 
transgressions. However within the TG of which he was a vocal member, there was 
considerable unhappiness about his position and the controversy surrounding his tax 
dealings. This was not surprising given that the Irish electorate was by this time 
(2011-12) well exercised by the matter of corruption in high office. There was widespread 
public sentiment that there was simply too much double standards and this had played a 
significant role in bringing about Ireland?s economic meltdown. Surely, the electorate 
felt, it time for a new beginning and an end to duplicity? A sentiment encouraged no doubt 
by the reality that Wallace had stood for election under the slogan that proclaimed: ?For 
A New Politics?.

Socialist members of the TG were particularly uncomfortable over Wallace. Within the TG 
the leftwing TDs operated under two banners: their individual party banners ? Socialist 
Party and People Before Profit for example ? but also under the collective banner of the 
United Left Alliance. In all of these organisations and in the ULA itself there was 
disquiet among the rank and file about the proximity of the left TDs to Wallace given his 
tax irregularities. It could not be any other way. For many Wallace openly seemed to be 
having the best of all worlds: he had been through a financial disaster but was still very 
well off. Now he was collecting a very lucrative salary as a D?il TD while claiming to be 
part of the new future in Irish political life.

ONE BANNER

The Wallace tax scandal unfolded over the spring and summer of 2012, just as tentative 
steps were being taken to develop the ULA into a national political party with proper 
structures and membership requirements(9). This was a delicate process given that the ULA 
contained within it different factions and a multitude of difficult individual egos. 
Nonetheless the goal was clearly set out by Joan Collins, a member of People Before Profit 
(10) and one of the ULA?s influential Dublin TDs:
"I want people to stand under the banner of [the ULA] for the local elections in 2014. We 
need an electoral alternative to cuts in the budget. There is a need for a principled 
opposition." (11)

The Wallace scandal detonated silently inside this shaky alliance. It was noted by ULA 
members that four of their five TDs had been silent on the matter of Wallace?s 
questionable standards; Seamus Healy, the Tipperary South TD, was the only consistent 
dissenter. No immediate statement was issued by the ULA distancing itself from Wallace or 
explaining to its membership what its position was on the matter of Wallace and his 
ongoing career in politics. Some put the silence down to the cumbersome, consensus-based 
decision making arrangement that the ULA had lumped itself with during its formation. 
Other rumours however ? largely emanating from the more right-wing sections of the press ? 
suggested that there was more to the paralysis than was at first apparent. The 
increasingly ugly spat eventually spilled over into the Campaign Against the Household and 
Water Tax (CAHWT) (12) , which Wallace had linked himself to via his Wexford constituency 
(13). The Campaign was a nationwide grassroots movement to oppose austerity and in 
particular a household tax that was being imposed on all house owners by the Irish 
government. It had a large, politically and geographically, disparate membership and it 
included in its ranks both the anti-parliamentary and parliamentary left. In the CAHWT 
there was little equivocation about Wallace and the Campaign issued a statement 
disassociating itself from the TD and his pass fraudulent actions. (14)

The scandal deepened in early June when Wallace?s plans to attend the European Soccer 
Championships in Poland became known. It seemed to some that Wallace?s lifestyle had been 
largely unaffected by his tussle with The Irish Revenue (15) and this provoked renewed 
criticism of the Wexford TD and his apparent lack of remorse. On June 12th the Socialist 
Party reacted and declared that ?Mick Wallace?s failure to pay the original sum of ?1.4 
million in VAT is disgraceful, unacceptable and indefensible?. (16) The statement while 
clear cut on one level, went on to explain that Mick Wallace had no connections with the 
SP or the ULA (despite their close links with him in the TG) and that the campaign against 
Wallace was being fuelled by a right-wing media which had it in for Wallace, due to his 
past utterance. (Wallace publically opposed Irish support for the US war in Iraq in 2003 ? 
this stand put him at odds with pro-US newspapers like The Irish Independent who have 
indeed led the campaign against Wallace.)

Around this time it also became more publically known (17) via more media reports that 
Clare Daly was ?friendly? with Mick Wallace, an Irishism for stating that they were in a 
relationship together. This news ? as an explanation for Clare Daly?s puzzling stand ? 
came more fully into the public light when Daly refused to back a Socialist Party 
supported motion designed to discipline the Wexford section of the CAHWT which was 
refusing to dissociate itself form Wallace despite directions from the Campaign 
nationally. (18) Daly?s position was now increasingly explained as being one to do with a 
personal ?loyalty? to Wallace (19). In other words she was refusing to join in the public 
condemnation of the troubled TD because she was in a relationship with him. Importantly 
also, Daly?s stand was offered as the reason for the initial reticence of the SP and the 
ULA to condemn Wallace and his actions. Later in the summer, after Daly refused to support 
a motion in the CAHWT, supported by her party (SP), proposing to censure the Lock Garman 
(Wexford) section of the Campaign which was standing by Wallace, the SP went public with 
their dissatisfaction and stated: "Unfortunately, two United Left Alliance (ULA) TDs, 
Clare Daly and Joan Collins, spoke in opposition on the grounds that the motions infringed 
the democratic rights of the Loch Garman group. This argument, against the agreed policy 
of the ULA, ignores the fact that the issue is of such importance to the campaign across 
the country that it is a decision to be made democratically through the national 
structures of the campaign." (20)

Shortly after this, Clare Daly dramatically quit the SP and issued her statement 
committing herself to the ULA and its potential to be ?a real challenge? to the austerity 
politics. Needless to say few activists inside the Socialist Party were convinced by the 
reasons she was giving for her volte face and within the ULA itself there was also 
considerable scepticism re Daly?s about turn. Had Daly really been converted to the 
aspirations of the ULA or was she just using the ULA to cover over the debacle with 
Wallace and move on?

Daly?s departure from the SP ended a twenty-five year long association with the Party. But 
the acrimony and headaches did not end there. Citing dismay with the ULA?s wavering on the 
matter of Wallace and its tolerance of Daly within its ranks, the important Workers and 
Unemployed Action Group (WUAG) associated with the Tipperary South TD Seamus Healy 
departed the ULA in September. (21) More significantly the Socialist Party continued to 
grumble and made it clear that it was openly at odds with Daly and her supporters inside 
the ULA. As 2012 approached its end, a real question mark hung over the future of the 
party. The SP, while at the same time announcing it would not leave the ULA, launched a 
broadside against the new venture stating that it was ?not measuring up to the political 
challenge? (22). In other words a right mess for all those left activists committed to the 
parliamentary road to socialism.

BUT WHY?

Many on the Left have been flummoxed by Daly?s loyalty to Mick Wallace and by the manner 
in which his predicament appeared to have influenced her decision to end a twenty-five 
year association with the Socialist Party. There has been much incredulity and, it must be 
said, much dismay too ? as indicated by the acrimonious divisions with the ULA. But, seen 
from an anarchist perspective, is Daly?s political migration really that unusual? 
Unexpected certainly, but unusual?

In Left history, anarchist theory has played a vital role in critiquing the process by 
which parliament not only contains but also disarms the drive to bring about meaningful 
change in society. This critique has become all the more important and relevant given the 
repeated emphasis placed by socialists and Marxist-socialists on using the parliament. 
This despite the fact that the parliamentary road to socialism is an entirely failed 
entity, littered with repeated disasters, compromises, examples of ditched principles and, 
in many cases, outright betrayal of the interests of the working class. [For specific 
examples and the overview in Many Roads, One Destination in the WSM pamphlet Parliament Or 
Democracy ]. (23)

Anarchism indeed has presented a coherent and consistent analysis as to the why and the 
how of the phenomena. There are, it should be emphasised, different aspects to the 
critique. For example working-class self-activity ? a key component in the struggle for 
change ? often declines significantly when a strong parliamentary socialist movement 
emerges. There is also the significant issue to do with the feasibility of using the State 
(an intrinsically authoritarian structure) to bring about fundamental processes of 
liberation. There is the important issue of disconnection that emerges when socialist 
candidates obtain parliamentary office and how that disconnection impacts and impairs 
movement objectives. In regard to much of this, anarchism has been proven to be an 
insightful political theory when it comes to understanding why seemingly ?committed and 
principled? socialists renege on their promises when they achieve high office. The Clare 
Daly debacle is perhaps best understood within this anarchist critique.

A LONG ROAD

To understand better what is meant here it is important to look at the journey that Clare 
Daly has made. First and foremost, Daly was catapulted into a very different world by her 
election to the D?il in 2011. Some socialists like to pretend that this does and that a 
person with principles can stand above material trapping at will. But in practice that is 
actually not the case. There is no iron rule here, of course. Some individuals are 
impacted more than others; sometimes the effect takes a long while to materialise whereas 
with others it is felt immediately. In Daly?s case it should also be borne in mind that 
her arrival in the D?il was a long time coming.

Daly after all was a founding member of Socialist Party (SP) ? formerly the International 
Militant Tendency. She worked tirelessly throughout much of the 80s and 90s at a 
grassroots level for the cause of socialism in Ireland; very few people, if any, dispute 
this. During that time she worked for the Irish airline, Aer Lingus, in their Catering 
Department, where she was an active member of her trade union, SIPTU; she held the elected 
post of shop steward for over 10 years. In 1999 she first tasted electoral success in the 
public sphere when she won a seat for the Socialist Party on Fingal County Council; she 
was subsequently re-elected in 2004 and 2009 (24). In 2011 with austerity in the air she 
finally made the long sought-after breakthrough and won a D?il seat for the constituency 
of Dublin North.

Her election to the D?il gave her a new, powerful platform from whence she was able to 
make her views known about the causes of the crisis and what should be done about it. In 
the initial period she performed ably and well ? and was, notably, a new and a fresh voice 
in Irish political life. She featured regularly on significant Irish media fora such as 
the flagship current affairs programme Today Tonight (RTE) and on the influential Tonight 
with Vincent Browne (TV3). During this period it was certainly clear that Daly was 
following through on her track record and on the mandate she had received at election 
time. She certainly championed the cause of social justice at a time when mainstream 
politics in Ireland was roundly focused on delivering a swift dose of neo-liberal medicine 
to its unprepared public.

However in taking up her seat in the D?il, Daly was facing an old and difficult bogey for 
a socialist. How would she cope with her new found status? The most obvious and immediate 
factor is the special position that is reserved for TDs. (25) Lucrative salaries, 
allowances and expenses are part of the deal but this is accentuated by the special 
attention that is focused on politicians particularly in the modern setup where media/ 
celebrity status is increasingly valued. So a TD can easily gain much greater access to 
all sorts of privileges that an ordinary person would never dream of encountering. This 
sort of limelight can affect a person?s orientation and indeed the trapping of high office 
have long been viewed as potentially corrupting to core principles. Not so much a problem 
for a mainstream politician but a considerable headache for a revolutionary socialist 
whose commitment must remain loyal to those excluded from power and privilege in society.
The benefits of parliamentary success are not accidental creations, of course. Within the 
narrow confines of modern ?Western? democracy, parliamentarians are expected to see 
themselves as leaders and, in theory at least, they are also potential decision makers 
within and for their communities. In that sense it seems quite logical that they should be 
rewarded with privilege and status. Such endowments send the right sort of signal about 
parliament?s role in society and it ably assists in binding parliamentarians to the 
institution and the process of standing for election. Again, in practice, this presents no 
real problem for a mainstream politician but for a Marxist party such as the SP and its 
membership there are pitfalls.

Longstanding activists of Clare Daly?s ilk are not unaware of this problem. Nor, for that 
matter, is (or was) her former party. The Socialist Party for example ordains that all its 
members follow one simple rule on attaining D?il office: all Socialist Party TDs must 
commit to only taking a wage that is equal to the ?average industrial wage?. The surplus 
money that accrues to the elected party members is instead donated to the Party for its 
uses in the wider struggle. In this way, in theory anyway, no SP TD can personally benefit 
from being elected to the D?il. But in practice of course the problems associated with 
D?il privileges and status present themselves in a number of ways ? amounting to a lot 
more than just the jingle of coins. A party member may well eschew the material trappings 
of office (money and material aggrandisement) but as is evidenced in the Clare Daly case 
there are plenty of other trinkets in the shop window to catch the unsuspecting eye.

For an elected member of parliament the road to pragmatism and moderation is both well 
known and well worn. There have been the famous cases ? ?grand? examples so to speak ? 
such as that of the pre-WW2 German Social Democratic Party. The GSDP grew meteorically 
after its formation and had radical aims (26), but as high office beckoned it was to 
discover that its leadership had become increasingly dominated by a very pragmatic 
viewpoint. The socialist Edward Bernstein articulated this well when he said that 
electoral politics was ?the high-school of compromise?. Throughout his life Bernstein 
retained a commitment to the eventual aim of socialism ? redistribution of wealth via the 
ending of capitalist production ? but crucially, he argued that the more immediate and 
tangible goals should and did take precedence over long term aspirations (27). Bernstein?s 
influential viewpoint culminated in his now classic re-formulation of the priorities of 
the GSPD when he stated: ?the movement means everything... what was usually called the 
final aim of socialism ... nothing?. (28)

Recent Irish history illustrates the same process. For example Irish people have just been 
through a budget where the Labour Party justified its role in imposing severe austerity on 
the grounds that if the Labour Party didn?t deliver the medicine to the public, an even 
less sympathetic coalition of parties might impose something even worse ? a sort of mental 
mind-flip worthy of Orwell?s 1984 surely. Another interesting example is that involving 
the formation of the political party, Democratic Left (29) in 1992 as a breakaway from The 
Workers Party. On that occasion a majority of The Workers Party?s seven D?il TDs, left to 
form a new left-centre party. At the time, the acrimonious split cloaked itself with a 
number of pragmatic reasons including the desire by the seceding group of TDs to distance 
themselves from the image of Stalinism that had clung to The Workers Party. But in reality 
the new Democratic Left party was decidedly more ?centrist? than ?left? and quite amenable 
to capitalism too. In time all of Democratic Left?s TDs merged into the Labour Party and 
today one of those originals, Eamon Gilmore, leads the Labour Party where he has played a 
key role in imposing austerity on Irish workers. QED?

Compared to the above examples, Clare Daly?s migration does not amount to a great deal. 
Her defection is partly personal and it is also limited in its scope by the reality that 
it doesn?t involve a tranche of other supporters following suit. However it does come at a 
bad time for the Irish parliamentary Left which itself is in the midst of manoeuvres to 
establish a stable and viable electoral alternative intent on occupying the space vacated 
by the Labour Party.

But where Daly?s case is of interest is in that we rarely see the process identified by 
anarchists working itself out so thoroughly and dramatically in an individual case. It is 
far more common (as with the Democratic Left example above) to see the process working 
itself out within a political party where it can sometimes stay hidden from full public 
view. In Daly?s case though her travails are largely hers and hers alone and, for reasons 
that are not entirely fair to her they have become quite public as well.

SEDUCTION

Commenting on the experience of being elected to parliament, a member of the Australian 
Labour Party commented thus, as far back as the early half of the 20th century: "Our 
supporters] ?commonly criticised their MPs for not being icy enough. They saw Parliament 
as a comfortable club which seduced Labour members with facilities way beyond the reach of 
the a typical toiler - higher wages, comfortable leather chairs, billiard tables, dining 
rooms, well-stocked library, free rail travel and invitations to lavish functions."

This of course is a familiar refrain ? the danger of being seduced by the material 
trappings of high office ? but the same observer went on to make this other significant 
point: "Close contact with [our] adversaries could be disarming too. After lashing union 
bashers on the hustings it was different matter altogether to confront them in relaxing 
surroundings and find they are not bad blokes to share a drink with or a game of cards 
with. Many Labour men were obliged to adjust and often did so without being aware of the 
process." (30)

Leaving aside the sexism of those times for the moment, the key observation is that a 
person (an elected socialist) might find himself in due course and as a result of his 
exposure to the hum-drum of parliamentary life ?obliged to adjust? his behaviour. He noted 
also that that such a person also ?often did so without being aware of the process?.

So we are led back to the unexpected and, some would say, uncharacteristic about turn by 
Clare Daly in September of last year. A theory has floated about that explains Daly?s move 
as being one of a sudden bout of bad judgement perhaps brought on by the heady emotions of 
being in a new relationship with Wallace. But this hardly does justice to Clare Daly. By 
any measure she is not a novice. If anything she is a seasoned and an influential 
activist. For example it was openly suggested that she would one day be the next leader of 
the Socialist Party. So hardly an example of someone who would blow with any wind.

Another aspect of Daly?s about turn has been her steadfastness. For the best part of a 
year she hardly wavered to any significant degree on the matter of Wallace. Rather, in her 
confrontations with her formers comrades, she has been trenchant and, even now, with her 
move into the ULA she has not shown any desire to compromise ? a factor that is likely to 
do terminal damage to that party.

What seems much more plausible and fair to Daly then is to accept that she had changed. 
Her political outlook had shifted and it appears to have shifted significantly since her 
election to the D?il. Some of this no doubt is to do with the new situation she finds 
herself in but it also has to do with the people she is now in closer proximity to. Daly?s 
support for Wallace could (reasonably) be viewed and described as ?seeing things from 
Wallace?s own perspective?. Recall that Wallace himself does not really believe he did 
anything particularly wrong in terms of his tax affairs (31). He was simply a man trapped 
in a collapsing building (the financial crash). He had to take harsh measures or else he 
might never have got out alive. Clare Daly?s own pronouncements to some extent echo this 
viewpoint. She had stated that she has condemned Wallace for his past misdemeanours. But, 
as she puts it, these aspects are now in the past and it?s time to move on to more 
important issues.

In keeping with her surprising support for Wallace, Clare Daly has also become more 
closely associated with a reformist wing within the ULA which aims to mould it into a 
social democratic electoralist party. A ?social democratic? party may sound like a fine 
aspiration to some but recall that it is light years away way from the revolutionary 
socialist position that Daly adhered to while a member of the Socialist Party and which 
she articulated and stood over for decades.
There is no knowing for sure, of course, what has gone on with Daly ? and my conjectures 
here are just that. Time will tell us more no doubt. But the evidence is mounting that 
D?il tenure and the ?limelight? of office has got to Daly. In this sense anarchists may 
well be quite justified in engaging in a bit of ?I told you so?. But for Ireland?s 
troubled parliamentary socialist movement the fallout is a lot more serious and worrying. 
For parties such as the Socialist Party much is made of (and huge effort is expended on) 
the matter of getting someone elected to the D?il. Consider for example what the SP put 
into Clare Daly?s slow but steady rise. It was actually huge. With her election won, the 
hope and expectation was that she would work hard to increase the Party?s profile and 
standing. But now all of that has come to naught.