Seems like the lows that the Taoiseach is willing to go to claw back a sliver of popular support have reached a new high, if you’d forgive such apparent oxymoron.
In his high magnificence, Enda Kenny donned the populist cap and dared to step out of the gilded comfort of Leinster House and into the cold streets of Dublin, to get a ‘first hand’ account of homeless life.
A heavy security entourage accompanied him along the way during the first -and likely, last- such shameful and blatant political stunt, a stunt that just happens to take place mere days following the death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie. The Taoiseach seems to have acquired a sudden interest in the plight of many others like Corrie.
He walked around and talked to several homeless people, and he stayed out until the early hours of the morning overseeing the human drama he has willingly helped to create.
He fraternized with the very same people he would blithely turned his back on in a fraction of a second, reneging on any promises made. The same people he would impose tax after tax on, until they were forced out on the very streets that Mr. Kenny perambulated upon with a sad grin on his face and a concealed hand gripping the panic button to call on security to pounce, should anyone become unruly.
It is unclear what the Taoiseach’s walk of shame actually achieved, as all the homeless remain so today.
He was perhaps scoping out the chances of introducing a ‘homeless tax’, based on the square feet that their weak bodies take up on the public path, who knows.