All options on the table – including another election

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

So what are the chances? A coalition? A minority government? Another election? Some other novel arrangement?

If anybody spells out to you what is happening, they don’t know – or, to quote the great John Kenneth Galbraith, not alone do they not know, they do not know that they do not know.

Fianna Fáil has shut off Sinn Féin; so has Fine Gael, which has also kind of shut off Fianna Fáil, but that might change.

The Greens have been holding detailed policy discussions with all the parties. Its problem is that it’s going to have get two-thirds of its membership to back it going into coalition – and that’s a hard sell.

For now, the Labour Party is out of the equation. And the way the Social Democrats are shaping up, it seems to be very reluctant to join any government involving Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.

The most talked about possibility is a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael grand coalition. Or some variation on the confidence and supply arrangement. That was a disaster for both – so it can’t be arranged as it was in 2016.

On top of that, the Green Party or Independents will be needed to make up the numbers. And the Greens – despite their message of urgency – can hardly describe going into such an arrangement as ‘change’.

That’s why their new TD for Dún Laoghaire, Ossian Smyth, last week described Labour as the ‘villains of the piece’, because it had decided not to involve in any government negotiations. Without the cover of another small left-leaning party, the Greens will be utterly exposed.

So every single solution has a downside that is possible as big as the upside.

That said, talks took 74 days back in 2016 and my own guess is it’s going to take at least that long this time – and possibly a good deal more.

Essentially what is needed is for certain parties to shift their positions to facilitate an arrangement.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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