Chaos beckons if Coalition programme bites the dust

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

There was an ad that ran on telly for many years for a tinned fruit company. It showed a middle-aged chisel-jawed man in a linen suit and Panama hat arriving at a fruit planation somewhere in Latin America. This rich man tasted the fruit. The locals gathered and watched with bated breath for his verdict. When he nodded his head, the gleeful should went out ‘The Man from Del Monte Says Yes!’ Cue widespread celebration.

I remember coming across an article about the marginal lives of those who work on fruit plantations in the developing world, and their dependency on fickle harvests, and even more fickle world food prices. The headline was really clever: What happens when the man from Del Monte says NO.

So that’s the kind of quandary that faces us this weekend when we find out the fate of this new government, before it has been even fully formed.

If any of the three parties (in reality the Greens) vote down the programme for government, we are in for a very unpredictable and very turbulent moment in Irish politics.

The choices are unpalatable. But they will have to be made. And somehow the country will muddle through. But will the chance be lost to tackle the big environmental and climate change issues – or the equally daunting economic depression looming around us?

What happens if the Man from Del Monte says No.

In Fine Gael, the vote is weighted in favour of the parliamentary party, which has 50 per cent of the share. With TDs and Senators already unanimously backing the deal, it’s as near as you can get to a foregone conclusion.

Fianna Fáil’s 14,500 members will decide its position. There are some in the party who feel very uneasy about a coalition with Fine Gael, which they believe will result in a collapse of identity.

Others are suspicious of the Greens but some of their fears have been allayed by the strong commitments on REPS (Rural Environment Protection Scheme) money in the programme. Feedback from constituency meetings is that the 50 per cent threshold will be easily surpassed.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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