New regime will need 100 weeks rather than days to make a mark

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

In politics, people often talk about the first 100 days in power as that window in time when a new government makes its stamp, and shows the world its determination to follow a new direction. It dates from 1933 when Franklin D Roosevelt came to power as US president at the height of the Great Depression. He promised to begin implementing the key elements of his ‘New Deal’ within the first 100 days.

As history has recorded, it was to be the making of him and he served four terms as US President, dying in office in 1945.

But as for our prospective new regime, the first 100 days is meaningless in the current context.

For one, Covid-19 provides the time frame. Until it is licked, it does not matter what a new government will promise in the first 100 days, because if the pandemic lingers beyond that, no government-type decisions will be taken.

Last month, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said we won’t have a government until the middle of June. I think he could be right. When the Greens decided at the weekend they would enter Government talks, party leader Eamon Ryan warned that the negotiations would take weeks rather than days.

We have been three months with a caretaker government during the worst crisis this government has faced in a generation – and once that hump is over, we then have to start worrying about Brexit again.

Paschal Donohoe warned last week that legislation will be needed for some of the latest stimuli he has announced for business. At the moment, the Oireachtas can’t pass any laws and is in an iffy constitutional position. It can only begin to pass laws when the new Taoiseach, whoever he or she is, nominates the eleven remaining members of the Seanad.

There has been talk that the Dáil could perform a technical sleight of hand and nominate Leo Varadkar as the new Taoiseach for a day to allow him make the nominations, and allow the Dáil and Seanad to pass laws, even in the absence of a government.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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